Airwave Innovation

Continued

The IT/Business Connection

As SIRIUS XM looks to do more for its subscribers, it’s building on its IT backbone. “We’ve been extremely pleased with our ability to respond and support the business,” Pratt says. “We’ve gone from 100,000 subscribers to more than 19 million subscribers.” That phenomenal rate of growth has resulted in a culture that drives the organization to look for ways to scale its business in the most efficient way to achieve its goals.

“Innovation is a cornerstone of our organization,” Pratt says. “SIRIUS XM is a very fast-paced organization—not surprising for a business with such a high growth rate and a management team that is known for achieving aggressive goals.” As an example of the company’s recent innovations, SIRIUS XM introduced the industry’s first à la carte subscription service that allows customers to choose their own package of 50 channels from the company’s extensive lineup. Another example of SIRIUS XM’s innovations is SIRIUS’ and XM’s internet radio services, which let subscribers listen online to more than 95 and 100 channels, respectively. “Delivering our content over the internet and through WiFi has made our content available to millions of potential subscribers, and we’re continuing to invest in initiatives that will expand the number of devices and applications that can connect to our service,” Pratt says.

A Collaborative Culture

Innovation requires strong alignment between business and IT leaders, according to Pratt. It requires a culture in which everyone works toward a common set of objectives with a shared set of results. That builds cooperation and keeps ideas flowing. “For each of our initiatives, we assign a product or service champion. Depending on the nature of the program, that leadership can come from IT, Marketing, Product Management, or Finance,” Pratt says. “Everyone has to work together. One of our strengths as an IT organization derives from the cross-functional skills of our IT professionals. Most of our people have 20-plus years in IT. The department leaders come to the company with a variety of different job functions on their résumés, so they are able to think about problems from different perspectives.”

Leveraging these varied backgrounds, the IT department is organized into solution management teams to work with each of the business lines. “The solution management teams act as internal consultants to the business, with expertise in that business line’s technology. And they provide a range of disciplines from project management to systems engineering,” Pratt says. About a quarter of the IT team is assigned to four business solution management teams: customer care and billing, supply chain management, finance and accounting, and BI. “Their job is to deliver cost-effective solutions in collaboration with our business leaders and help them explore opportunities where IT can add value to the company,” Pratt says. “Alignment and collaboration with the business is absolutely key. This model ensures that IT is aligned with our business leaders and provides scalable solutions at the right total cost of ownership.”

Whether they’re working on internet radio offerings or à la carte subscription services, the solution management teams not only enhance the sharing of ideas, but Pratt has also observed that they can generate real cost savings. “Our customer care team has saved millions of dollars through integrating voice response units and computer-telephony-integration technologies, and by streamlining workflows for our call center agents,” says Pratt.

“Based on our relationship with Oracle and a few other key partners, we’ve been able to integrate applications and workflows across our organization, from the first subscriber touchpoint, customer billing, revenue recognition, and marketing and retention management, to our accounting and financial management applications,” he says. “With Oracle, we’ve been able to leverage our application investment and provide cost savings to the business.”