Too often as of late, when a provider brings the consultants in, the company is already in crisis mode. The employees get nervous for their jobs. Department heads get defensive. But there is a better time to bring in additional expertise; it is when things are going well, your customers are happy and there is growth on the horizon. In such a state, Telepak Networks turned to a business process outsourcer and consultant company, Vertek Corp., to help construct a three-year operational growth plan.
Telepak Networks Inc. is a full service provider of Internet, telecommunications and network services based with its parent company, Telapex, in Mississippi. It has two lines of business: a broadband backhaul service and a retail fiber-to-the-home service through which it offers high-speed Internet, enhanced digital video services, local and long-distance voice services. Telapex’s history in the state goes back 50 years.
Vertek is a provider of end-to-end business process outsourcing, business consulting, order provisioning and managed business assurance. It has just completed a six-month consulting assignment for Telepak resulting in a full operational assessment that covered processes, systems, organizational changes and personnel.
“Everything was around the need to scale. It wasn’t about cutting people or streamlining. It was about how they could safely grow their business. They know they will have to add people as they grow; they just didn’t want to double the workforce as they doubled their revenue,” said Maureen McShane, senior director of Consulting at Vertek.
In the end, Vertek provided Telepak with a roadmap and a series of prioritized operational recommendations that will help in its primary objective of scaling the business as well as delivering short-term efficiency.
When implemented, the plan will broaden Telepak’s service suite and allow the company to support a larger, more diverse customer base. Most important to Telepak was that it be able to do so without impacting its customer satisfaction standards.
“They really have a unique appreciation for their customer. And part of their proactive approach is to continue serving their customers the best way they can as they grow,” said Al Brisard, vice president of marketing and business development at Vertek.
Gregg Logan, vice president of broadband at Telepak Networks, said as the company prepared for growth, it was critical to work with an experienced telecom consulting company like Vertek, which could understand its business, goals and values in developing a long-term operational plan, and who had the hands-on experience of doing the work themselves.
The operational assessment covered all operational areas including network operations, billing, engineering, customer support and field services. Deliverables as part of the recommendations included:
- Present Method of Operations (PMO) Documentation
- current process flows
- assessment and gaps of current operations
- assessment and gaps of current systems
- Future Method of Operations (FMO) Documentation
- future process flows
- organizational modifications
- key performance indicators and associated targets
- training plans
- future system architecture and requirements
“For Telepak, we really had to look at the flexibility of these recommendations. Because of the extraordinary pride they have in their customers, it was important to them that they be able to make exceptions in any process so they could do what was necessary to serve the customer and not have them impacted,” McShane said.
Vertek has taken the process to the point of identifying holes in the processes and what systems and new expertise in personnel may be needed. Telepak will soon begin the vendor selection to do so.