Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Grandville, Michigan, Core Connections Inc. is a mid-western sales and consulting firm specializing in the telecommunications industry. It was started by Mary Muir, who has over 30 years of IT and project management experience in telecommunication services, and the company prides itself on a customer-first, sales-second approach. Beyond selling, Core Connections negotiates prices with carriers, manages project implementations and assists with disconnects and support throughout the life of a contract. It has access to over 500 service providers.

Core Connections had worked with a telecommunications supplier for several years, supplying internet service to one of its customers. Then the supplier told Core it would take the business direct and cut the agency out of the loop. That account represented a potential loss of 25% of Core's annual revenue.

What the supplier did not know was that the end customer was loyal to Core Connections and would not do business direct. But Core still had to replace the service provider quickly. The customer had a multi-site requirement across 25 locations, so Core needed a supplier capable enough to support all of them and responsive enough to win the business, one that could jump right in and work out what each site required.

Core reached out to three service providers it believed could replace the previous carrier. One never responded at all. The second kept rescheduling and then cancelling the call. The third was Mosaic NetworX, a provider Core had met just a few months earlier.

Mosaic NetworX, founded in 2007, is an IT infrastructure provider specializing in network aggregation and managed services. Its team of network engineers and telecom veterans places particular emphasis on customer experience and project management, and, like Core, it describes itself as a customer-first organization. When Mosaic responded quickly to Core's request, Core knew it had found a supplier it could work with.

Mosaic carried out a detailed circuit analysis, covering both primary and secondary connectivity, for all 25 of the customer's locations. Normally Core would have several suppliers do this work; because Mosaic is also an aggregator, it became a one-stop shop for the agency. In the words of Core's Mary Muir, "Mosaic jumped through hoops trying to make it work for them."

The engagement produced a signed contract to roll out primary and secondary internet at two locations, with the expectation that it will lead to primary and secondary internet at all 25 sites. Mosaic's back-end project management has been a differentiator during the rollout: it reaches out proactively with status updates and delivers on the dates it commits to. Mosaic positions itself as a highly orchestrated single-vendor solution with hundreds of carriers worldwide, offering one quote, one bill, one currency, one language, one project manager and one point of customer service.

• Retained an account worth 25% of Core Connections' annual revenue after the incumbent supplier tried to go direct
• Signed contract to roll out primary and secondary internet at two locations, expected to extend to all 25 sites
• Detailed primary and secondary circuit analysis for 25 locations delivered by a single aggregator instead of several suppliers
• Around two hours saved per project each month on chasing updates, about 20 hours monthly at a peak of 10 projects
• Proactive project-management updates delivered on the dates promised, which Core says no other supplier matches