Telco IT Hubs Cut OpEx 20% and Drive 200M EBITDA in 5 Years

Industry: Telco B2B, B2C, Wholesale

Client

VodafoneThree, telco

Goal

The client’s IT managed services (MSP) sales channel, launched in July 2025, has achieved double-digit revenue growth. It draws on the experience and expertise of the AI, digital, data, and transformation team, focusing on delivering value across EX, CX, and revenue.

Challenges

  • Data foundations to fuel AI tools
  • Operating model, organisation design, and change management for people and processes
  • Talent attraction and retention
  • Processes, technology, and tools

Solution

The new team setup focused on change management led by the people/HR function:
1. % roles augmented
2. % roles that will stop
3. % new roles required
A plan was implemented to ensure employees were upskilled, trained, and supported throughout the change journey. Tooling was built and deployed for retail and contact centres and rolled out across the organisation. On track to deliver 20% OpEx efficiencies (approximately 20M) and to improve employee experience and NPS by 2 points.

Sustainability reports built with Qlik Sense collected data on mobile product usage and energy consumption for major B2B and multinational customers across data centres, towers, and other assets. This enabled tracking and optimisation of consumption and reporting against ESG targets. A data science model for network analytics helped local councils across the UK plan the optimal footprint for recycling centres based on travel propensity.

Delivered a digital transformation and a network of AI capabilities. The programme led business change—including training and communications for employees across CRM, billing, ITSM, and other systems—to ensure adoption and benefits realisation. An integrated plan aligned IT and digital implementations with next-generation AI capabilities; for example, a proposal assistant to support bid managers and presales in generating RFP responses.

Co-designed with HR an attraction and retention strategy grounded in industry best practices and not centred on compensation:
1. Purpose through sustainability
2. Diversity and inclusion
3. Learning & Development
4. Career paths and succession planning
5. Collaboration with industry leaders to source top talent
6. Buddy programme to ensure successful onboarding
7. Mentoring and coaching supported by the Ezra tool

Migrated data to GCP. The data modelling team, supported by a new AI tool, achieved a 40% increase in capacity. Implemented Collibra for data management to democratise data assets and established a governance framework to de-risk critical data. Delivered data products such as reporting and visualisations for MI and decision intelligence for Customer 360.

Built integrated delivery across IT, digital, and AI tools focused on low-hanging fruit:
1. Copilot for sales (Microsoft) — faster proposals, higher quality, and a 30% win-rate improvement
2. Service design agent — in-house, eliminating junior testing and saving ~2M OpEx
3. HLD/LLD design — in-house (approx. 3M cost of sales)
4. MDR — ConnectWise (cyber breach response)
5. Web agent — pricing updates
6. Contact centre agent — ElevenLabs
7. Process optimisation — in-house

Impact:

Margin improvement is on track to deliver an internal target of approximately 200M EBITDA over five years, with a 5% increase in overall revenue. The new IT Hubs channel was scaled to approximately 50M over three years.

Achieved a 10% year-on-year reduction in capital investment required to drive transformation through integrated planning and a location strategy focused on offshoring, automation, and partnerships.

Maintained regulatory compliance and data management with zero tolerance for privacy risks and no breaches of personal or PII data. Data availability for management information (MI) increased by 20%, enabling faster decision-making.

Pulse survey scores increased to 90%; gender and neurodiversity rose by 7%; involuntary attrition decreased by 2%; and internal promotions reached 40% across the three-year committed plan.

Generated 200k in revenue from network analytics monetisation across the UK. Customer experience improved after monthly sustainability reports were shared as added value to support ESG commitments.

Enabled proposal creation in seconds rather than weeks using a co-pilot enhanced with historical data. RFP responses increased by 30% due to higher capacity, with a 25% uplift in win rate over two years.

Context

The Fractional Head of AI and a cross-functional transformation team launched a new IT managed services (MSP) sales channel in July 2025 for a major global telco. Branded internally as an IT Hubs channel, the offer draws on consolidated AI, digital, data and transformation capabilities to deliver measurable value across employee experience (EX), customer experience (CX) and revenue streams for B2B, B2C and wholesale customers. The new channel achieved double-digit revenue growth in its first months by packaging managed services, analytics and sustainability reporting alongside traditional connectivity and network offerings.

Challenges

The initiative faced multiple challenges: redesigning the operating model and organizational structure to embed AI and data-first delivery; managing people change across hundreds of roles; and building the data foundations required to fuel AI tools and decision intelligence. Process and tooling fragmentation threatened adoption—CRM, billing, ITSM and proposal workflows had inconsistent data and manual handoffs. The team needed a governance framework to de-risk critical data assets and a democratized data catalogue to enable repeatable data products. Talent attraction and retention, plus ensuring regulatory compliance and zero-tolerance for privacy breaches, were additional constraints that required a cohesive people, process and technology response.

Implementation

The transformation was executed as an integrated change program led by HR and the Fractional Head of AI. HR defined the people plan in three parts—percentage of roles to be augmented by AI, percentage of roles to be retired or stopped, and percentage of new roles required—while committing to comprehensive reskilling and onboarding through a structured L&D and mentoring approach. Tooling and automation were built first for retail and contact centre operations and then rolled out enterprise-wide. Key delivery elements focused on low-hanging fruit: a copilot for sales (Microsoft) to accelerate and standardize proposals, an in-house service-design agent to remove junior testing effort, an in-house high-level/low-level design capability to reduce cost of sales, a managed detection and response platform for cyber resilience, a web agent for dynamic pricing updates, a voice-enabled contact centre agent, and in-house process optimisation. Data migration to a cloud data platform increased analytics capacity; a data modelling team using a new AI tool delivered a 40% increase in capacity. Collibra was used to democratize data assets and a governance framework was implemented to protect PII and ensure compliance. Qlik Sense powered sustainability reports capturing mobile product usage and energy consumption across major B2B customers, enabling monthly ESG reporting as a value-add. The team also launched a proposal assistant that uses historical bid data to create responses to RFPs in seconds rather than weeks. Attraction and retention measures designed with HR emphasized purpose through sustainability, diversity and inclusion, clear career paths and succession planning, industry collaboration for sourcing talent, a buddy onboarding scheme and mentoring via an external coaching platform. Business change management included company-wide training and communications for CRM, billing and ITSM to secure adoption and measurable benefits.

Results

The program is on track to deliver circa 20% OpEx efficiencies (~£20M) and a targeted c. £200M EBITDA improvement over five years with a 5% uplift in overall revenue. The IT Hubs channel scaled to an expected ~£50M in annual run-rate within three years and produced double-digit early revenue growth. Process optimisation reduced capital investment needs by about 10% year-on-year through integrated planning, offshoring, automation and strategic partnerships. Data availability for management information increased by 20%, improving decision speed while maintaining zero privacy breaches across PII. Employee engagement rose (pulse score to 90%), diversity across gender and neurodiversity increased by 7%, involuntary attrition fell by 2%, and internal promotions reached 40% across the three-year plan. Proposal creation times collapsed to seconds, driving a 30% increase in RFP responses and a 25% improvement in win rate over two years. Monetisation of network analytics delivered initial revenues of £200k across local government clients. Customer experience improved as monthly sustainability reporting was used as an added-value service to support ESG commitments. Overall, the integrated people, process and data-first approach provided a reproducible blueprint for scaling AI-enabled managed IT services across the organisation.

*Case studies reflect work undertaken by our Heads of AI either during their tenure with Head of AI or in prior roles before they were part of the Head of AI network; they are provided for illustrative purposes only and are based on conversations with our Heads of AI.