Cellnex Telecom is Europe’s leading operator of wireless telecommunications and broadcasting infrastructures with a portfolio of ca. 130,000 sites including forecast roll-outs up to 2030. Cellnex operates in 12 countries: Spain (Head Quarters), Italy, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, the UK, Ireland, Portugal, Austria, Sweden, Poland and Denmark.
In the Netherlands, Cellnex is composed by several companies acquired from 2016 until 2021. While some of them have already been integrated (Towerlink, Shere Masten and Alticom), others are in the process of being integrated. This is the case of Cignal Infrastructure (previously T-Infra, the tower business of Deutsche Telekom in the Netherlands) that was incorporated to Cellnex in June 2021.
The incorporation resulted in the biggest independent Telecom Infrastructure Operator in the Netherlands, operating a total of 4,310 towers and rooftops, 24 telecom & data towers and providing broadcasting services for FM and DAB+ radio in the Netherlands and Flanders.
Strategic Moment
Cellnex Netherlands decided in September 2019 to set up an integration project to make a step forward in the integration of the three initial companies. Cellnex Netherlands was looking for a partner to support the delivery of an Operating Model. The aim is to define and deploy an efficient operating model for 7 predefined areas. The Operating models should consist of four elements: Guidelines, Organisation responsibilities, Processes and Dashboards. In addition of the leads and teams of each area, continuous alignment is needed with the Function Owners at corporate in Spain, providing guidance on the Industrial Model.
Approach
During the kick-off phase we agreed upon the processes in scope, and we developed an implementation roadmap for the project, which included a communication plan to ensure proper embedding in Cellnex Netherlands. Also, Möbius explained their vision on business process modelling and that the process mapping workshops would be performed through a SIPOC approaches (tool derived from LEAN management). We agreed to use Visio as process modelling software. Process modelling was required at level 3 (work processes).
All processes were derived in workshops with the local process owners and the relevant process experts, resulting in local Process Blueprints. These multifunctional workshops highly contributed to buy-in from the relevant stakeholders as a start for proper future embedding. For some processes, Corporate Blueprints did exist, which required high degree of alignment with Corporate. During the workshops, we were also to develop a list of bottlenecks and improvement opportunities. Eventually we did validation of the local Blueprints with Corporate and the local process owners and agreed upon follow-up of the bottlenecks and opportunities.
Corporate process map
Results
In 2020 the design of the main local Business Processes for Cellnex NL was completed. This included process descriptions of 45 processes, as well as a list of 85 bottlenecks and opportunities as a result of over 80 workshops. Part of the opportunities have been captured meanwhile. Also, an “interactive click-through” Operating Model for Cellnex Netherlands was created.
Based on the work in 2020, Cellnex and Möbius agreed to cooperate in a next stage, aiming to transform the Operating Model and corresponding processes into a continuous improvement methodology. Target is to ensure sustained processes in the organisation by introducing performance management and process confirmation.
Process descriptions
Based on the satisfactory work in 2020, the cooperation between Cellnex NL and Möbius has further intensified. Additionally new agreements for consulting services have been signed, of which Program Management support in the integration of T-Infra into the Cellnex NL organisation.
Images courtesy of Cellnex Netherlands
