In part one of our blog we explored Telecom Lifecycle Management (TLM) and how it can help you. In part two, we are exploring the way that Eclipse is uniquely situated to handle your TLM and allow you to focus on your business while we ensure your infrastructure is running as optimally and cost effectively as possible.
In your previous post you mentioned expertise as a reason to outsource, what does Eclipse bring to the table?
- We ensure nothing is lost in translation
The day-to-day tasks to effectively manage your infrastructure aren’t particularly complex when viewed at a granular level but getting them executed to your overall vision and aligned to your business goals is when things get complicated quickly.
When talking to large telecom providers there is often a disconnect between what you requested and what they have understood. This happens because the telco provider isn’t taking the time to understand your overall architecture, business needs, and long-term roadmap and your business likely doesn’t speak “telco” nor should they be expected to.
Having an outsourced partner can reduce confusion and back and forth with the provider on priorities, feature sets required, and on-going changes to the environment and, of course, navigating the all-important contracting process to understand what can and cannot be done and when.
- We speak inside baseball
There is a whole language and process of inside baseball in telecom that can only be appreciated or understood by a small group of insiders. Like ordering a coffee from your local barista if you sit and listen to enough orders you will quickly realize there is a shortcut to getting exactly what you want that only regulars speak.
Here are just some, of the many items, you must get right to ensure your order is delivered correctly: types of connections, minimum capacity requirements, is the carrier providing a managed router, what kind of contract does it get ordered from, time commitment, annual spend commitment, individual contract or corporate wide, preferred handoff type.
Get any one of these wrong and the result can be getting service and finding out it doesn’t work as intended or at all which often means starting from scratch.
- You get a back-stage pass
Working with Eclipse gets you access to resources and information you likely can’t replicate in house:
Knowledge of best practices from experience working across all providers and project types. You will likely do a SD-WAN transformation one time in your environment wouldn’t you prefer to work with a team that has done it hundreds of times?
A project team who can accomplish those small initiatives that make a difference, but you don’t have the time or patience internally to manage to completion. Because we do thousands of these, we have efficiencies and shortcuts with vendors to get it done more effectively.
Understanding of standard intervals and expectations to set for the business. We make sure to call out blue-sky estimates that likely won’t be hit so you can ensure other critical projects that have dependencies on these timelines aren’t impacted by overly optimistic timelines provided by vendors to “close the deal”.
Management of all categories rather than only the largest spend or largest logo provider. Wouldn’t it be nice to know that all your telecom spend is given the same scrutiny as you give your largest billable items. This is a reality when you work with us.
Knowledge of what “upgrades” really matter. You are going to be overwhelmed by requests to buy the newest “widget” offered by your telecom provider. Likely you don’t have time to keep up with the state of the industry to know if there is a real benefit to your business and what is just the buzzword of the week. We will ensure you understand what matters, why it makes sense, and what you can pass on.
Resources with the experience to plan for the big changes and when to make them. Often projects that fail aren’t because they were the wrong initiative they were just pursued at the wrong time or with the wrong assumptions. We give you visibility into the financials of a project, when costs are expected to hit, what other resources are needed to complete the project including on-site resources and hardware vendors, and the understanding of what else is impacted by this change.
- We know the insiders “secrets”
The contract that is negotiated along with the details of what is and is not included will ultimately determine the level of success of your project and the process of getting to the right contract starts from day one. Imagine starting that process with someone that has insider knowledge.
o We map your needs to what is proposed in the contract so you know what can be pulled or needs to be added to ensure you only ever pay for what you really need.
o We negotiate the right levels of support including resolution time and what's in and out of scope.
o We negotiate payment terms so you can manage cashflow better.
The most important service we provide is knowing where there is wiggle room and where none exists. You may have a procurement team that gets a 20% discount off list and believe you got attractive pricing but because we have negotiated and managed thousands of contracts we know where your pricing and terms fall compared to industry standards and remove any doubt. This ensures what you are paying is fair and that what you get for what you are paying is in line with others.
- We know the backroads
We are remarkably good at removing obstacles and getting things back on track when they veer off. Often success in these situations is not only based on the experience of having done it before but knowing the right resources to leverage at a vendor.
Sometimes, things can go very wrong, and in those instances, we know how to navigate the backroads.
We hear stories like this every day: “I know we said it would take 3 weeks, but now we need a 6-month permit” or "they dropped off the circuit on the 3rd floor and you are on the 20th floor.”
If you have managed telecom for any period, you likely have too. The good news is that when we hear these stories, we know how to map out a detour and get the problem resolved with the vendor or how to quickly source alternatives so that your business can continue to run seamlessly.
- We know the order of operations
Just like in math class getting the right answer requires you to know the correct order of operations. We do the calculus for you so that you can focus on preparing for the way a network change will enhance your business instead of spending time trying to plan the network change.
We remove the mystery and provide the answers to important questions like:
Who is responsible for sitework?
Who are we talking to on-site?
What sites need to go first?
Who are the users?
When do we port numbers?
By making sure we ask and get answers to these questions we can minimize any gotchas later.
Want to hear more about how Eclipse can help you with Telecom Lifecyle Management? Drop us a line to get started.