Lightyear Case Study: BH Management

Learn how BH Management utilized Lightyear's Telecom Operating System to drive 25%+ telecom cost savings for its property portfolio by using Lightyear’s Network Inventory Manager to drive service recontracting at lower rates

Meet the Client

BH Management is a vertically integrated multifamily investment and management firm that’s been operational since 1993 - providing services around property management, equities, construction, architecture, and design. Today, BH manages over 113,000 multifamily units, 9,000 student housing units, and ~1,500 built-to-rent homes spanning 29 US states. Quite an operation to manage! In writing this case study, I had the opportunity to speak with Ryan Gibson, BH’s IT Portfolio Manager, about how he manages all things telecom.

Lots of Units Means Lots of Telecom Complexity

Ryan started at BH Management in 2021 knowing that he’d be entering a complex IT operation that could benefit from organization. BH has hundreds of properties, each with multiple telecom services required to operate - internet connectivity for leasing offices, VoIP for office lines, POTS for regulatory purposes, and more. Add this up, and BH is managing thousands of telecom services at any given moment.

To make things even more complicated, BH actively acquires and sells off properties, with up to 40% of their portfolio potentially changing hands in a given year! This means that BH’s network service inventory will change significantly from month to month. Keeping track of all of this was very difficult, as there was no centralized network inventory maintained at BH, but losing track of things could prove costly.

Ryan was tasked with determining at a property level which services were in place, whether the services were actually needed, and IF they were needed whether the rates being paid were reasonable or not. This would be quite the undertaking to handle on his own without help! When Ryan caught up with his old friend James who’d recently started at Lightyear, he realized he might be able to get the help he needed.

Organization Yields Cost Savings

Ryan was excited to hear about Lightyear’s Network Inventory Manager (NIM) offering from James - a service that would build a holistic digital “system of record” for BH’s telecom infrastructure and proactively go after cost savings for him. Lightyear would even do the work of collecting all of the pesky telecom data so Ryan didn’t have to, giving Ryan a single pane of glass by which he could view and manage his telecom service footprint.

After purchasing NIM in 2022, Lightyear underwent a data-gathering endeavor on BH’s behalf to centralize and audit the thousands of internet circuits, VoIP lines, POTS lines, and more to create a holistic digital network inventory record. Centralizing BH’s service details, IP information, circuit IDs, and the like all in one place yielded BH a number of operational benefits.

Once everything was organized for BH, Lightyear’s data set showed significant opportunities for savings across internet connectivity, VoIP lines, and POTS lines that led to a recontracting initiative to change out existing services for cheaper ones. With a number of changes across connectivity and voice, BH achieved material savings.

Finally, BH was able to leverage Lightyear to lighten the telecom load around property turnover. With Lightyear, BH could move, add, change, or disconnect services in the portal with clicks rather than phone calls, saving the IT team lots of time.

What’s next for BH with Lightyear?

BH hasn’t yet truly covered their tenant internet experience with Lightyear yet, and revisiting that is potentially on the docket for 2024 / 2025 as a priority. Ryan noted that BH may consider a managed wi-fi provider for the service, but noted quality of tenant experience as a core priority.

Ryan also noted that BH is focused on providing a truly “best-in-class” experience for all of its stakeholders, and continuous, systematic re-evaluation of all things IT is a key component of that, which Lightyear has played a significant role in.