Verizon has created a new global services organization aimed at streamlining shared services teams to free up more capital for the carrier to invest in its core networking and telecom services.
The Verizon Global Services (VGS) organization will be responsible for most shared services teams within the company, including Real Estate, Sourcing, Supply Chain, Fleet, Finance Operations, Global Technology Solutions, Reporting and Insights, Learning and Development, Public Policy and Information Security, according to Verizon.
The carrier’s current chief administrative officer and general counsel, Craig Silliman, has been named president of VGS, effective immediately.
Silliman and the new team will also be tasked with “bringing a holistic approach to Verizon’s partner ecosystem, which consists of tens of thousands of vendors providing services to the company, to ensure seamless and efficient business processes,” according to the carrier’s statement on the new organization.
A spokesperson for Verizon did not elaborate on how the creation of the global services organization would impact the channel but said the carrier would be doing “considerable work in the next few weeks on pulling these teams together.”ADVERTISEMENT
[Related: Verizon Wins $1.58B Deal To Outfit U.S. Embassies With Next-Gen IT ]
Customers want diversified IT environments, which may include several vendor solutions for optionality, a fact that Verizon is starting to realize, according to one solution provider partner that requested anonymity.
“We’re seeing more of Verizon being willing to enable partners to do multi-carrier solutions,” the Verizon partner said. “I think that Verizon is starting to realize: ‘Look, we can’t just go into these large enterprise customers and just say Verizon Everything.’ We need to be flexible and if a partner is able to have the primary SIM [card] be Verizon in an IoT device, but then it has a dual SIM capability that that falls back to AT&T in case there’s an outage or needs to default to the best signal in the area, there’s things like that that they have to be open to.”
The “old Verizon” was hesitant to interoperating with others, but the need for global connectivity environments has changed things. And vendors that don’t approach their partners — solution providers and technology partners alike — holistically, won’t have a seat at the table, the partner said. “Customers don’t want to have all of their eggs in one basket anymore.”
Filling Silliman’s seat in the role of Chief Legal Officer is Vandana Venkatesh, who will report to Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg and lead the company’s legal, privacy, and corporate security functions. Vandana most recently served as senior vice president and general counsel for the Verizon Consumer Group (VCG). She’s held a variety of leadership roles for the carrier supporting Enterprise, Public Sector, IT and Sourcing business units.
CEO Vestberg called VGS a “logical evolution” in the carrier’s strategy” in a statement. “These moves will accelerate our efforts to drive efficiencies, enabling us to reinvest savings in network superiority and customer growth,” he said.
The carrier said it would share more details on the economic benefits of Verizon Global Services during its third-quarter earnings call scheduled for Oct. 21.
Verizon during its second fiscal quarter with ended June 30 revealed that its Business segment continues to run up against wireline headwinds and enterprise declines due to ongoing upheaval from the pandemic. Verizon reported Q2 2022 operating revenue of $33.79 billion, staying relatively flat from second-quarter 2021’s result of $33.76 billion.LEARN MORE: Telecom | Wireless
Gina Narcisi is a senior editor covering the networking and telecom markets for CRN.com. Prior to joining CRN, she covered the networking, unified communications and cloud space for TechTarget. She can be reached at [email protected].
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