Communications – a strong foundation for performance in construction

Fairview New Homes has its HQ in Enfield, Middlesex, where accounts, customer service and admin staff are based. They also have a construction office at Waltham Abbey and many development sites throughout the south of England including two recently acquired operations in Colchester and Bristol. Fairview builds up to 2,000 new homes each year (including the Rialto brand) and many of these are for Housing Associations who often require a higher specification than direct-sale homes, for example a superior finish and the inclusion of white-goods.

Communications costs at the company were seen as incidental until Segmentation identified and re-claimed a £42,000 over-billing from Fairview's mobile network, as well as a reduction of £54,000 (49%) per annum in ongoing rental and usage charges.

Pat Yates, Office Manager at Fairview, is responsible for the bulk of communications services including the switchboard, the leased line and the billing for normal and keeps a tight eye on overheads, "Like many firms, we can't afford to employ a full-time specialist to manage our communications" says Pat, "and it's even worse trying to keep track of it all when the supplier's account manager keeps changing all the time!"

Real expertise and a track-record... without the overhead

Pat recently asked Segmentation to come in and do a 'spring-clean' on Fairview's mobile service to make sure everything was in order with their new service contract which had been running for just over a year covering around 170 mobiles. Segmentation's Nick Cassidy discovered that the revised rates and agreed discounts had not been applied properly and, having agreed with Pat how she wanted to tackle the issue, Segmentation prepared and submitted the claim to the network resulting in the substantial rebate for Fairview.

Segmentation has worked with Fairview over a period of years beginning with a review of landlines which delivered a reduction in costs of £100,000 by cleaning up the billing and giving costs better visibility. The review led to a series of initiatives including cancellation of a number of dead lines, barring access to some expensive services, a big reduction in the cost of inter-site calls and calls to mobiles, and improving Fairview's cashflow by changing the billing cycle and improving management information.

"The networks got away with it because we didn't have the specialist resource and knowledge", says Pat. "When it comes to materials costs, building regs or health & safety, we have to be meticulous because that is what our business is about but for services like telecoms and mobile it makes sense to use an expert like Nick."

"I knew from his work over the years on our fixed telecoms that he had the expertise and I could trust him to do a good job for us across the whole of our communications."

Best in class, and staying there

The construction sector is by no means alone in asking non-specialists to take care of telecoms in addition to their day-job and Pat concludes, "If you haven't got the expertise and the time to check everything yourself, it really makes sense to get Segmentation in to do a spring-clean. The bottom line is that we now must have some of the lowest communications costs amongst firms in our industry. We plan to keep it that way too, our business doesn't stand still and neither does the communications sector."

For more information, contact John Turner
Tel: 0161 330 4422
John.turner@segmentation.eu.com

Posted 06 Sept 07

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