Creating a multi-million-turnover unified-comms business
A complex project to create a new revenue source – a multi-million-turnover unified-comms operation – for an established mobile telephony business. The project required a new supplier-compatible billing platform and a full technical and support team. It also needed buy-in from the existing business to facilitate cross-selling.
By 2021, the operation was generating over £3m a year and accounted for more than 30% of the business’s turnover. Customer-service levels across the business were so high, O2 named it Direct Partner of the Year four years in a row.
Industry
Telecommunications
The Project
To design and build a new business unit within an established mobile telephony business. New business to cross-sell and bill directly for UC products and services to new and existing customers.
Activity
- Build relationships with strategic partners – a set of trustworthy suppliers of new products and services.
- Deploy a new billing platform compatible with external bank and direct-debit regulations.
- Develop compatibility between suppliers and billing platform so that services could be billed at the earliest point.
- Build and develop the technical support team from a standing start including fault desk and external fault/installation engineers to support unified products and services.
- Recruit and develop the unified sales team to deliver on set objectives for cross-selling into the customer base.
- Build morale, team spirit, and knowledge within new and existing teams.
- Write, design, and deploy all documentation to support the new business.
- Devise ways of reporting progress to, and keeping the project visible among, stakeholders and the business as a whole.
- Manage an evolving project in which new products and services came on to the market during project development. Make sure that the offer was fully up-to-date by the time of go-live.
Outcome
As of 2021, Unified Comms was generating over £3m a year, and was responsible for more than 30% of the overall turnover.
I led the company to better service and product capabilities and much higher customer ratings. As a result it was named O2 Direct Partner of the Year for an unprecedented four consecutive years 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021.
Responsible for steering and driving the same passion and excellence through the Customer Care, Solutions Delivery & Project Management and Technical Support & Engineering teams. The business also achieved Gamma Support & Operations Team of the Year 2019 for unified communications solutions.