Verizon on Tuesday announced the formation of a new, enterprise wide, shared services organization,
Led by Craig Silliman, who had been serving as chief administrative officer and general counsel, the new unit, called Verizon Global Services (VGS), will be responsible for most shared services teams within Verizon. That includes real estate, sourcing, supply chain, finance operations, global technology solutions and public policy and information security, among others.
Silliman and VGS also will be responsible for bringing a “holistic approach” to Verizon’s partner ecosystem, which consists of tens of thousands of vendors that provide services to the company, to ensure “seamless and efficient business processes,” according to a Verizon press release.
“This is a logical evolution of our strategy,” said Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg in a statement. “These moves will accelerate our efforts to drive efficiencies, enabling us to reinvest savings in network superiority and customer growth.”
The company plans to discuss the economic benefits of establishing Verizon Global Services during its s third-quarter conference call, which is October 21.
According to the company, Vestberg and the board have repeatedly called on Silliman to tackle the company’s most strategic and difficult challenges, from work-from-home mobilization efforts to supply chain, spectrum and various strategy negotiations.
“Over the past two plus years, under unprecedented circumstances, we’ve learned a lot about how we deliver our services to customers.” Vestberg added, “It has given us new insight and unlocked a number of new opportunities. VGS will enable us to consolidate what we’ve learned and scale it for the entire organization.”
Vandana Venkatesh, SVP and general counsel for the Verizon Consumer Group (VCG), will assume Silliman’s responsibilities as chief legal officer, reporting to Vestberg. Venkatesh previously led a variety of leadership roles in the company supporting enterprise, public sector, information technology and sourcing business units.
Silliman is being given a large portfolio across the company, “This certainly positions him well to show what he can do,” said analyst Roger Entner, principal of Recon Analytics. “It’s an important role.”
It now means that Vestberg has one person to turn to when looking for ways to save money.
Speaking at a Goldman Sachs investor conference last month, Vestberg warned that the company’s wireless postpaid net adds would likely still be on the decline when it reports third-quarter results. But he stood behind the company’s turnaround strategy, which involves “surgical” precision and providing lots of options to address various market segments.
Verizon developed a reputation for its network over the years but also for offering some of the highest prices in wireless. However, it’s more recently jumped into the prepaid business with the acquisition of TracFone and over the summer launched the Welcome Unlimited plan, which costs $30 per line per month with four lines.