CIÉ Telecoms Sourcing
With their existing telephony systems reaching End of Life and requiring replacement, CIÉ, Ireland’s Largest Public Transport Provider, took this opportunity to review their entire telecoms landscape across the CIÉ Group (including the Operating Companies). Wavestone were engaged to agree the future telecoms strategy for CIÉ and support the end-to-end competitive procurement of network and telephony services.
How did Wavestone help?
Through interviews, data collection and strategic workshops, Wavestone were able to understand the varied (and contrasting) visions of each Operating Company, unravelling the resistance of moving away from current solutions, and forming a strategy that meets all stakeholder needs.
Subsequently, Wavestone created the tender documentation, which was aligned to the agreed IT and Business requirements, developed the cost model and evaluation methodology and lead the evaluation and scoring of suppliers and solutions.
The final phase of the engagement involved drafting contract schedules and leading negotiations sessions with the Supplier and their legal teams. Following contract award, Wavestone supported the service management transition by creating a specialised and dedicated tool that ensures smooth operational integration and effective service level management with the Supplier.
Amy Richards
Deputy Head of IT
Wavestone made a pivotal contribution to our telecommunications strategy ensuring that it is delivered effectively by helping us negotiate a complex procurement. We are confident that the newly negotiated contracts will enable us to deliver more consistent and reliable services to the Operating Companies.
How Wavestone helped overcome their unique challenges
CIE’s inflexible legacy environment inhibited their ability to adapt to support digital transformation. Wavestone were able to help CIE to overcome this by proposing a strategic direction that reduced legacy risk and rationalised the End of Life network and telephony hardware.
Dealing with multiple Operating Companies with varying requirements and willingness for innovation created an additional challenge of finding a solution that suits all. Wavestone ensured that the proposed strategic direction accommodated the differing ambitions of the operating companies whilst also facilitating organisational change and enabling increased user acceptance.
Finally, during the Supplier negotiations to finalise the contracts, Wavestone supported the client to overcome the difficulties of working with an external specialist Supplier on thorough and structured negotiation sessions.
The results
By adopting Wavestone’s strategy and sourcing methodologies, CIÉ have successfully improved their network and telephony services and enabled business transformation whilst aligning to their Operating Companies’ priorities. The chosen technology solution addresses current operational risk, realises business efficiencies and provides cost savings for CIÉ.
Additionally, with Wavestone’s help, CIÉ were able to strengthen their supplier relationship and improve supplier governance through a dedicated service management tool and having flexible and future proofed contractual arrangements in place.
