Grudi Managed Mobility, Telecom & IT Saves CNB Over $750,000 per Year While Greatly Enhancing Capabilities

CNB Financial Corporation, headquartered in Clearfield, PA, includes more than 75 branch locations in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York and Virginia. Over the past decade, CNB Financial has added additional brands through acquisition and de novo builds to now encompass the following banks: CNB Bank, FCBank, ERIEBANK, BankOnBuffalo, Ridge View Bank and ESSA Bank. As CNB expanded, existing Mobility and Telecom solutions became cumbersome to manage effectively—so it called upon Grudi to help.

The Challenge

CNB had been experiencing significant success and growth by building on its core values; however, through that positive evolution, it had outgrown its Mobility and Telecom contracts and providers. Legacy technologies and services had become outdated, inefficient and unnecessarily costly.

In addition, it faced difficult contractual issues resulting from rapid service expansion. The current IT administration at the bank inherited an environment with complex, long-standing challenges. Recognizing the need to modernize and optimize key areas, they engaged Grudi to provide the expertise and support required to drive significant improvements.

Among the key issues were:

• Obsolete provider contracts.
• Internet circuits and telephone lines that did not mesh with CNB’s technology plan.
• Excess and redundant fiber circuits that were procured and often yet to be installed.
• Duplicate internet connections, with as many as five circuits in locations where only two were needed.
• The presence of an MPLS network with relatively low bandwidth at a high cost.
• Less than optimal internet connection efficiency and redundancy.
• The need to eliminate or replace legacy TDM lines.
• Noncentralized, inconsistent purchase of mobile devices from various stores.
• All mobile lines were on an account with costly unlimited plans.
• Underutilized active mobile lines—20% had limited or no activity yet were incurring costs.
• Manual setup of mobile devices in the MDM system, requiring significant staff time and effort.
• Many legacy mobile devices were in storage and unused.
• Mobility services were with three carriers, with three sets of invoices to review.

The Solution

After a thorough analysis of CNB’s technologies, Grudi’s team developed a comprehensive solution that centered around Grudi Managed Services. The solution included:

• A plan to solve the contractual challenges CNB was facing—agreeable to all parties—avoiding costly and time-consuming litigation.
• An inventory of all Mobility and Telecom services and assets to identify duplications and generate cost savings.
• An upgraded network design to significantly improve bandwidth, carrier diversity and cost savings.
• Terminating legacy TDM services or replacing them with lower-cost solutions.
• Outsourcing time-consuming activities to Grudi’s team of expert professionals.
• A complete analysis of CNB’s Mobility services and devices to identify optimizations.
• A standardized mobile device onboarding and offboarding process for better control, including device procurement standards.
• A standardized unlimited mobile plan structure to reduce costs and improve administrative efficiencies.
• Analyzing and prioritizing mobile data needs appropriately, including canceling unnecessary services.
• Automatic linking for CNB’s ABM and MDM accounts to add new devices.
• A program for recycling CNB’s many unused or obsolete devices and processing them for buyback.
• Utilizing Grudi’s Managed Solutions on an ongoing basis to optimize CNB’s technology, enhance capabilities and save costs.

The Results

By partnering with Grudi, CNB is enjoying greater efficiency, enhanced capabilities, lower costs and better use of staff time and effort. Specifically:

• Monthly Telecom & Cloud savings of $64,662—$775,953 per year.
• An anticipated additional savings of $24,000 to $38,000 from the disconnection of old circuits.
• Relief from time-consuming, costly contract challenges.
• Average monthly Mobility savings of $3,750—approximately $45,000 total in 2024.
• Elimination of duplicate and unnecessary services and assets, saving time and frustration.
• Termination or replacement of all legacy TDM services, projected to save more than $50,000 per month.
• Greater functionality, enabling CNB’s team to work more efficiently, serve its customers better and boost the bottom line.
• Elimination of 20% of mobile lines that were underutilized, saving nearly $2,000 per month.
• Addition of new devices automatically by linking CNB’s ABM and MDM accounts.
• Devices are now activated without manual intervention, making the activation process much shorter.
• Recycling of many devices, resulting in $1,280 in buyback value. This continues to be managed by Grudi on an ongoing basis.
• Through its Managed Solutions, Grudi reviews and processes all of CNB’s Mobility invoices, including usage monitoring, cost reporting, GL coding and more—improving accuracy, ensuring proper billing, saving significant staff time and avoiding administrative hassles.
• A convenient, efficient outsourced system for onboarding and offboarding devices, creating consistency and reducing expenses.
• Ongoing tracking and optimization of CNB’s technology and services through Grudi’s Managed Solutions.