Manage Telecommunication Projects in Latin America
Juan Carlos Salas
System Consultant Intergraph Communications Solutions
Mailstop: LR23B2 Huntsville, Alabama 35894-0001
Telephone: (256) 730-8357, Fax: (256) 730-8225
E-Mail: jcsalas@ingr.com
Abstract
How to manage a Geospatial Resource Management (GRM) project to maximize the benefits for
companies in Latin America? How to meet the challenges that cultural problems present, in order
to implement a semi-automated design, posting, analysis and asset management system to
replace manual practices? How to control the resources at different stages of the project: design,
development, training, conversion, deployment and production? These and other questions are
addressed in this paper.
Introduction
Latin America is currently suffering from dramatic changes in the types of telecommunications
services that need to be provided to customers. The following have created significant changes
for telecom providers:
- Privatization
- Competition
- Modernization
- Demand for better more and better customer service
- Demand for lower costs and improved efficiency
- Demand for more service to meet the need for dialup, broadband and high speed Internet
access, audio/video and streaming, etc.
Yet telecos are still struggling to manage legacy As-Built records. Some are implementing digital
map systems, but many others are still buried under old fashioned and outdated paper maps.
Background
The three largest countries in Latin America are Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. Although most
countries in Latin America have privatized their telecommunications industries, competitors still
have but a small share of the fixed-line market. Major competitive focus is on high-speed
Internet and intra-company data connections for businesses and cellular services.
Telefónica of Spain has the largest presence in Latin America of any single teleco worldwide. It
owns Telefónica de Argentina, Telefónica de Chile, Telefónica de Perú and Telesp Partipações
of São Paulo. Fully half of Telefónica’s revenues are generated in Latin America.
BellSouth International, under the names Movicom Bellsouth and BCP Telecommunições, SA,
also has a major presence in Latin America, with more than 6 million cellular customers.
Bellsouth’s international revenues account for 10 percent of the firm’s total bottom line. It has
cellular operations in ten Latin American countries and offers Internet service in most of these.
Chile was the first country in Latin America to open its markets to competition.
Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world and the most industrialized Latin American nation.
It covers almost half the territory of South America and has 20 states within its boundaries. São
Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, and the third largest city in the world.
Mexico is the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world and the United State’s second
largest trading partner, lagging behind only Canada. In 1997, the Mexican government
authorized nine carriers to provide long distance services.
Argentina is second in size to Brazil. In November 1999, Argentina opened competition to four
companies for local, domestic and international calling. Argentina’s current deep recession and
high unemployment are hurting competition and innovation in telecommunications sector. It now
carries the greatest debt of any country in the world. Argentina’s worsening financial situation is
impacting other countries, particularly Brazil.
Design
This is the starting point when determining how much effort it will take the client and the vendor
to achieve a project’s goals. A key part of this process is the early evaluation of the opportunities
to pursue. It is necessary to evaluate such things as:
- Does the customer have enough resources for what they want to accomplish?
- Is there sufficient corporate commitment to the project?
- Have {we/they}done this successfully before?
- What are the objectives? Can we meet them?
- What are the risks? Can we mitigate them?
Both parties need to assign a Project Manager and a Technical Lead, who will remain in contact
with each other. Each project manager should be totally committed to the success of the project
and ensure that all others involved are equally committed. Customers that do not have sufficient
resources for the project may name the same person to be the project manager, the technical lead,
etc. Vendors should be prepared for this and take adequate measures to compensate for the
problems that can arise.
The source data is the most important information. It is useful to ask the following questions:
- Which department of the company owns the information?
- How can the client provide that information to the vendor?
- What is the optimal workflow to accomplish this work?
