Case Study
Division of $125B Telecommunications Provider Restructures Circuit Design and Customer Service Operations, Delivering $34M Annualized EBITDA Improvement and Higher Service Levels
$34M
Annualized EBITDA Improvement
Strategic Imperative
To deliver EBITDA improvements in excess of $30M by reducing costs and increasing operating performance while simultaneously generating higher levels of customer service
Client Background
- Parent company employs over 120,000 and supports more than 100M customers through large-scale fiber and wireless networks
- Engagement focus centered on circuit design engineering and customer service operations across the organization
- Service delivery required coordinated bid quotations, engineering design, workload planning, productivity management, and cross-departmental execution
- Cost pressure intensified as leadership sought greater productivity across customer service and circuit design engineering
- Measurable service gains were required alongside cost reduction to protect quality while delivering annual profit improvement
- Management costs exceeded norms by 60%, establishing a clear baseline for organizational and process redesign
Key Issues & Barriers
- Employees lacked clarity and consensus on organizational goals and operating priorities across service-center functions
- Overly concentrated reporting relationships and redundant positions created an impractical organizational structure and slowed decision-making
- Management processes were virtually nonexistent, with invalid standards, missing measurements, and weak performance control
- Poor planning and outdated core processes constrained circuit design productivity, bid responsiveness, and new-service design cycle time
- Interdepartmental cooperation was extremely low, fostering divisive behaviors, mistrust, and weak cross-functional execution
- Reward and recognition systems did not adequately balance customer service expectations with productivity and cost performance
Key Implementation Components
- Developed intensive goal-setting and alignment processes to strengthen senior management alignment and operating consensus
- Redesigned core service-center processes to improve circuit design productivity, quotation responsiveness, and new-service design cycle time
- Redesigned organizational structure to reduce direct reports to top executives and clarify decision-making accountability
- Restructured redundant positions to lower management cost and improve role efficiency across the regional organization
- Revamped reward and recognition systems to balance customer service, productivity, and cost performance
Benefits & Results
$34M
Annualized EBITDA Improvement
44%
Circuit Design Productivity Improvement
400%
On-Time Bid Quotation Response Improvement
40%
New-Service Design Cycle Time Reduction