Wave Broadband Case Study

Technology Category

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Visualization

Applicable Industries

Telecommunications

Applicable Functions

Business Operation

Use Cases

Predictive Quality Analytics
Predictive Replenishment

Services

Data Science Services
System Integration

The Challenge

Wave Broadband, a provider of high-speed internet, video, and phone services in Washington, Oregon, and California, was facing challenges with their existing estimating and bidding process. They were using Excel workbooks developed in-house, which made extracting data for reporting a labor-intensive process, requiring a lot of redundant data entry work. The company's clients range from residential and apartment complexes to businesses, hospitals, and universities, with cell service providers accounting for a large portion of the work. While some of the projects are small, estimates for large networks for these cell carriers can be very large and complex, adding to the complexity of the process.

About The Customer

Wave Broadband is a company headquartered in Kirkland, Washington, that provides high-speed internet, video, and phone services. They operate in Washington, Oregon, and California. The company contracts and manages the installation of aerial and underground fiber optic cables and self-performs splicing, termination, and testing work. Their clients range from residential and apartment complexes to businesses, hospitals, and universities. Cell service providers also account for a large portion of their work. The company's centralized estimating group produces around 400 bids per month.

The Solution

To overcome the challenges with their existing process, Wave Broadband switched from spreadsheets to B2W Estimate. The decision paid for itself as soon as the software went live, according to Tony Ihlen, director of fiber construction design at the company. The Management Reporting features built into B2W Estimate and the B2W Web Services capabilities allowed Wave Broadband to streamline their process and build a bridge between the estimating software and the reporting system from Tableau. This provided them with a variety of reports and the ability to customize, allowing them to really see what they are selling and assess how those projects are performing. The transition to B2W Estimate was very smooth and the team found the tool intuitive and much easier to use than the spreadsheets. The Bid Scheduler feature helped them to manage volume across estimators.

Operational Impact