Client: Helios Towers Nigeria (HTN)
Project Description: The client engaged a VTT team of telecommunications industry veterans with a collective experience of managing rollouts for 3000+ BTS sites. This team approached the CAPEX management initiative in three phases. Phase one included the following:
- BTS Site equipment included in HTN’s scope was investigated. A target was set to achieve a cost reduction of at least 15% for these items.
- Through information validation, scope freeze, and subsequent refinements in the shape of price breakups and detailed bill of materials, VTT made comparisons with obtained benchmark pricing from the market.
- VTT produced a CAPEX management strategy and recommendations report, which provided baseline prices for target items ensuring a CAPEX reduction of 25%
This exercise was immediately followed by Phase two, which included the following:
- Providing off-site procurement support to HTN’s procurement department.
- Engaging vendors by generation and floating RFPs for selected items
Building on the previous two phases, Phase three of the exercise focused on providing cost-effective designs for individual BTS site items, which provided higher efficiency while maintaining HTN’s quality standards:
- Different modules/parameters were identified that could be designed technically to achieve significant cost reduction
- Best design options were found and analyzed for these modules/parameters for different groups of operators per site and the prevailing environment of Nigeria
- HTN was presented with recommendations of new technical designs for each item on the identified parameters, cost reduction analysis through these designs, and sample design diagrams.