$1M removed from a $2.4M telecom baseline
A regional financial institution had accumulated a decade of telecom contracts nobody had audited. Here is what was found, and what changed.
The situation
The organization ran connectivity, voice and mobility across multiple locations through several carriers, plus a handful of one-off arrangements. Contracts had been started and renewed at different points over more than a decade. Nobody held a complete picture.
The technology estate had been under-invested in for years. Inventories were, in the words of the IT leader who inherited it, "scattershot and unreliable." Most configuration was manual. Documentation of current state barely existed.
Unless we asked our providers or finance teams for this information, we had no proactive awareness of any of our contract terms.
Sr. IT Leader, Regional Financial Institution
What made it hard
There was no consistency across the environment. Not in rates, not in terms, not even in who was authorized to service a given line. Circuits had been renewed in place for years without anyone questioning pricing or asking whether bundling would be cheaper.
Some locations carried more connectivity than redundancy required. Others still had live lines at sites the business had left.
None of this was visible on any single invoice. It only became visible when the whole estate was put on one page.
What was done
- Current-state inventory. Every circuit, service and location, reconciled against
provider records rather than internal documentation that was known to be unreliable.
- Carrier and contract assessment. Who the organization was committed to, on what
terms, until when.
- Invoice and rate review. Where pricing differed across locations without cause, and
where rates had drifted from market.
- Identification of waste. Redundant links beyond requirement, and live services at
vacated sites.
- Consolidation analysis. What a single primary provider strategy would cost, and what
it would save.
- Negotiation and execution support. Carried through to signed terms rather than
stopping at recommendations.
The result
Services were consolidated under a single primary provider strategy, with contract terms, renewal timing and location-level inventory brought into one view.
Services were consolidated under a single primary provider strategy. Contract terms, renewal timing and location-level inventory were brought into one view, so the next renewal cycle could be planned rather than absorbed.
The new-construction saving came from a different mechanism than the recurring saving: standardizing connectivity specifications across new sites and pricing them at volume, rather than procuring each build independently.
Why this happens
Telecom estates degrade quietly. Each individual decision is defensible. Renew this circuit, add that location, keep the incumbent because switching is disruptive. The cost accumulates in the gaps between those decisions, and no single invoice ever looks wrong.
It takes someone outside the renewal cycle, with the time to reconcile the whole estate at once, to see it.
Start with what renews next
If your last telecom audit was more than three years ago, or if nobody can produce a current inventory on request, there is very likely something here.