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Value Recovery    Supporting a Start-up

Providing centralised IT services to the Small and Medium business community was the vision of a renowned entrepreneur.  Delivery of Application Service Provider (ASP) facilities from a central data centre via a wholly owned high capacity fibre network, using thin client software to improve bandwidth utilisation was the implementation strategy. Tight market deadlines meant that the initial network and data centre had to be ready for launch within 9 months.  Financially, the banks and private investors provided 30% of the funding and the remaining 70% by the equipment vendor. The business case also required a revenue stream through selling voice capacity to European carriers to offset the start-up costs.

Four months into the project, there had been an over emphasis on developing the voice network, and little or nothing had been done on the ASP platform, which was key to the ongoing business proposition. Constant changes in the management team, together with the acquisition of an IT services company, created divergent loyalties and considerable confusion.

With less than five months to launch: the products to be offered had only high level descriptions, the OSS and billing systems design had stalled because the product packaging and pricing strategy had yet to be defined and no consideration had been given to how the services would be installed, or who would do it.  In short – there was a lot to do.

It was clear to the investors that the situation needed a senior executive to work with the customer to identify and implement a way forward.  The executive chosen, who is now a partner of The Posse, quickly restructured the vendors’ project teams, re-established credibility with the new board members, and began to field their concerns on the wider business issues.

The fundamentals that were quickly addressed, providing a foundation on which to build were:

–             Issuing a statement from the board reminding everyone of the objectives and the focus required to complete the task. 

–               Re-directing the order in which decisions had to be taken, as half the team was working on downstream activities that were irrelevant if, for example, the product set was not clearly defined. 

–               Re-scheduling work packages with the service and equipment providers

–               Completely revising the project plan to highlight dependencies; including risk, contingency and mitigation plans.

–               Chairing daily project reviews with on the spot decision-making.

–               Defining the end-to-end business process.

–               Re-negotiating external partnership agreements.

–               Reviewing existing team performance, including whether the people had the necessary skill-sets which resulted in the removal of a number of resources, adding the complexity of introducing fresh blood two-thirds the way through a project. 

As a result, the launch date was recovered to the point that it still offered a market leadership position.  The company is now better prepared and the technology bedded in to ensure successful implementation and a professional approach.