- Lumen has accumulated a lot of internal processes and software over its history, making it difficult to function
- Now, Lumen is hiring OneVizion to clean up the mess
- OneVizion provides software that consolidates spreadsheets, tables and other data records into one unified platform that is easy to search, update and scale
Lumen Technologies’ CEO Kate Johnson has said the company is on a mission to clean up and organize its internal systems, and today it hired OneVizion to do just that.
OneVizion will help Lumen consolidate multiple legacy systems and spreadsheet-based workflows into a single, unified platform. Initially, OneVizion’s software will serve as a foundational system for Lumen’s Custom Networks division.
While Lumen needs to streamline its internal systems across the entire company, it’s especially important for project management within the Custom Networks division at this time.
This business is experiencing huge growth right now because of the boom in artificial intelligence (AI.) The division provides dark fiber, custom fiber routes and digital services to securely connect companies’ data centers and to support AI workloads. The Custom Networks division garnered more than $8 billion in new business in 2024. And due to the demand stemming from AI, Lumen is embarking on a multi-year program to double the size of its fiber network in the U.S.
Kye Prigg, EVP of Enterprise Operations, North America, at Lumen Technologies, told Fierce Network, that the OneVizion platform “is really enabling total command and control over billions of dollars of deployments that are happening across the country in real-time. We need to be able to understand on a day-to-day basis exactly where we are on every one of these deployments.”
Cleaning up tech debts
On its third quarter 2024 earnings call, Lumen’s CEO Johnson mentioned “the incredibly complicated” work of streamlining the company’s operations, given its long history of mergers and acquisitions and the accumulation of technical debts.
OneVizion’s platform will replace Lumen’s current multi-system approach. OneVizion’s software provides a single source of truth to make it simple for companies to input, search and use their own data.
Based in Marietta, Georgia, OneVizion already boasts a roster of gold-plated customers such as T-Mobile, UScellular, Rogers Communications and Samsung. In fact, Prigg, who’s overseeing the streamlining at Lumen, most recently worked at Rogers Communications where he helped the operator organize its systems using OneVizion’s platform.
The deal is really about giving Lumen some very advanced capabilities when it comes to controlling construction projects on a very large scale,” Prigg said. “As you’ve heard, Lumen has signed some big deals recently that have been announced, and we have a need to partner with someone that’s going to help us to deliver those effectively.”
John Patton, president and CEO of OneVizion, said in order to take on a project as large as the Lumen project it’s important for the OneVizion team to work in synch with the internal Lumen team.
“The problems are well established,” he said. “Our architecture is allowing problems to be solved in months rather than years. They’re basically being processed at unprecedented rates.”
Following its deployment in the Custom Networks division, OneVizion’s platform will roll out to the broader Enterprise Operations team, ultimately supporting thousands of employees and partners nationwide via a phased approach.
