Fortune 200 Manufacturer Benefits From Managed Telecom Solutions

At Digital Direction, we pride ourselves on building long-term relationships with our clients to help them overcome complex challenges in the ever-evolving telecom industry. Beginning in 2015, a manufacturer with over 300 domestic and international locations engaged us to improve efficiencies in their global network. During the initial phase, we laid a strong foundation for conducting a full telecom audit, inventory baseline, and cost-efficiencies project that delivered substantial savings. Soon after we replaced their costly MPLS network with a cost-efficient multifaceted network solution and also began day-to-day telecom management operations. Then, in 2021, with network diversity paramount in today’s fast-changing environment, we completed a network diversity review and implemented the new network design. With new technology always on the horizon, Digital Direction continually provides the expertise our clients need to stay on the cutting edge.

Our client is a Fortune 200 international manufacturer serving major brands across the globe. With hundreds of locations and over 70,000 employees, the client’s annual revenue exceeds $15 billion.

Digital Direction is a Chicago-based professional services IT company with 19+ years of successful industry leadership providing Telecom Management solutions. Founded in 2001, our company provides turnkey telecom solutions for clients and offers a wide range of services including Telecom Management, IT Expense Management, and Telecom Audits, Service Procurement, Project Management, Contract Negotiations, Inventory Management, Trouble Ticket Management, and Carrier Resolution Services. We pride ourselves on delivering faster and greater ROI by delivering comprehensive solutions.

With new IT leadership in place, our client sought out a partner who could provide expertise in implementation and telecom management solutions. Digital Direction quickly recognized that the existing high-cost MPLS network and disparate global carriers associated with their backup network needed to be inventoried and analyzed to uncover cost savings and ensure reliability through network diversity. Our analysis provided a clear view of the available services and contractual commitments for each provider across their global network to recommend changes to reduce costs, decrease outages, and provide high availability to all locations including data centers. The client needed a partner who could drive the process with the carriers directly, complete a comprehensive inventory and telecom audit, negotiate agreements, and implement solutions and improvements for day-to-day operations. Based on recommendations from members of the client team who had worked with Digital Direction in the past, the DD team was contracted to provide a comprehensive solution.

In 2021 we identified the need to design a more redundant backup network. The Digital Direction team built an inventory baseline of primary, secondary, and even tertiary circuit connections across the globe. Digital Direction conducted a review of the client’s top 215 global locations, encompassing remote manufacturing, corporate sites, and 6 large data centers.

The Digital Direction team identified several providers with a global or regional reach that would be able to provide the desired connectivity and contractual conditions. In some cases, significant research was required to find small local providers.
Recommendations were made for the client to review, including either consolidation of providers at a slightly greater expense or, lower-cost multi-provider solutions.

Digital Direction also identified gaps in telecom diversity at each site that could lead to outages. Each location was categorized based on its diversity needs. The client then prioritized the least diverse locations for the delivery of services to fill the gaps.
Digital Direction sourced the connections with a combination of dedicated internet and broadband depending on the site’s requirements. At that point, our Telecom Management Solutions Team negotiated, contracted, and managed the implementation of backup network sites for all 215 locations.

Throughout the process, from the original telecom audit to the implementation of the backup network, Digital Direction was able to utilize the best-in-class technologies. The Digital Direction team was also able to provide thought leadership on emerging technologies and create possibilities for the IT team to innovate.

After the backup network was in place, Digital Direction continued to manage the client’s day-to-day telecom operations, including moves, adds, changes and disconnects, billing ticket resolution, and escalation for service outages. Today, the team continues to identify cost prevention opportunities through TEM and manages and monitors telecom contracts and services through telecom expense management.

“Our people are experienced telecom experts with an average of 20 years in the industry. We’ve seen the challenges our clients face, and we want to make it easy and cost-effective for them to utilize telecom services. We do everything from cost-saving initiatives to network overhauls and we get results faster.”