PA has been working with a number of telecommunications companies across Europe to help them improve their operational processes and helped one operator saved over €100 million in the first year. PA has identified five key areas where CFOs can drive their operations teams to improve their performance:
- Push the bids and contracts teams to ensure contracts are delivering the margin at the end of the contract that was forecast at the beginning by ensuring there is clear ownership of margin at each stage in the bid lifecycle. This will ensure, for instance, that there is enough contingency in any contract bid which is often ‘sacrificed’ in any competitive bid situation
- Ensure that the pricing contracts teams and finance product teams are using the same common standard costing methodology. This ensures that all parts of the business are using the same cost base rather than different assumptions as the basis for investment decisions
- Transform the sales force so it is incentivised on margin rather than revenue. Operators must ensure there is a ‘silver thread’ linking the new organisational design of the sales force: to overall performance targets for the sales function, to team targets and then to individual targets
- Drive the sales force, product management and operations teams to make decisions based on the same product volume forecasts. This will improve the ability of the finance function to forecast revenues and manage the cost base
- Manage your IT function to ensure that your finance teams are getting the right management information from the IT systems. This will ensure insightful business decisions based on good quality data. Many operators are investing in new tools and techniques to get more insightful financial data.
PA has helped many operators and CFOs realise large benefits from driving operational changes and improvements in their business.
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