Innotas' On-Demand PPM Solution Enables Large Wireless Provider to Prioritize Customer Care Projects
Opportunity
One of the world’s largest wireless providers, serving more than 103 million customers, makes customer care a top priority. In fact, the organization relies on world-class IT solutions and ongoing staff training to ensure the wireless provider’s 13,000 customer service representatives, who are all sitting in 19 call centers around the globe, can effectively meet consumer needs.
This effort requires more than 100 IT, training, marketing and support projects, all of which are in various phases of completion across the organization. Alex Samano, Director of Project Management Office (PMO), is responsible for managing all of these Customer Care projects – no small task.
With no control mechanisms in place to initiate, prioritize, track and manage projects, the job of project management was daunting. “Because there were multiple entry points for initiating new projects, it was a free for all,” said Samano. “We had more projects than capacity, and no way to prioritize projects.”
At the root of the problem was a lack of visibility into the Customer Care department’s portfolio of projects. No inventory of all projects existed, and there was no means of measuring the contribution of individual projects. As a result, few projects were being completed on time and on budget.
In addition, lack of communication among teams resulted projects being prioritized incorrectly. “Executives were managing projects by brute force, working directly with project teams on individual projects, without determining which projects were most important to the company,” he explained.
With executive support, Samano worked on establishing Project Portfolio Management (PPM) best practices. “I established an executive steering committee to acknowledge the problem, set objectives and help drive the solution,” said Samano. He then inventoried all of the projects and found more than 120 in total. Once these projects were prioritized with the steering committee, Samano went on to document project management methodologies and establish processes for initiating projects.
With these controls in place, Samano was able to move executives out of individual project management. His next task was to deliver results from his projects, and be able to show those results to his management team.
Solution
Flexibility was the most important factor to the large wireless telecommunications company when choosing an automated solution, and the organization found that flexibility with Innotas. “I wanted a solid product with a full set of functionality, but I was really looking for a company that would work with me to solve my problems,” explained Samano. “The Innotas team understood my challenges, allowed me to implement my own best practices and, most importantly, got me up and running quickly.”
The first goal was to automate projects, tasks, issues and resources for all projects. That was accomplished in less than two weeks, and Samano was able to deliver reports to executives that showed the status of strategic initiatives.
Results
The Innotas solution has since been rolled out to the entire group of 90 users, and the Sales Operations department has since begun its own implementation of Innotas. Samano also worked with his steering committee and management team to identify the critical information needed to manage the portfolio of Customer Care projects, including automating budget information (budgeted versus actual costs), establishing performance metrics (e.g., estimated time versus actual), and comparing individual project contributions.
“Since implementing Innotas, we have completed 100 percent of our projects on time and on budget. We realized savings immediately, and expect to save $5 million in the first year,” he added. “More importantly, we can measure the ROI of our projects, to see which contribute to the strategic goals of the company.”
SNAPSHOT
Opportunity
Large wireless telecommunications company lacks control mechanisms to initiate, prioritize, track and manage projects; needs flexible solution to manage all projects for the Customer Care department.
Solution
The pure, on-demand PPM solution from Innotas, which is affordable, easy to implement and simple to use.
Results
Large wireless company’s ability to better plan and budget projects has resulted in completion of 100 percent of the department’s projects on time and on budget.
Observations
“I wanted a solid product with a full set of functionality, but I was really looking for a company that would work with me to solve my problems,” explained Samano. “The Innotas team understood my challenges, allowed me to implement my own best practices and, most importantly, got me up and running quickly.”
“Since implementing Innotas, we have completed 100 percent of our projects on time and on budget. We realized savings immediately, and expect to save $5 million in the first year,” he added. “More importantly, we can measure the ROI of our projects, to see which contribute to the strategic goals of the company.”
Customer Profile
This large wireless company, established in December 1999, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. The company has positioned itself as one of the largest international mobile communications carriers. It is the first to operate a trans-Atlantic mobile network based on GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), the world’s most successful digital wireless standard. T-Mobile subsidiaries and affiliates were among the first operators worldwide to use future-oriented technologies like GPRS, UMTS (3G) and W-LAN.
Stats
-Customer Since 2003
-Approximate # of projects in the works at any given time: 120+
