Telecom vendors are gaining a competitive edge over other service providers by getting their own Siterra implementation. More than 50,000 users manage over 1 million sites and 1.7 million global projects using Siterra’s suite of SaaS-based software. Many of those users that previously only logged in as vendors are becoming Siterra customers.
Siterra, the leading site management software for the telecom industry was developed to help mobile network operators (MNOs), tower companies, and their service provider vendors to operate network sites collaboratively, improve visibility, and elevate data quality and execution. Starting in 2001, Siterra particularly focused on solving some of the biggest challenges that MNOs face. MNOs must track all aspects of tower and network projects while enabling service providers to execute those projects quickly without compromising quality. Now serving the four largest MNOs in the U.S., Siterra’s robust platform has proven to meet the most extreme demands that telecom companies face.
But MNOs’ needs are only one facet of the network site management lifecycle. Much of the work in the telecom industry is done by MNOs’ vendors and Siterra recognized that these service providers’ project management needs were often not being fully met. The Siterra team found that service providers were typically pairing limited Siterra access (from their customers) with Microsoft Excel-based trackers to manage their projects.
Siterra limits the information and functionality that someone can access through a “vendor login” by design. For security reasons, an MNO or tower company only wants to allow its vendors to see the bit of Siterra needed to complete the job. That’s great for MNOs, but what about service providers’ need to track those projects, sites, or assets? With vendors taking on increasing responsibility for ongoing maintenance and management, there is an even greater need for these service providers to manage their own project and site data.
Siterra for Service Providers
Siterra has re-focused on service providers, not just as users, but as customers so that its deep telecom-specific functionality can fill this widening project management requirement gap between business needs and the limitations of generic off-the-shelf software.
When service providers implement Siterra for themselves, they are able to create project workflows to standardize best practices across their business and centralize project tracking in one tool with both high-level and detailed reporting capability. Without a consolidated internal project management system like Siterra, rolling up project trackers from each middle manager is somewhere on the spectrum between onerous and impossible. Siterra helps resolve the struggle between meeting the need to complete work in the way that customers want it completed, recorded, and communicated with the opposing need to standardize internal processes and deliverables.
Siterra Project Management
Siterra’s project management system is built around “proof of task completion,” or photographs of completed work. The reason for this is that it establishes a base of accountability and documentation. These submissions from field technicians are then approved or rejected by project managers within Siterra. If logged in as a vendor, a service provider only has the ability to submit project information, while the customer has exclusive control over access to this information and the ability to track progress and report on it.
Assigning work to be completed and measuring progress can be complex, especially for largescale network projects like site buildouts and 4G rollouts. Many generic field service management software systems are geared toward applications like consumer cable installation. To utilize this kind of system, one needs to schedule exact time and duration of the work, but telecom jobs are too unpredictable to prescriptively manage their timing.
Instead, Siterra keeps a running task list for each technician with required completion dates. These dates are especially critical when considering tasks that are dependent on a prior task’s completion, such as retrofitting a tower before additional antennas can be installed. Siterra project management uses inter-project dependencies to ensure related project timelines are aligned.
For both original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and equipment installers, there is a critical need to keep track of warranty information. Siterra manages the complete relational database of installed equipment and site locations, including their characteristics, such as site access directions, site visit history, equipment serial numbers, equipment service history, and warranty information – all of the information necessary to maintain equipment and guarantee jobs in the field.
Siterra project management can also be easily integrated with service providers’ ERP software to invoice customers faster, organize documents around projects and sites, and manage their businesses more efficiently in myriad ways.
Product Strategy
The unique challenges that service providers face have become a focus for future product development. In the past year, Siterra has added seven additional service providers as customers who partner with us as we continually develop the software. A recent example of this customer-centric product development is Siterra’s new Project Retrofit feature. Now, when an MNO changes the requirements for one of its programs that encompass thousands of projects, the project templates used to manage the technicians’ workflow can be altered to reflect new requirements on-the-fly, even for in-flight projects. Siterra’s software-as-a-service model delivers new updates to customers every six weeks, regularly providing new value to their businesses.
You can hear more about our product vision for telecom vendors from Siterra Product Manager John Leigh in the video interview.
