Case Studies
Client A
A provider of managed IT and communications services had recently launched several new product offerings, each introducing new complexities into the service delivery process. The client was experiencing difficulty quantifying the effects of these new complexities on their staffing plan and on the effectiveness and efficiency of their service delivery processes.
The Challenge
Client executives suspected that increasing demand forecasts for new, complex products coupled with a steady demand for the current product set would result in staffing shortfall. They suspected that some of the predicted shortfall could be mitigated through savings related to process improvement alternate sourcing arrangements, but lacked facts on which process areas would yield the most opportunity. Concentric Technology Solutions was engaged to assist with a solution to address these concerns.
The Strategy
In concert with the client team, Concentric Technology Solutions led an end-to-end assessment of the client’s service delivery process, constructed an activity-based cost model to enable the client to analyze relative cost of service delivery effort by product offering, and identified opportunities for process optimization.
Working closely with the client team members, Concentric Technology Solutions produced a plan to:
- Observe and elicit estimated times for all service delivery activities,
- Identify and categorize key drivers of variance in activity times,
- Apply labor cost and effectiveness formulas to learn cost per unit of each activity,
- Model common product scenarios as the sum of activity effort time, and cost of role performing the activity, and
- Apply actual and forecast volume to product scenarios to model forecast demand and cost of effort for labor planning and key variance drivers.
The Outcome
The model enabled the client to quickly articulate differences in cost, effort, and complexity between products. This information allowed the client to:
- Formulate a plan to optimize headcount based on forecast demand,
- Plan process improvement initiatives to realize targeted savings, and
- identify candidate activities for alternate sourcing arrangements.
Client B
A provider of managed travel and hospitality services had acquired a predictive analytical big data platform solution outside of the United States. The client was experiencing difficulty quantifying the effects of this new acquisition on staffing output and on the effectiveness and efficiency of their service delivery processes.
The Challenge
Client executives believed that the acquired staff and complex products were resulting in staffing shortfall and poor execution and delivery. They suspected that the shortfall and delivery challenges could be mitigated by moving the product development and delivery execution to the United States. Concentric Technology Solutions was engaged to assist with assessing the product set, current staffing skills, and service delivery processes and to build a mitigation plan.
The Strategy
In concert with the client team, Concentric Technology Solutions led an end-to-end assessment of the client’s acquired product set, service delivery process, and current staff. The intent was to document product architecture, staffing skill sets, and infrastructure requirements in order to determine a recommended course of action.
Working closely with the client team members, Concentric Technology Solutions produced a strategy blue print to:
- Educate senior leadership the cultural differences that was preventing successful delivery and creating staffing challenges,
- Identify key individual within the acquired team as well as morale issues,
- Model current delivery process used by acquired team and outline opportunities for improvement,
- Fully document product and infrastructure architectures, and
- Assess costs of resolving current challenges versus building and executing a migration plan.
The Outcome
The blue print enabled the client to quickly articulate differences in culture, effort, and complexity of the acquired product and staff. This information allowed the client to:
- Formulate a plan to improve staffing shortfall,
- Make minor process changes in delivery and improve communication between the acquired team and management, and
- Move forward with a two year product roadmap allowing the client to retire outdated solutions by building them on the acquired platform with the existing team.
Client C
Client is one of the largest communication technology companies in the world and one of the world’s leading providers of technology, communications, information and entertainment products and services. The company offers voice, data and video services and solutions on its award-winning networks and platforms, delivering on customers’ demand for mobility, reliable network connectivity, security and control.
The Challenge
Client executives were facing major renovating issues for the Data Centres in California, Chicago, Michigan & New Jersey that became a part of the company during several acquisition processes. The older Data Centres were built on a capacity of 100-150 Watts/ sq. ft which was no where close to the 200-300 Watts/ sq. ft demand. The renovation process had to be completed without affecting the customer production environment.
The Strategy
In concert with the client team, Concentric Technology Solutions came up with a modular design upgrade for the Data Centres. The initial steps involved finalizing the watts/ sq. ft capacity of the Data Centre based on 3-5 years growth plan, upgrading the utility feed along with adding a secondary utility source and setting up the new power and mechanical plants. The next steps involved setting up a distribution infrastructure on the new power and mechanical plants and gradually migrating Data centres rooms, one at a time. Each Data Centre room power and mechanical load was shifted over to the new infrastructure and the step down power and mechanical hardware was replaced for each Data Centre room.
Working closely with the client team members, Concentric Technology Solutions produced a plan to:
- Provide calculated assessment to the executive team on the cost and time associated with the renovation projects,
- Directed the installation process of the new power and mechanical plants,
- Identify possible power and mechanical engineering issues during switch over process,
- Define solutions to restore power in the event of a down time due to unforeseen issues,
- Define the Disaster recovery process for the Data Centre in terms of power and mechanical infrastructure, and
- Apply latest technology solutions for real time monitoring and operations of Data Centres power and mechanical infrastructure.
The Outcome
The renovation project enabled the company to bring all their Data Centres capacity to a competitive level in the Co-Location industry and had the ability to:
- Accommodate high density customers in the Data Centres,
- Bring the uptime from 99% to 99.99% which a huge competitive factor in the Co-location industry and
- Providing the built-in capacity for the company for future upgrades to accommodate 3-4 years growth plan.
Client D
Client is a US based company that provides customer relationship management (CRM) services comprising of several broad categories: Commerce Cloud, Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Data Cloud (including Jigsaw), Marketing Cloud, Community Cloud (including Chatter), Analytics Cloud, App Cloud, and IoT with over 100,000 customers.
The Challenge
Client executives wanted the best business partner in APAC region to expand this Data Centre footprint in order to provide additional services to their APAC region clients especially Japan Post, company’s biggest APAC client. There were several business partners within Singapore region and the company had signed a contract with VSNL but were facing several power and mechanical engineering issues since the VSNL Data Centre didn’t seem to be able to accommodate high density IT infrastructure installation.
The Strategy
The company executive team wanted Concentric Technology Solutions to analyse this issue and scrutinize the engineering design of VSNL Data Centre to ensure it was the right fit for the company to accommodate IT infrastructure installation to support a 4-5 years growth plan. CTS needed to open a dialogue with the VSNL engineering team and in order to get a clear understanding of the capacity, design and redundancy of the Data Centre power and engineering infrastructure. All that data had to be compared with the client requirements to ensure VSNL was the right fit for the company. If not, another business partner was required by scrutinizing the engineering design of other Data Centre providers in Singapore like Equinix and TCS that can support Salesforce footprint with a growth plan of 4-5 years.
Working closely with the client team members, Concentric Technology Solutions provided the following solutions:
- After in depth power and mechanical engineering analysis, VSNL proved to be not the best fit for expansion in APAC,
- Analysed new Data Centres in Singapore and the only other 2 options close to the requirements in Singapore were Equinix and TCS,
- Compared the power and mechanical engineering design for both the Data Centres from every angle,
- After in-depth engineering analysis, proved Equinix was the best fit for the client.
Devised the installation plan, disaster recovery and downstream power and mechanical infrastructure engineering designs.
Built in capacity to up scale without any potential affect to the production environment.
The Outcome
The intervention of Concentric Technology Solutions during the final stages of client moving in VSNL enabled the company to save itself from moving into a incompatible Data Centre resulting in huge financial loss besides facing down time for the production environment:
- The downstream power and mechanical infrastructure design performed efficiently providing precise Data Centre environment,
- The installation plans which included segregation of hot and cold aisles containment provided the exact environment for Salesforce high density IT infrastructure installation, and
- The built-in capacity to accommodate 4-5 growth plan enabled the company to sign new global clients without any engineering blockers.
Client E
The client is a French multinational company that provides software and hardware for energy management. The multinational company is listed as a Fortune Global 500 company and is the parent company of Square D, Pelco, APC and others. The company provides automated digital solutions for power efficiency and sustainability. It provides these solutions to homes, commercial buildings, Data Centers and industries, by combining energy technologies and real-time automation solutions.
The Challenge
The client was given the challenge to build two Data Centres in parallel in Sydney Australia for a global company within specific deadlines. This included the providing UPS solutions, power infrastructure design, latest technology solutions for high voltage transformers, power distribution infrastructure and real time energy management solution via company’s proprietary software to be modified per client’s specifications.
The Strategy
In concert with the client team, Concentric Technology Solutions devised a strategy to address the challenges on multiple fronts to meet the deadlines. The client requirements to have custom design for the UPS system was the critical front and required in depth engineering design and testing. The low voltage power distribution system infrastructure required a custom design to support a very high watts per square ft capacity for the Data Centres. The energy power management system software had to be customised to ensure not only a robust 24×7 monitoring from client’s global Network Operations Centres but also from security perspective.
Working closely with the client team members, Concentric Technology Solutions strategy was:
- The UPS solution was given to the low voltage business unit with 2 different UPS designs for testing to ensure we have more than one UPS design being tested in parallel to meet the client requirements and stay on course to meet the deadlines.
- The high voltage transformers were tested at the manufacturing plant with the client’s simulated energy load to rule out any possible malfunctions and stay on expedited schedule.
- Tested the power distribution and mechanical infrastructure challenges through Computational Fluid Dynamics software.
- Switched to a new manufacturer after the Low Voltage power distribution manufacturer boards failed in the very first test.
- Connected with multiple client’s in-house production business units to ensure timely delivery of all the hardware required to support customization of the energy management system software.
The Outcome
The Concentric Technology Solutions strategy and preemptive measure resulted in the following:
- The two different UPS designs being tested in parallel saved a lot of time and the client chose the best option based on testing results.
- The high voltage transformers simulation test helped to replace certain hardware to ensure higher performance and longevity.
- Switching the Low Voltage power distribution manufacturer ensured high quality power boards and eliminated the factor of losing time towards the deadline.
- The energy management software was successfully tested and implemented within the deadline as all business units were pulled in for the testing phases.