Chapter 12. Telecom Case Study

ZYX Telecom is a Fortune 100 service provider that has been in business for over 25 years. In a bold move, ZYX has just announced the acquisition of Wireless Ventures, Inc. WV is a leading provider of wireless data services. The combined company will service over 40 million customers. ZYX-WV will leverage its combined IT infrastructure to deliver data services seamlessly throughout its increased customer base. However, to achieve the stringent financial goals of the acquisition, significant cost savings and rapidly improved service delivery must be achieved.

ZYX Telecom has a significant legacy computing environment. During the last ten years it hasinvested heavily in mid-range UNIX-based computing and it has over 2500 servers in its infrastructure. It has a mature, yet slow-to-change, IT operations department. The ongoing business challenges in the industry have caused ZYX to look seriously at improving efficiencies in its IT infrastructure. Initial studies showed that its average system utilization across the board was only 10 percent. The CIO had initiated a "Utilization Improvement Plan" with a primary focus being to reduce ongoing costs through vast improvements in overall system utilization.

WV has basically no legacy computing environment. Its business relies heavily on rolling out new services very rapidly. Its IT operations department is staffed with some of the best and brightest personnel in the industry. However, the amount of change in the environment leads to an overly chaotic operational infrastructure. Through all the change, WV has managed to build a highly flexible and highly utilized IT infrastructure. Using a shared application infrastructure whenever possible, it has achieved great success at driving overall system utilization very high, yet it is still challenged every day with having to roll out new services quicker and more efficiently.

The CIO of ZYX-WV has promised that they will engineer services to best meet their customers' needs. His challenge is to integrate the two companies and to meet the goals of the corporation, which are to deliver significant cost savings and rapidly improved service delivery. The CIO must put together a plan within the next three months. The CIO's initial input was that they would not be burdened by the legacy of the slow-to-react ZYX culture or the chaotic operations of WV. They will, however, fully exploit the maturity of the older company, while integrating the quickened pace of delivery of WV.