Community Fibre Limited - Community by name, community by nature (CHAIN)

Community by name, community by nature

Community by name, community by nature

Mike Brooman, Head of Supply Chain at Community Fibre Limited shares insights into the internet service provider’s (ISP’s) strategy for supply chain innovation and sustainability, which never loses sight of serving its communities while in a context of rapid growth.

name, nature

Community Fibre is London’s largest and fastest 100% full fibre broadband provider for residents and operates exclusively across the capital. Its mission is to bring faster, more affordable broadband to Londoners, and serving its local communities is at the very heart of what it does.

ast year, Community Fibre Limited announced that it had signed a new finance facility of £985m, which will enable the company to continue to execute its rapid rollout of a full-fibre broadband network to 2.2 million London homes by the end of 2024.

Here to tell us more about its strategies for growth, innovation, sustainability

and

outreach is Mike

Brooman, Head of Supply Chain.

FULL-FIBRE SERVICE

Speed, service and reliability are at the core of the broadband Community Fibre provides.

“Unlike most other providers, we build, operate and own our dedicated 100 per cent full fibre network, all the way from the cabinet

Customer Service

The Altnets team provides an incomparable service to our clients. Their knowledge of the telecoms industry and strong relationships with our manufacturing partners means they can fully support you through the whole procurement process, save you time and money, and solve any problems arising in the supply chain.

Our team are there through every part of the procurement process. We support customers with future forecasting and strong communication throughout the procurement process in the case of any issues or shortages affecting the supply chain. We are focused on saving customers time and money on their telecoms builds, no matter how large-scale and complex.

Award-winning Altnets are the UK’s leading telecoms procurement specialists.

We offer bespoke, flexible and scalable supply chain solutions for the UK’s Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

90+ years of industry experience and close ties to manufacturers, industry bodies and ISPs means we understand the challenges Alternative Networks (Alt-Nets) face.

Our mission is simple: to improve reliability and efficiencies for our customers.

How do we do this?

By auditing your current supply chain, extensive forward planning and working with our manufacturing partners to provide you the best quality products while maximising return on investment.

Who are Altnets?

We offer internet service providers the ‘full package’: product procurement, supply chain management, planning, forecasting and scheduling.

We set up the business to be a one-stop-shop for telecoms builds, partnering with the UK’s leading manufacturers to reduce product delivery times and carbon emissions across the supply chain.

Our sales team reviews each customer’s current bill of materials, pricing and lead times to ensure they are getting the most out of their supply chain. We will always identify areas where we can speed up product delivery and save our customers money.

We provide complete support to our customers, giving advance warning of any complexities and bottle necks in the supply chain, providing confidence that they will receive the products needed in a timely manner to achieve their network build within required timeframes. Our unique freight-forwarding solutions save time as well as carbon emissions.

Our Values

What we offer

A completely tailored service for each client

Unparalleled knowledge of the global telecoms supply chain

Strong relationships with the world’s best fibre optic manufacturers, ensuring you access to the best products

Bespoke product design and development

The best return on your investment

Complete management of the procurement process from start to finish An award-winning team of expert supply chain specialists

to the property, therefore not relying on Openreach or any other provider’s cables,” explains Mike. “While a lot of companies advertise their internet as being fibre, often it's only fibre to the cabinet and then it's copper or coax from the cabinet.

“At Community Fibre, we provide a full-fibre network all the way to the home, allowing us to promise incredibly fast symmetrical speeds to sell to residential customers, with packages up to 3,000 Mbps and businesses up to 10,000 Mbps. Living in southern Lincolnshire, I'm struggling to get above 25 Mbps. I’m very jealous of what we can provide to our customers.”

INNOVATION/TECH

At Community Fibre, process and technology innovation are essential to securing these speeds and

“By working together with Altnets we were able to come up with new designs, new technologies and to develop a new product range”

reliability. But what does innovation look like at the company?

Mike answers, “We’re always trying to push the boundaries of modern technology and Wi-Fi connectivity for our customers. Considering we can provide 3,000 Mbps speeds into residential customers' homes you clearly need a highly capable product that can keep up with the rest of the connectivity issues customers may have. They're likely to have 10s of devices able

businesses. It provides the Velops which go into the customer's properties to produce the Wi-Fi signals. The way we collaborate with Linksys is game changing, because it’s able to adjust to our forecast on the fly.

“If we see an opportunity in the market where we think we're going to increase sales in a certain product range, Linksys has the flexibility to support us by delivering on shortened lead times, and

to connect around their home and they'll be expecting full Wi-Fi strength throughout their property.

“We work closely with our partners such as Linksys to stay on the front foot of that road map. We are moving forwards onto tri-band Wi-Fi 6, one of the more advanced Wi-Fi capability products. We also have roadmaps leading us towards Wi-Fi 7. We keep on top of that innovation and work with them to bring the best products to our customers.

“Linksys is critical to installation in our customers’ homes or

adjusting its manufacturing systems or processes to deliver faster at different levels of our product range.”

But speed is not the only concern for Community Fibre customers, the reliability of Wi-Fi signal, security and user capability are crucial factors too. This is where innovation in customer service provision becomes important.

Mike explains, “One of the things we really like to see is the ability for our customer services team to proactively resolve issues at customers' homes.

“Linksys is critical to installation in our customers’ homes or businesses”

Reliable & flexible mesh WiFi 6/7 solutions for ISPs

Linksys

35 YEARS of networking innovation.

“Rather than waiting for the customer to phone up to say they may have a problem with their Wi-Fi, we're able to monitor that network strength and capability across our entire network. When we see issues, we can be proactive against them and hopefully resolve any outages before the customer even notices because we've got such advanced reporting capability.”

Community Fibre is currently undergoing a full change in its Supplier Relationship Management (SRM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).

“We've basically overhauled our entire technical map,” summarises Mike. “Within the last couple of years, we moved from Google

to Microsoft suites. Everything is changing, upgrading and bringing with it some innovative solutions. We're also implementing AI into our customer services to be able to support them and look for patterns. By doing so, we're creating opportunities for our customers to resolve problems themselves without needing to necessarily phone us and speak to us in advance.

“It's those small innovations one step at a time that really make a difference when you add them all up.”

“We're also implementing AI into our customer services to be able to support them and look for patterns”

SUPPLY CHAIN STRATEGY

At Community Fibre, Mike’s role as Head of Supply Chain is to ensure the company uses the best suppliers, offers value for money and is always improving its products and services.

He breaks down their supply chain strategy into five key areas: suppliers, sustainability, quality, value and global community provision.

Suppliers

“The relationships with our suppliers are crucial to strengthening the relationship with our existing supply

chain,” says Mike. “There are suppliers that we've worked with from day one, newer suppliers that have joined us along the journey and there are still suppliers that we haven't yet met that will help us across the finish line. Strengthening those relationships builds the resilience of our supply chain, allowing us to continue to build faster than anyone else and get our targets across the line.

“Supplier relationship management is a key priority for the team, not just this year but probably for the coming years as the shape of the business changes.”

But how do they nurture these relationships with suppliers?

“We strive to be open and transparent in our communications with our suppliers,” responds Mike. “We provide regular feedback and work collaboratively to identify areas where we can support each other and be innovative.”

For Mike and his team, true collaboration means working together closely with suppliers to strive towards mutually beneficial strategic goals. This might

CREATING SMARTER SOLUTIONS TOGETHER

Melbye – your fibre specialist wholesaler

Looking for a reliable supplier of end-to-end fibre solutions?

Melbye’s got you covered!

No company should stand alone when creating smart and sustainable solutions for tomorrow, and neither should they compromise on quality and reliability. Therefore we believe in partnering with the best international manufacturers and offering our high expertise, so that we can create smart relationships that benefit everyone.

At Melbye, not only will we offer smarter and more innovative solutions for our customers, but we will strive to actively contribute to the benefit of society, people and the environment.

Through strong relationships with our partners, we can ensure that you are always up-to-date with the latest industry trends and innovations.

Melbyes history spans all the way back to 1907 and we have become a leading supplier of infrastructure network solutions in Scandinavia. Now we have brought our nordic mindset to the UK – offering one of the widest ranges of top-quality fibre products on the market.

We look for partners who share our values of quality, innovation and reliability, and who are committed to sustainability and ethical practices.

If you are looking for the same – then we are looking for you!

Contact us by scanning the QR code, or visit: www.melbyefiber.com

involve piloting new technology, delivering new methodologies or exploring different operational models. Other times, it is about approaching suppliers with a problem they could not solve internally.

Mike elaborates, “One example is when we approached Altnets with a couple of different product ranges that we were unable to continue to source, but needed to improve and upgrade. It wasn’t necessarily in its catalogue

before we spoke to Altnets, but by working together we were able to come up with new designs, new technologies and to develop a new product range. This allowed us to deploy something that is somewhat unique to our network and the way that we're working, but we believe will be beneficial to the wider alt-net community in the long run.”

“Melbye is another recent addition to our supply chain, as a fibre specialist wholesaler based in

“We have been using Melbye to support our growth in our build area, with the supply of ducting”

Scandinavia. We have been using them to support our growth in our build area, with the supply of ducting.

“They have been very quick to react to challenges within our supply chain, and we have been working closely with them in a number of critical product ranges.

“They have only been in the UK market for 4 years so have made great progress and we are excited to continue to work with them over the next stage of our company growth.”

Here Mike also lauds Community Fibre’s relationship with HellermannTyton.

“HellermannTyton has been one of our longstanding suppliers and they're constantly bringing new families of products and

ranges to market. We recently sent our technology team to its manufacturing facility to discuss exactly what we need and where we need it. This helps to shape a road map of development, and they work with us on a lot of our new products that are coming in.

Manufacturing quality equipment is a primary concern, but distribution is also important.

“HellermannTyton is able to store products for us, ship them to us

communications market and so their expertise is invaluable. They're often as much a partner or advisor as a supplier. Our technology team work closely with them, take problems to them and they solve the problem for us.”

Sustainability

“We don't want to just be building fastest, we also want to be very green and take care of our environment – not

when we need them but also deliver them to any number of our subcontractors,” adds Mike.

“Community Fibre work with about 20 different subcontractors in and around London. HellermannTyton has the flexibility and logistical capability to deliver to who we need, when we need and it is hugely beneficial. They've also got a stellar history in the technology industry within the

only in the areas we provide broadband but also the places we are influencing within our supply chain,” says Mike.

“When we buy technology, from the equipment in customers’ homes to the plastic ducting that goes underground, these components are not built in London, they're manufactured around the world. As such our community is not just our

“

HellermannTyton is able to store products for us, ship them to us when we need them but also deliver them to any number of our subcontractors”

London-based boroughs where we work, our community is global.

“We work with our supply chain to drive a sustainability agenda and that's throughout everything operationally and our supply chain. We are trying to promote sustainable sourcing, reduce our carbon footprint, work with suppliers to reduce theirs, develop environmentally friendly technologies, push for

a reduction in our single-use plastic and transition from using virgin material to using recycled materials.”

Quality

“In order for us to provide stable, fast broadband we need quality materials,” says Mike. “One of the focuses for my team is to make sure that we aren't just going in and trying to buy the cheapest

and then caring about the quality later. We're in this for the long run. So we buy high-quality products, we make sure that we're achieving the standards that we need to achieve – often exceeding them in the process.

“We cannot provide a customer 1,000 Mbps internet without having extremely stable high-quality products being put into their home. The units that we are putting into

customers' homes are high-end and future-ready technologies. We're constantly looking to push that boundary. We’re looking at what's the next road map along the line for the Wi-Fi whether it's Wi-Fi six-e or seven and where are we going to go from there?”

Value

“Clearly, we can't continue to sell to our customers at a

very competitive price if we’re spending money where we don't need to be – so we do focus on value,” states Mike.

“We like to think that it's not just about the price, it's very much a value piece. But value has to come at competitive pricing. We regularly review tenders on product ranges, partly because of our growth. Often, whatever we said we were going to buy last year, we're buying double. We expect to be able to drive a more competitive price as we have become a bigger player in the market, but also just making sure that we're really keeping an eye on our costs.

“But there's no point in spending money on something that the customer doesn't really care about and isn't interested in. If

“We want to be the biggest fibre to the home provider in London maintain, our best-in-class customer service and continue to support the communities that we work in”

pushing that tech boundary isn't what they're after, if what they need is a competitive price broadband, we pivot. We like to keep our supply chain lean and buy in what we need. We don’t want to have a lot of waste. It's good for keeping our environmental concerns in check, but also keeping our costs down.”

Community provision

“For us, community stretches all the way from our end users all the way up to our supply chain,” says Mike. “We're a London-based ISP and we recognise the importance of our local communities. But we work closely with our supply chain to ensure they're also respecting the communities they work in,

engaging with them and ensuring we're supporting them where possible too.

“For a lot of our subcontractors that are building and installing in London, they undertake their own community focus work. So they might be going and supporting local food banks, they might be working within schools or providing equipment and we really

help to make that happen and provide those local products and services and enable our supply chain to also focus on their community.”

Outreach

Community might be one of the five elements of supply chain strategy at Community Fibre but

the concept of service extends far beyond this.

Affordability is key. The company offers a range of packages at different price points to ensure their services are affordable for all Londoners, regardless of their economic circumstances. Two of the mantras at Community Fibre are ‘Bridging the digital divide’ and ‘Fairer broadband for all.’

The concept of serving the community is not limited to their broadband packages – it extends far beyond internet provision.

“We provide free 1,000 Mbps broadband connections to community centres in any areas where we're operating. We've connected almost 500 community spaces now in London,” Mike says.

“We offer digital skills training through our digital ambassadors. We train digital ambassadors in the local communities who can then move around in their districts and support anybody – for example vulnerable users, schools or classes – with digital skills training. That might include internet security, using emails, online banking, how to be

aware of avoiding scams and so on. I think that's a vitally important part of what we're doing. We're not just there to sell broadband to people, we're also there to support communities and vulnerable people in them.”

PRINCIPAL AMBITIONS

So, what is next for Community Fibre in the coming years?

Mike elaborates, “We want to be the biggest fibre to the home provider in London, maintain our best-in-class customer service and continue to support the communities that we work in and improve the lives of the people that we work with.

“Within this, we're working on improving our supply chain technology. From investing in new tools and systems to give us visibility of our supply chain, to better demand planning and warehouse management systems – we’re hoping that we can use technology to make our supply chain more agile and our inventory leaner. We also want to optimise our logistics to keep our carbon footprint and costs down and enhance our customer experience.”

To learn more about Community Fibre, visit their website communityfibre.co.uk

Added Value

CHARITY WORK

For Mike, the volunteer days Community Fibre coordinates are a cause worth celebrating.

“Everybody within the company gets an opportunity to spend a couple of days a year volunteering for a cause that is close to them,” explains Mike. “That's been very popular with a lot of our employees recently. We cover a range of causes so people can volunteer flexibly.”

Explore the company’s Community Investment hub at communityfibre.co.uk/ community-connect

FUNDRAISING

Community Fibre has raised more than £7,000 with the Lisa Howie Trophy, a yearly 5-a-side football tournament in memory of Lisa Howie.

Colleagues, landlords and contractors come together to field teams and raise money for causes in the communities served by Community Fibre.

WORTH A LISTEN

Mike recommends the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply podcast.

“They cover a huge range of topics that are very interesting for a lot of people within the UK supply chain, not just within alt-nets. They talk to a lot of logistics companies and retail companies and FMCGs (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) companies. It's a fascinating set of topics that they cover.”