The average tenure of CFOs is much longer than of his/her CIO counterpart for a reason.  CEOs and CFOs are consistently disappointed with the financial results of technology investments.   Our advisory / consulting service team heavily relies on total cost of ownership (“TCO”) information for guiding our recommendations.  Our senior advisors advocate “before” and “after” TCO assessments to be part of most technology projects because the “before” TCO is a wealth of input for wise decision making.

Professional Services Approach:  This offering follows the same model as call center consulting and other practices which deliver tangible results on a predictable timeframe and budget.

• Define Objectives: Determine the scope what business functions are to be assessed.
• Discover: Assess the current hard and soft-dollar costs of related processes, people and technologies.   This discovery processes typically uncovers capital and operating costs vary widely from industry norm, much less best practices. 
• Develop:  Recommendations and priorities for addressing business constraints and out-of-whack costs are summarized from the Discovery Process.   This TCO approach typically falls within the scope of larger technology or strategy engagements which use change in TCO as a basis for projecting Return on Investment on planned projects.
  

Business Case:   A detailed Total Cost of Ownership study was performed for a telecommunications services provider with 22 sites serving small rural communities across three time zones.  The Vice President of Customer Care needed help selling his new Division President on networking the 22 sites together into a single VoIP-based virtual call center.  Current capital costs, operating costs and other key service and revenue metrics were captured and compared with the same metrics applied to the proposed virtual call center.   The project was approved and post-implementation metrics far exceeded the original business case. 

A few highlights of the TCO analysis included:

• All related capital and operating expenses were summarized into Net Present Values for comparing the current state with projected investment and new set operating costs.
• Timing of costs and benefits were accurately projected by calendar quarter. 
• Soft-dollar benefits, such as speed to market and business continuity, were cataloged but not included in the business case. 
• Post-installation Return on Investment (ROI) proved out to be in the hundreds of percent when factoring in the ability to reduce subscriber cancellations that was a direct result of the virtual call center project.  
  

Big-Picture Approach:  If you want to engage senior telecom professionals that know how to leverage technology with your people resources and business strategy, call us.  We have a knack for quickly delivering tremendous results with the big picture, your business goals, in mind.