Pipeline Publishing, Volume 5, Issue 11

	This Month's Issue:
	Transformation

Pipeline's Conversation with Level3 Communications' CIO Kevin Hart

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change management, because of the multiplier of culture we bring together, is probably the biggest challenge.

Pipeline: What would you say to other service providers who are considering undergoing similar transformation projects, but have not yet begun that long journey?

Hart: The vision for the company and for the transformation effort have got to be clearly articulated and really owned by the leadership team. Our CEO and all of our executives are visible around their support of the initiative, and help hold people accountable to help drive change and make the improvements. I'd say that having the leadership alignment... and not just for a day or a month or a kickoff meeting, but for the duration, which may be multiple years... to really lead every single day is important. We've had some executive churn, and have had two or three people in lead roles come and go over the last few years, and it's up to the executive team that remains to bring new folks coming in up to speed. That's a big part of it. Also, vendor and partner management is also essential. Most companies are going to leverage third

Do you feel like you're done? Do you feel like you're transformed?

party software or hardware or consulting services in a situation like this, and getting them aligned with your goals has also been an artform, and has been key to our success.

Pipeline: Do you feel like you're done? Do you feel like you're transformed?

Hart: We might be halfway there. From a systems foundation, we have all of our applications in production, we have north of 2/3 of our core revenue... but with all the acquisitions we went through, there's still much integration and consolidation work to do. At this point, we also have the business process team within the company. We've shifted our focus to continuous end-to-end process improvement. We've got six-sigma workshops, and we're looking at compressing cycle time on quoting and ordering and provisioning. We're looking at how to improve bill presentation. So we're done with some of the foundation applications, but the real work of driving the business benefit is just beginning. So, I'd say we're about halfway there.

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