Lightyear Case Study: Everon

Everon, a leading life safety provider, navigated a complex telecom separation from its former parent company using Lightyear to establish complete network inventory, streamline procurement, and simplify telecom billing.

Meet the Client

Everon™ is a leading provider of integrated security, video, fire, and life safety solutions supporting over 300,000 customer locations with a national network of over 5,000 employees across more than 100 branches. Everon’s vast network powers mission-critical operations and customer-facing systems, including fire panels for 911 signaling, high-speed circuits at customer premises, and connectivity across a national office footprint.

Everon recently became a standalone company in a strategic separation from its former parent company after being acquired by GTCR in 2023. Separation activities began in 2024—an exciting opportunity that brought with it the complex challenge of untangling and reorganizing telecom operations. 

To make the separation happen, Everon needed to create a comprehensive inventory of thousands of services, determine which assets would remain with its former parent company or transfer to Everon, establish new billing processes, and set up procurement workflows for ongoing service needs.

To better understand how Everon handled this separation and regained control of its telecom inventory, we spoke with Quenetta Davis, Telecom Procurement Manager, and Vanesia Moore, Telecom Procurement Analyst—the team responsible for procurement, inventory management, billing, and the day-to-day circuit requests for Everon's vast connectivity needs. 

A Complex Transition With High Stakes 

With Everon’s acquisition and separation, the telecom team faced a formidable task: navigating a complex transition that involved mapping and inventorying existing services, determining service ownership, setting up billing and procurement processes, and realigning telecom operations for a standalone organization.

The challenge was particularly acute given the nature of Everon's business: their network supports fire panels that provide connectivity for emergency 911 signaling systems that cannot experience downtime without potentially life-threatening consequences. Additionally, they needed to maintain connectivity for thousands of customer locations and their own internal branch offices and data centers.

As a lean team, they were using a telecom expense management (TEM) platform to help with this massive transition, but reality fell far short of expectations. During the separation process, the team discovered significant gaps in the existing solution: 

Instead of simplifying operations and offloading work, the TEM amplified confusion, introducing more questions than answers at a time when clarity was essential. As Everon worked to disentangle telecom services from its former parent company, the pressure was mounting: the separation deadline was looming, and they urgently needed a clear, accurate inventory of all services to determine ownership, allocate costs appropriately, and ensure continuity.

Bill payment processes were also fragmented as Everon prepared to transition to Dynamics 365 for its accounting systems. The existing TEM simply couldn't scale to meet the demands of such a large, time-sensitive transition. The lack of a reliable solution wasn't just inconvenient—it was becoming a major operational and financial risk that threatened Everon’s ability to successfully stand up as an independent company. 

Fortunately, Everon had been previously introduced to Lightyear through connections at its former parent company. One of Lightyear's representatives had been periodically checking in, and as the separation challenges mounted, Quenetta decided to reach out. 

Streamlining Telecom Procurement and Management

The Lightyear partnership began with Lightyear onboarding Everon's existing services into Lightyear's Network Inventory Manager (NIM) to establish a digital system of record for Everon's network. Through NIM, Lightyear worked directly with carriers to fill the informational and data gaps left by their previous TEM, creating a comprehensive and accurate inventory that would have otherwise required painful manual work from the Everon team.

Once inventory became clear, Lightyear's Bill Consolidation (BC) solution further enhanced Everon's operational control. BC proactively audits invoices, identifies and escalates bill discrepancies on Everon's behalf, and delivers Everon one simplified, consolidated monthly bill, ensuring services are never interrupted due to missed payments.

More Than a TEM: Complete Telecom Lifecycle Management

Where Everon's previous TEM provider put work back on the team, Lightyear took ownership of telecom operations in ways that went far beyond traditional expense management platforms.

Lightyear’s Procurement software automates Everon’s circuit acquisition process by digitizing RFP creation, systematically overseeing circuit implementations, and proactively negotiating optimal rates. For Telecom Procurement Analyst Vanesia Moore, Lightyear has transformed what was once a manual, time-consuming, and unscalable task for one person—sourcing internet across hundreds of locations—into a streamlined process that surfaces the best-fit solutions aligned with Everon’s technical requirements.

“Lightyear is our telecom expense manager, but they go further by identifying internet solutions during key transitions,” says Quenetta. Rather than simply processing orders, Lightyear is actively identifying optimal solutions based on Everon's needs, and using pricing and network intelligence to advise accordingly. 

Beyond the software, Lightyear also delivers what Quenetta calls “a breath of fresh air” in the TEM space, with white glove support spanning the full telecom lifecycle. This includes strategic network design guidance, contract reviews, and hands-on support navigating MSAs—all of which have been vital during Everon’s separation.

Bringing Clarity To Scale

As Everon continues to scale its now standalone operation, the impact of the Lightyear partnership is clear: less chaos, more support, and significant time savings for a telecom team with a huge network to manage. Quenetta and Vanesia can now focus on strategic initiatives rather than troubleshooting inventory issues or manually procuring services.

Looking ahead, Everon plans to continue using Lightyear to manage its growing infrastructure, leveraging the platform for bulk procurement for hundreds of sites and using Lightyear’s expertise to transition its legacy TDM circuits to newer IP protocol solutions.

With Lightyear, Everon doesn't just manage telecom expenses—they operate with clarity, confidence, and a trusted partner who ensures their critical infrastructure continues to support their mission of providing life safety solutions to hundreds of thousands of customers nationwide.