In March 2021, telecoms start-up Lightspeed Broadband received an initial £55million of private equity funding, with the ambitious goal of rolling out services to customers across the East of England within 7 months.
Building the business in this timeframe required a new head office, a high-performing team and new networks, processes and systems to achieve the operational capability required to connect and manage customers.
Kerv Consult was asked to fill several leadership positions across the business to support these objectives, including Interim CIO, end-to-end programme management and the development and delivery of IT systems.
The UK fibre broadband market is extremely competitive with numerous ‘alt-nets’ (alternative network companies) spending huge amounts of money rolling out fibre broadband networks to compete in the increasingly crowded UK market.
Around 50 such companies, backed by funds promising billions of pounds, have burst on to the UK scene in recent years pledging to take the fight to Openreach, the networking division of incumbent BT, as well as Virgin Media’s cable network. These alt-nets, who are addressing different sectors of the market in a number of ways, have forced Britain’s broadband upgrade to progress faster than it might have otherwise.
Consumer demand for “gigabit” speed broadband — more than 10 times faster than the average today — is beginning to soar, with the assumption that prices will rise to match.
Lightspeed is setting itself up for success in this busy marketplace with its excellent customer service, high-quality network and local, focused approach helping to differentiate itself from its competitors. Unlike some of their competitors, they are planning for sustainable growth with industry-leading CSAT scores, rather than just focusing on short-term customer volumes.
Global supply chain challenges, particularly those impacting technology industries, have created further risks that need to be properly mitigated.
Lightspeed must continue to balance the need for swift growth and high quality with both customer and investor confidence in order to succeed.
Kerv Consult was brought in early to provide structure to the overall Lightspeed programme, to drive the critical path activities, and to embed an agile mindset across the rapidly growing business. We immediately bought into ‘the Lightspeed way’ and, equally, ensured that everything was ‘delivered at light speed.’
The usual gaps seen with a start-up regarding people and process meant that it was necessary for the consultants to roll up their sleeves and do what was needed to ensure that critical activities were delivered and progress was made at pace. These activities were widespread and included the initial mobilisation of a head office refurbishment, operational readiness, the core network build, key recruitment, purchasing, scoping, and developing processes and systems from the ground up.
In the context of programme management, the initial requirement was for Kerv Consult to develop and drive the delivery plans for establishing and launching the Lightspeed business, with a particular focus on critical path activities and embedding agile practices across the team.
Over time, it became apparent that an increase in scope was required to ensure that all critical projects and workstreams had the necessary focus, leadership, and drive.
