How American Tower’s standardisation plans contribute to its global growth

American Tower is now active in five continents – North and South America, Africa, Asia and Europe, with a portfolio of 97,964* across thirteen countries. The company is now actively involved in an integration project that aims at standardising multiple engineering functions with the final goal of streamlining operations, reducing opex and time to market. In this exclusive interview, Raphael Mohamed, one of the key team members actively involved in the project, shares with us what has been done so far, the final goals of the initiative and the expected benefits it will bring to American Tower, its clients and the industry as a whole.

* Official total tower count as of 31 December 2014: 75,164. 97,964 refers to the global portfolio including recently announced but not yet closed deals.

TowerXchange: What are the key tasks currently being developed to integrate American Tower’s engineering functions globally? 

Ultimately, the tasks being developed are to support American Tower’s overall growth strategy over the next several years. These strategic goals include doubling our tower count and adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) by 2017, and providing exceptional service to our customers by becoming an invaluable partner in their wireless networks. Practically, this translates to our engineers collaborating across multiple borders to perform engineering services such as structural analyses, modification designs, new tower designs and radio frequency related designs. Reviews of current new build, reinforcement and maintenance approaches are also being examined as part of these tasks.

Additionally, we are looking at ways that we can positively impact local communities based on our unique assets and skill-sets. For example, we make a significant effort to bring power to our more remote sites. In addition, there is an extensive review going on to better understand multiple codes that currently govern the tower industry, including the U.S., Brazilian, Mexican, European and Indian standards. The Canadian and Australian standards are also being examined although we do not operate in those markets. This helps us adapt our engineering approach and roll out appropriate engineering tools to other markets.

TowerXchange: At which stage is the project and what is the expected timeline for completion? 

The initiative was launched in late 2013 and is still very much in its infancy. This is intended to be an ongoing project as we continue to integrate a large number of towers and potentially new markets into our portfolio. We are very excited that these collaborative efforts will yield significant benefits to the tower industry.

TowerXchange: Which countries are involved and which departments? 

Internally, we are working with our worldwide engineering hubs that service all thirteen of our markets. This includes direct interaction with our engineers in Brazil, Mexico, Germany, India, Ghana, South Africa, Uganda and the United States. These hubs were selected based on a host of factors including tower count, locally accepted codes, cultural uniqueness and anticipated future growth, just to name a few. We anticipate to be working with our Nigerian colleagues in the near future as that transaction is finalised.

While the main focus is on working with engineering groups, other departments are heavily involved to ensure that local needs are more broadly identified. On the operations side there is communication with our construction (build-to-suit and reinforcement groups), field services, power and maintenance groups, and with our network operations centres. Additionally, our local management, sales and legal teams are involved in our discussions.

Externally, partnering with foreign-based consultants/tower manufacturers is also part of our strategy. This maximises our ability to introduce more innovation. The International Association of Spatial Structures (IASS) and their Working Group 4, which specialises in towers and masts, is an excellent resource for tapping into the global tower engineering community. We also have to compliment TowerXchange for being another solid resource in better understanding the global tower industry. I would encourage anyone interested in joining our goal to drive innovation within our community to contact me to discuss their ideas.

TowerXchange: What is the expected outcome of this initiative? 

The intended outcome is for ATC Engineering to become a global leader in tower expertise and wireless infrastructure in general. The tower industry, to some extent, is where the automotive industry was a few decades ago. A lot of research and development was going on in numerous countries but collaboration across borders was minimal compared to what exists today. That’s what makes this initiative so compelling when you start to contemplate the possibilities. There are challenges, of course, as we try to transform the current industry mindset and it will take a little time. The hope is that best practices will flow freely across all markets both internally and with our external partners as well. As a result, the expectation is that innovation within the tower industry will be accelerated due to our efforts.

For example, we anticipate that tower designs for build-to-suit purposes will evolve more rapidly over the next several years. Tower owners will come to expect smarter and more tailored solutions for their needs and life cycle costs will be examined with greater scrutiny.

There appears to be a lot of activity within the remote monitoring space but the industry appears to be a little overwhelmed with all the solutions currently being proposed. As a handful of these solutions are selected, our ability to manage such a large portfolio should become less complicated. The speed at which ATC is able to penetrate into new markets and integrate those sites into the larger portfolio is also an intended benefit. More critically, we want to drive innovation that leads to even safer structures that both the industry and public can benefit from.

TowerXchange: What are the KPIs American Tower uses to manage this project?

One of the major initiatives involves standardisation of our engineering approaches across all markets. This will help us more readily share resources across markets and better address the challenges of the fast-moving wireless industry. As our customers’ deployment needs are very time sensitive, cycle time tied to provided services will also be tracked. Our ability to innovate as part of this project will be measured by capital/operational expenditure cost reductions while maintaining or even ameliorating our existing risk profile. Customer satisfaction surveys will be used to ensure that expectations are being met or exceeded.