Over ten years ago, Sitetracker struck up a relationship with one of Verizon’s contractors that wanted to optimize its operations. The resulting project management software application was a one-off, but word spread to other contractors and carriers about the value it added.
Since then, Sitetracker has been providing software applications to a growing number of telecommunications companies, helping them manage their internal operations and facilitating best practice workflows and completed jobs. Over the years, Sitetracker’s business has continued to grow annually and was recently named to the Deloitte Technology Fast 500™. Today, it has 300+ customers in a diverse set of markets worldwide.
The leadership at Sitetracker is optimistic about the future of digital infrastructure. The company is in the midst of a product investment and growth cycle to expand its product offerings, covering infrastructure segments including fiber, small cell, DAS, and towers, as well as electric vehicle (EV) charging stations and solar.
“Towers certainly are a big investment area for us,” Brant Carter, Director of Industry Products at Sitetracker said. “But there are other areas where we’re also investing. Fiber deployment is probably the fastest-growing part of our businesses right now.”
Carter reports that many Sitetracker customers are diversifying their businesses as well. “EV charging station deployment is a natural way for the tower industry to diversify, because it requires crews with the same skill sets and internal processes,” he said. “Sitetracker’s software can manage those processes across different lines of business.”
Sitetracker finds that all companies in its tower customer base have a particular set of challenges, or pain points, that can be solved through digital transformation.
Lease Management
The management of leases is often disconnected from the colocation process at tower companies, which creates confusion, according to Carter. The tower company might not know what physical assets are on its existing towers and what the resulting impact could be on wind loading and structural integrity.
Additionally, an antiquated addiction to spreadsheets makes it hard for carriers to conduct business with tower companies, he explains. “Each lease administrator has their own spreadsheet, and it’s not a consistent, standardized way of working. We bring data from the spreadsheets into Sitetracker and get everyone working off of a common playbook.”
Efficiently Marketing a Tower Site
Tower companies want data concerning existing equipment and space availability on each tower to facilitate the marketing of the structures to potential tenants. Sitetracker provides tower customers with an operational system that helps them efficiently manage the colocation on their towers.
“Our customers want to differentiate their offering, and one way of doing that is making space in their cellular asset portfolio available to their potential customer base and collaborating with their tenants more effectively,” he said.
Capturing Additional Lease Revenue
Information on the lease may not always reflect how much equipment is on the tower. Therefore, digitizing the cellular assets and comparing that data with the colocation information on the lease can ensure that the carriers are billed for all the space they use.
“The tower leasing process needs to be brought into the overall workflow so it can be managed as part of the day-to-day operations,” Carter said. Additionally, tower companies can better collaborate with tenants and manage their leases.
Asset Management
Many tower companies that come to Sitetracker don’t have build-to-suit workflows for new tower site builds and upgrades. According to Carter, it is crucial to build the site with an operational mindset. To do that, a tower company needs to digitize and understand all the various components of the site.
“Integrating data into operational workflows helps tower owners get the sites out to their customers more quickly,” says Carter. After the tower is built, digitized operations allow the tower company to coordinate the maintenance plans and activities, which saves money with fewer truck rolls, he added.
The Value of Digital Twins
There has been some confusion in the industry about the role of digital twins in the digital transformation of a tower company, according to Carter. Digital twins are only part of the solution and can only serve as an enabler for digital operations.
To ensure that the tower company maximizes the return on investment of its digital transformation, Sitetracker makes sure that the data set of the digital twin is integrated into the workflows for site access, site inquiry, colocation, and leasing.
“The main value of a digital twin is in the data you can pull from the digital model to facilitate operational, sales and marketing workflows,” Carter said. “When the tower company is working off of a much richer data set, it makes the overall insights they can get in those workflows much more significant.”
The People Behind the Product
Although Sitetracker invests a lot of time perfecting its software product, there’s much more to the company than software. The company has a large team of consultants and business analysts who work to maximize the value of the software to customers.
“We provide our customers with best practices based on the experience we have amassed from working with the industry,” Carter said.
Similarly, Sitetracker provides ongoing support with its “customer success” team, where it aligns the product capabilities with the customer’s strategic objectives. “This allows customers to maximize their return on investment from Sitetracker,” Carter said.
A digital transformation program doesn’t need to be complicated, according to Carter. Still, it does demand a partner that targets a tower company’s need for more effective management of leases, assets, and workflows.
“If you partner with the right company, then you can target your success. We’re a good partner for companies that want to enter a digital transformation project,” he said. We can share many best practices and provide guidance to ensure they get the most value from our software.”
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By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
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