Case Study
Enabling a scalable acquisition strategy through digital transformation
Inspire11 partners with TriStruX to create a digital operating model and democratize data, reducing costs and creating enterprise value.
Capabilities
Strategy & Execution
Process Optimization
Performance Management
App Innovation & Scale
Human-Centered Analytics
Architecture & Engineering
Organizational Efficacy
Industry
Telecommunications
TriStruX is not just your average digital infrastructure service provider; it’s a powerhouse roll-up that sets the stage for an electrifying revolution in the world of connectivity. With a client roster that boasts major carriers like Verizon and T-Mobile, TriStruX is at the forefront of network deployment capabilities for all things wireless, wireline, and professional services. Shortly before TriStruX engaged Inspire11, they were recapitalized by a Private Equity firm to supercharge the company’s growth by acquiring peers with complementary service offerings in domestic urban markets.
The opportunity
TriStruX recognized that their legacy operational processes required a large amount of manual administrative work to manage their national workload. They also recognized that their acquisition strategy would not scale well without finding ways to significantly improve efficiency of Selling, General, and Administrative expenses (SG&A) and Indirect Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) associated with managing their workload. Additionally, TriStruX experienced a lack of granular visibility into Direct COGS associated with project work, which left them blind to information that would help them improve their unit economics and job performance as they served customers. Their legacy systems and processes left the finance team with an unsustainable workload and their target closing date was not feasible as they absorbed additional companies.
What we did
TriStruX engaged Inspire11 to assess their operational and technology landscape and provide recommendations on how to achieve more efficient scale as they grow through organic success and acquisition. Inspire11 performed an initial 8-week assessment to dissect the operations, processes, and tech stack and plan a transformation program that helps the organization use modern technologies to maximize scale and EBITA growth from acquisitions while minimizing SG&A and project delivery cost growth associated with acquisitions of new businesses.
Inspire11 developed a digital and data transformation strategy for TriStruX that encompassed the following:
- Operational Performance Improvement: Improving their operational processes, policies, and procedures by implementing best practices around Project Based Accounting, which allowed them to see and manage projects as individual scopes of work. This served as the foundation for automating workflow to reduce SG&A and Indirect COGS.
- ERP Implementation Leadership: Assisted in selecting and implementing a modern cloud based ERP. Redesigned core business processes to digitize key processes and tasks in the ERP, allowing them to collect data on financial performance.
- End-to-End Process Automation: Optimized the use of other SaaS products and provided business and tech capabilities that supported their new process landscape. Built over 50+ Microsoft Logic Apps-based integrations and automated process steps to reduce manual data entry and automate the end-to-end business processes of executing a job.
- Modern Data and Analytics: Leveraging Microsoft’s Azure Synapse, Data Factory, and Tableau to build out a Modern Data Architecture that democratized data and access to analytics across the organization, leveraging integrated data from all of their operational systems.
- Custom Mobile Application: Leveraging Microsoft Azure low/no code solution to build a custom mobile and web application to enable their Field workforce with digital capabilities for managing work, collecting costs estimates and performing other job admin functions.
- IT Organization & Infrastructure Build Out: Supported the CIO’s in building an IT organization that could support and continually improve modern digital and data solutions.
The digital transformation has changed our business. The breadth of data we publish to decision-makers across the company has unlocked and democratized our data, helping forward-thinking managers to make fast, reasonable decisions with more timely and available data.
~ Randall Muench, Chief Executive Officer, TriStruX
Impact & Outcomes
For the following year and a half, Inspire11 was TriStruX’s primary partner in executing on the digital and data transformation strategy. Inspire11 provided specialized operations performance improvement skillsets to design and deploy the new process landscape, managing both Inspire11 and 3rd party technology implementation teams.
Value creation
- Potential improvement in valuation and exit multiples for TriStruX’s owners by being the only comparable leveraging digital and data in a mature way
- A cultural shift from traditional construction management practices and styles to data enabled leadership and digital empowerment
- Democratization of Data – empowering the workforce at all levels to know their KPIs, manage and be held accountable to them
Cost reduction
- Removal of thousands of hours of annual SG&A and COGs hours related to manual data entry to manage and report on project costs and revenue
- Removal of thousands of hours of manual data analysis in excel and replacing with automated reporting
- Significantly improved the Finance and Accounting reporting processes, eliminating thousands of hours related to researching and analyzing financial performance and issues.
Process improvement, standardization & controls
- Alignment of legacy company processes to the “one TriStruX way of doing things” – formulated around project costing methodology and aligning the processes of the legacy firms
- Removal of 15+ process steps in Procure to Pay, decreasing the time and effort to procure materials to execute customer work
- Addition of digital approval tasks and workflow that insert centralized controls into the procurement and payment processes
- Standardization and additional controls related to project estimation, BOM creation, and cost capture processes in the mobile application and integrations with the ERP
Visibility
- Introduction of analytics that allow management to focus on identifying project level financial risks and measure performance of the project portfolio by 10+ dimensions (project type, geography, customer, service performed, project team etc.)
- Providing new levels of granularity and speed to insight in project costing and performance reporting, allowing managers to make timely decisions that avoid cost and maximize revenue
- Improvement in the accuracy and timeliness of key construction-based financial reports, such as WIP, by gathering project estimates, costs, and revenue data straight from the Field workforce point-in-time, rather than during the monthly close out process
Hiring avoidance
By removing significant manual office work and data entry tasks, TriStruX could continue to scale with acquisitions without significant business and administrative hiring
Embrace the power of digital transformation and unlock your organization’s true potential.
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