The Lockstep Nature of M&A and Consolidation

Crown Castle, the largest provider of communications infrastructure in the United States, has gone through countless changes in its more than 25 years of existence. 

That said, let’s do some counting. 

By sheer numbers, the alterations have been significant. A company of less than 1,000 employees over a decade ago now employs more than 5,000. Its business resources of towers, small cells and fiber includes more than 40,000 cell towers and close to 80,000 route miles of fiber.

Much of this was accomplished through the acquisition of five businesses - and associated systems - over the past decade.

Such growth is great, as evident by the shared numbers. However, that expansion comes with its own challenges the company had to incorporate into its internal financial operations.

Challenges including:

• Different contract lengths
• Recurring revenue invoices
• Interest rates
• Early termination fees

By applying RecVue’s high-performance, flexible and scalable billing solution, Crown Castle was not only able to integrate its subscription and consumption-based business model with the various legacy systems, but improve upon previously inefficient spreadsheet-based manual processing in its back-office billing procedures.

Crown Castle’s recent history is indicative of an ongoing corporate trend.

Our seemingly never-ending COVID-infused world has only heightened the redefinition of Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) strategies globally. The continued move to a more digital economy means transformation remains the operative key word. With companies striving to defend their existing markets, accelerate recovery and do whatever possible to position for long term growth, M&A activities evolve and expand.

Such activities are proving crucial for companies in our modern, fast-moving and ultra-competitive business landscape. 

M&A remains in the spotlight with growing momentum as companies seek scale and new markets in the hope of obtaining unique intellectual property and/or technical capabilities.

As emphasized in a new eBook from RecVue, studies have shown M&A delivers long-term business growth only when business processes and finance systems are truly in sync. Those who have come out from the other side of successful M&A activities agree that from a standardization and finance transformation perspective, combined company processes must meld into operational best practices. Companies need to untangle, streamline and consolidate their disparate applications - consolidate - in order to best master efficiences across financial systems.

In the case of RecVue and Crown Castle, RecVue’s unified platform allowed the company to automate its order-to-invoicing and revenue recognition processes to eliminate time-consuming manual workarounds and gain valuable insight and confidence with its complicated yet streamlined telecommunication contracts. 

Touting the benefits of RecVue’s design, William Vessels, Director of Business Process Management of one of Crown Castle’s acquired entitled, Fiber, said, “No other platform on the market has the flexibility and scalability to manage the growth in our recurring revenue business.”

In leveraging the implemented system’s capabilities, Crown Castle was able to keep pace with its continued high growth rate - a 25% increase in revenue - with improved results and no added headcount. The company processes 60,000+ billing lines for $1.2B in revenue with an improved time-to-close, fewer human errors and reduced revenue leakage through billing inaccuracies.

To learn more, download a copy of the new RecVue eBook, “M&A and Consolidation in Seven, Six, Five” here or contact us to learn how the purpose-built design of RecVue’s unified billing, revenue and partner compensation platform can help accelerate your organization’s digital transformation.