Case study: Cross-company process design offsite enables telecom firm to meet aggressive new product introduction date, and exceed first year sales goals

Problem: New telecom product development and introduction hampered by complex service delivery challenges

Profitable delivery of a new telecommunications service would not happen unless many people at three companies, each using different and potentially conflicting software, agreed to a service delivery process, then followed it each time a new business customer ordered the product. This telecommunications firm was racing to complete design of the complicated service delivery process and get the product on the market before competitors did. The product introduction date was quickly approaching, and many groups were dependent on the process design team’s success. There were many opportunities for things to go wrong, and the new product had the potential to fail if preliminary customers had bad experiences with service fulfillment, and gave the product poor reviews.

Solution: Create and facilitate a process design offsite to reach detailed agreements on multiple-company service delivery process

Design and facilitate a high-engagement process for the cross-company team to reach enduring agreements on the service delivery process, including each group’s part in providing a consistently excellent service experience for customers. I was hired to work with another consultant to lead the team through the process design work. The project focused initially on process design and team facilitation. For this project, we led the group through:

  • Strategic planning
  • Process design
  • Defining roles and responsibilities
  • Creation of measures and milestones to ensure process feasibility
  • Accountability for individual roles
  • Clear definition of their cross-company communication process
  • Handling potential problems of the high-volume product, if they occurred

We documented the process and agreements for further communications, training, daily process management, problem-solving and process improvement.

Key challenges of this project included:

  • Rapid, effective completion of the under-great-pressure project
  • Working with a team of people who had never met in person
  • Face-to-face out-of-town meetings of the large team with only a few days to prepare for them
  • Multiple computer systems that were not well-integrated
  • Lack of time to update the system before the product was to be introduced

We had to consistently work with the software and computer systems they had available at the time, despite these challenges. And we had to produce results, as a team.

To avoid some of the problems that many process design and improvement teams run into, such as agreements that are made but not carried out, we created a tightly-focused design process involving key members of each group. These people represented the many people at the three companies who were to provide predictable, easy to use, excellent service to every customer who ordered the new product. To help make these members of the team successful in representing their own companies and functions in the design process, we wanted to make sure we captured the ideas each person presented. We also wanted to make sure that the process would be supported by all team members upon returning to their own companies. The process was given a final "scrub” to reconcile details, and then it was presented to all functions at the three companies who had to use it. Once the process was finally approved, the product was introduced to millions of potential business customers.

Results: Clear, detailed service delivery process and agreements allowed client company to meet product introduction commitments and exceed first-year sales goals

We led the group through the complex process of reaching agreement on all details involved in designing an effective, efficient, well-supported process. Each unique group within the three companies lived up to their agreements. The team met their aggressive product introduction date. Sales were significantly higher than expected during the product’s first year. We continued to receive compliments from members of the process design team long after the work was done, thanking us for the quality of the design and the results it led to, as well as the quality of the team experience we provided them. We helped them to take the guesswork out of the service delivery process, and to get rid of the “worry work” that was wasting significant time and effort. Through our guidance they were able to achieve process design success.

Ultimately, sales of the product exceeded expectations. Our work was heavily acclaimed by team leaders for enabling them to meet and then beat their goals. The telecom company was able to seamlessly deliver the promised product to its many business customers.

This project made use of the following services: