Level 3 Communications Work Values

Daily Duties at Level 3 Communications:

Analyze expenditures and other financial information to develop plans, policies, or budgets for increasing profits or improving services. Set operations policies and standards, including determining safety procedures for the handling of dangerous goods. Plan, organize, or manage the work of subordinate staff to ensure that the work is accomplished in a manner consistent with organizational requirements. Negotiate and authorize contracts with equipment and materials suppliers, and monitor contract fulfillment. Collaborate with other managers or staff members to formulate and implement policies, procedures, goals, or objectives. Monitor spending to ensure that expenses are consistent with approved budgets. Promote safe work activities by conducting safety audits, attending company safety meetings, or meeting with individual staff members. Direct procurement processes including equipment research and testing, vendor contracts, or requisitions approval. Achievements: 1. Within one year we had a full functioning fleet that met or exceeded most operations in all facets of the business. At any one time this organization went from me to three with an excellent internal support staff. It was made clear to our drivers that if they complied with the general maintenance policies of their trucks then they would have first call to buy the vehicle at a 15% reduction. This alone made most employees take personal pride in their company truck and in kind they were rewarded for it. 2. My actual spend this first year was about $6.5M. $1.7M in trucks, $2.5M in trailers, $150K in transport, $720K in up fitting, $1.2M in fuel, and $100K in vehicle maintenance. In the years to follow improvements were made across the board. My first forward looking budget I requested and received $8.5M primarily due to a best case scenario in that we were expecting to have to continue to buy more vehicles as the company was still growing and to replace the used vehicles we had in operation. The estimate average technician would increase mileage by about 63,000/year meaning that our life cycle cost was to be a replacement every 3 years. As the year progressed it became apparent that the drivers were only traveling about half as much. The result was that replacements due to mileage was not going to be an issue and $2.5M was returned to use elsewhere. The only replacement issue would be if we had a totaled vehicle and we took care of that with no additional spend as I had kept a few from the previous year to satisfy this problem. Another area of savings was in transportation as we negotiated flat fees for “less than a load” (LTL) transport and so our shipping cost was reduced not only by the number of initial rush shipments volumes but also by planning for shipments when a tractor trailer was in the area and was also going in the same direction. We realized a 33% reduction in cash or about $500K. Some budgeted items would also fall off right away as their life cycle was 5 or more years out. 3. Over the next couple of years we had everything covered and very few emergencies we had to respond to so I spent time tightening up area such as driver and vehicle files, data integrity, vendor audits, testing better products, and remaining focused on any product or service that would save the company time, money, or both. For example, my senior VP lived in Florida but much of his time was in Colorado so I negotiated a deal with the airport to allow me to park a car there on a monthly based for a nominal fee and my VP could by pass the vehicle rental and go straight to his car. In another situation I got tired of paying $650 for windshields when I knew I could get one personally for $300 or less. The problem was that we used our maintenance provider to get new glass and they claimed to not have any profit margin if they were to charge less so asked my assistant to dig in and see what she could do. What she ran into was most windshield companies that were nationally recognized didn’t want to sign up for a contract. It took about two weeks and we had a new windshield replacement company signed up. They could not guarantee a rate but we were given a current cost of about $235/per windshield or near 65% savings of a $25,000/per year expense. The real savings in the forward years was our preparedness to respond immediately when a disaster occurred. Our national fiber network and much of America depended on this telecom service. 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina were just the two that the world new about. The fact was that in each of these disasters occurred and many other unnoted crisis happened our technicians were out in full force to due repairs so that those affected would have telephones, TV, and basically access to the rest of the world. My department responded with replacement trucks when our NY city team we buried in the aftermath of 9/11. We also responded to Katrina when one of our facilities in New Orleans was underwater with a plug and go trailer to bypass the damaged site. When it came right down to it my salary and the service I provided saved the company hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. 4. Into my forth year my manager asked me if I would take on the responsibilities of 750 buildings maintenance and repairs as the one real estate team member we had was laid off. These facilities were telecom repeaters and gateway sites. They ranged in size from about 1,500 square feet to 200,000 square feet. My responsibility was to provide them services specifically for the building and its occupants. Each building had its unique requirements but generally we provided refreshments, landscaping, snow removal, waste management, janitorial, and other services that may be required as needed such as outside painting and repairs. When I took control I was handed a stack with hundreds of bills that needed to be paid for and there after the stacks would come in daily. Like the fleet there was no rhyme or reason for how this was handled before so I decided that I would approach this in a similar manner as I did with the fleet. I began with a spreadsheet and my assistant and I got to work entering in data capturing every field we thought to be important, coded the bill assuring it was a reasonable bill, and getting it paid. A database was built with some loose parameters by our programmer in MS Access. It was clear that our district managers were told to get what they needed and send the bill in for payment. It was also apparent that prior to the departure of our internal colleague he had been trying to control of the landscaping, snow, and janitorial services under one contract. He also began placing refreshment services under another contract. I took that lead and through contract negotiations we were able to get all of our facilities included in these two contacts. In most cases each vendor was able to rehire the existing companies and when they could not reach an agreement another company would be hired. In most cases this worked well and in others not so well. We went out to bid for this contract in which we could only find 5 vendors who would claim to have the resources to handle what we were needing. As it turned our we had the right company for the job. What we needed was the ability to police this process and to make sure we didn’t have services at locations that didn’t require them and where they were needed they were reasonable. Realizing that we had 3 primary functions at the buildings they were categorized. The first site type tended to be small and it was not staffed daily, the second type was usually manned by 5 or less daily, and the third was staffed with 20 or more 24/7. Each site unique in the geography and so determining which site needed a specific service was challenging. Admittedly we had to have the eyes in the field so get these sites with the services they needed. The larger sites were in the big cities and the small sites were remote. Using our new database we began looking for anomalies in cost, type of service, and locations. Which at first was easy because we had situations where we were providing coffee at unmanned sites or the supplier was offering gourmet coffees and gourmet makers to any site that wanted one. Using these two examples we were able to standardize services across the board by getting a coffee maker to the unmanned sites and supplying them with coffee through the mail from the supplier. With the exception of the large gateway sites that had high value sales or corporate executives we had the remaining set up with typical coffee machines. Our spend rate went down drastically and though I was not able to quantify it precisely, due to my leaving the company, the cut should have reduced the spend by 50%. 5. Landscaping and snow removal has its unique characteristics as well and the variations from one to another depended on whether the site was downtown or in a wheat field. The were so many cross-overs from small sites to large sites, vegetation to concrete, rattlesnakes to roaches. So often the one offs were looking like daily services so rather then have control of the vendors I decided it was best handled in the field by our technicians. Our action was to partner with our own employees on these services so I had the services ready to go but it was the site control that flipped the switch. I established some guidelines and ran queries monthly to see if there were any that stood out as unneeded. During my tenure all issues were resolved without escalation. 6. Waste management was by far the most difficult to get reined in. These companies are very serious about holding on to the facilities they were already working. Again, prior to having operations established our site teams got the services they needed with unlimited resources. Many of these companies would have our local folks sign a three year contract that was renewed automatically every three years without notification. After speaking with our people they agreed that they signed something but had no idea of the terms. Considering the contract and reviewing its terms I bet that it wasn’t enforceable as the contracts were signed by anyone their representative found. Often our people had no signature authority at least internally. I engaged one of our lawyers and he agreed to send out some well worded letters and would allow me to interact with the vendor. We were able to ne-negotiate the terms on an annual basis and for only the services provided. At one particular site in NYC we were paying over $25,000/month in trash pick up. It turned out that we were paying for other services that we didn’t have. Apparently, we were used a catch all for this downtown skyscraper. The bill was reduced to $5,000/month and the site manager assured me that he would make sure we got what we were paying for. 7. In about 250 of our cookie cutter buildings we began having leaks in the roofing system and our initial response was to get some caulk, tar, or someway to patch them up. In doing so we learned that the roofs were disintegrating away. We called on the original manufacture for warranty work only to find out they went bankrupt. After considering many roofing systems that would work across the nation we came up with one that could handle the repairs and guarantee them for 25 years and a full warranty for less than $15,000 per site as apposed to other companies pricing about $25,000 per roof and a limited 5 year warranty. To cinch the deal our research had shown that this new vendor had been in business for many decades which began in Europe and had been operating in the USA since the 1980s?. Since we had reviewed their portfolio, history, and stability we were confident in choosing to contract with them for $3M.

What they like about Level 3 Communications:

Working for a company with an emphasis on social values and helping society is a clear and important priority for you - a critical factor in who you choose to work for. In contrast to other factors, you place an organization's reputation for fairness and concern for the community above most other aspects of the company. As you search for a new job opportunity, it is usually possible to find out if the company is involved in the community and/or if it is addressing problems and issues in society. Pay special attention to non-profit organizations and those specifically involved in social action. Moreover, speaking with current and former employees should enlighten you to perceptions of the fairness of the company's leaders and the treatment of employees.

Tags

Operations, Logistics, Maintenance, Project management, Business developement, Warehousing, Facilities, Profit and Loss, Contracts, Budget, Fleet, Vendor management, Building and Grounds, Equipment Management

Skills

P&L responsibilities, Ecommerce Strategy and digital marketing channels optimization - SEO, SEM, email, affiliates - for high-profile accounts., Technology Solutions, Leadership , Direct and coordinate activities of businesses or departments concerned with the production, pricing, sales, or distribution of products., Review financial statements, sales and activity reports, and other performance data to measure productivity and goal achievement and to determine areas needing cost reduction and program improvement., Direct and coordinate organization's financial and budget activities to fund operations, maximize investments, and increase efficiency., Direct and coordinate organization's financial and budget activities to fund operations, maximize investments, and increase efficiency., Establish and implement departmental policies, goals, objectives, and procedures, conferring with board members, organization officials, and staff members as necessary., Determine staffing requirements, and interview, hire and train new employees, or oversee those personnel processes, Plan and direct activities such as sales promotions, coordinating with other department heads as required., Locate, select, and procure merchandise for resale, representing management in purchase negotiations., Manage the movement of goods into and out of production facilities.

These are some of the questions we asked our climbers about their experiences with Level 3 Communications: