Taking the telecoms industry From Excel struggles to streamlined efficiency

Challenge

Our client, a leading mobile technology company in EMEA, struggled with their method of allocating costs.

The customer previously relied on an Excel model to allocate costs to its wide range of diverse subsidiaries in EMEA and other global territories. However, these businesses were unable to understand what was driving the costs of these shared services, and the client experienced issues with reconciling spreadsheets as formulas did not always reference the correct cells.

This caused misalignment among different departments and teams as the Excel model was time-consuming and unable to efficiently calculate costs due to large file sizes. The model did not provide a clear understanding of what was driving the costs of shared services, leaving businesses powerless to make fact-based decisions.

The company needed to track costs per product, segment, channel, and device to understand which of these were most profitable. However, the cost and usage data were contained in two separate, non-integrated systems, making it especially complicated to handle more than one month at a time using Excel.

Solution

The telecoms company turned to the Gartner-recognised cost transparency platform, MagicOrange, to provide an intelligent, Cloud-native solution to help them achieve full cost transparency.

We worked with the client to launch the MagicOrange solution and support them in establishing an IT Financial Management (ITFM) framework in the telecoms sector. With this, the client was able to understand profitability and costs, utilise assets efficiently, and reduce manual effort. The platform incorporated multiple drivers behind costs and enabled shared services cost allocations to be completed quickly and easily in one convenient interface.

“Telecommunications is a high paced, fast changing industry where costs vary enormously month-on-month. Now our customer is able to see this in real time and can be proactive by running special promotions to secure more business in a certain area.” - Blake Davidson, Chief Customer Officer at MagicOrange.

 Benefits 

• Time-saving reports: The client significantly reduced the time spent on pulling reports, from hours in Excel to just seconds, allowing for more efficient resource allocation and analysis.
• Rapidly compare product costs: With MagicOrange, the client now has the ability to rapidly compare month-on-month product costs in real time in one consolidated report, providing valuable insights for IT financial decision-making in the telecoms sector.
• Ensure the reliability of financial data: The client has improved data integrity and eliminated the risk of corruption, providing trustworthy information to support strategic planning.
• Understand cost drivers: MagicOrange provides the client with a comprehensive understanding of the drivers behind costs, enabling CFOs and CIOs to make informed decisions on technology spend and optimise resource allocation.
• Improved communication: MagicOrange’s intuitive interface allows users to explain shared services cost allocations to business units and subsidiaries, fostering better communication and alignment among different departments.
• Have an eye on the details: The client now has granular visibility into the cost of every transaction, empowering CFOs to gain insights into cost drivers and identify areas for potential cost savings and efficiency improvements.
• In-depth product profitability analysis: Users can now compare shared services budget numbers to actuals, and access income statement reporting within MagicOrange’s user-friendly interface. Figures are pulled in from the General Ledger so that users only have to work with one intuitive interface.
• Simplify financial management: The MagicOrange solution is integrated with the General Ledger allowing CFOs and CIOs to focus on strategic decision-making rather than wrestling with complex data manipulation.

MagicOrange has now been successfully implemented in a number of different industries, from finance and mining to local government and health, and has expanded rapidly into a number of new global territories over the past few years.

“We are very proud to have penetrated the telecoms market as well, and we hope to expand on capabilities and expertise gained through this implementation in all future projects in this vertical” - David Harding, CEO at MagicOrange.

Interested in understanding how your organisation can realise the benefits of Cloud-native ITFM? Get in touch with our expert team to start your ITFM journey today.