Introduction

A large financial institution with national operations was in the process of growing their national presence by acquiring select regional banking brands. Growth by merger and acquisition is a central strategy of this important Bailiwick® customer, one which requires them to respond quickly when the timing is right. They needed an IT partner that could move quickly to integrate the newly acquired businesses into their existing IT systems, one with a proven ability to execute nimbly, respond quickly to changing deadlines and deliver services flawlessly.

Objective

Mergers and acquisitions take place in fluid,fast-paced and highly confidential circumstances. Because of our ongoing relationship with this partner, they felt confident that Bailiwick could manage the massive multi-state logistical process of standardizing equipment and integrating services across the system.

In addition to cabling, electrical and equipment installation, Bailiwick conducted site surveys and managed product procurement, as well as removed and disposed of old equipment according to the highest data security standards.

Advances in Continuous Improvement

During and after a major undertaking such as this, Bailiwick conducts quarterly reviews with internal teams and clients. We talk about what we're doing right and where we can improve and then make those process improvements an integral part of future planning and deployments. Following are just a few of the key findings that we applied and incorporated into our best practices:

• Developed and streamlined processes for financial and quality management as well as data storage.
• Improved naming convention and billing processes to reduce rework and enhance reporting capabilities.
• Updated cable, equipment and decommissioning manuals to meet the bank's new standards.
• Identified opportunities for reducing multiple site visits in order to save time, effort and cost.
• Facilitated specialized training sessions with customer users, including CAD training,cabling and project management best practices.
• Partnered with acquisition team on process improvement and template development, making changes to improve accuracy and consistency on the site survey form and the cabling scope definition document.

Numbers Tell The Story

The merger activity began in 2009 and involved a highly coordinated effort by Bailiwick to manage and complete simultaneous installations at multiple locations. Statistics can be dry, but this summary of the numbers is compelling and provides an idea of the impressive scope and complexity of the projects over the course of three years:

• 543 branches retrofitted
• 2.7 million feet of new Cat5e cable installed
• 6,900 work area outlets installed
• 9,300 network devices (not including peripherals and monitors) installed
• 15,600 network devices removed and/or moved