PHOENIX, April 14, 2004 — Six Sigma Qualtec (www.ssqi.com), a worldwide leader in providing performance improvement training, consulting and technology solutions to corporations, today announced the introduction of its new telecommunications practice. Six Sigma Qualtec’s dedicated practice, the first of its kind in the industry, is specifically designed to help traditional telecommunications providers, such as Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs), wireless phone firms and competitive local-exchange carriers (CLECs), become more efficient in their operating procedures. By learning and implementing improvements such as Voice of the Customer (VOC), Business Process Management, Six Sigma, Design for Six Sigma and Lean Enterprise principles, those companies will be able to dramatically improve the way they do business thus attracting and keeping customers in this hyper-competitive industry.

Six Sigma Qualtec officials said the company’s practice will initially focus on ways that telecommunications companies can align their core processes to their customers’ requirements, improve performance and reduce their costs per transaction. Such customer satisfaction and cost competitiveness are the major factors in their ability to compete in today’s market against non-traditional competitors, and to maintain a strong profit margin in the process.

Six Sigma Qualtec has a twenty-year long track record of helping firms successfully implement performance improvement practices leaving them with the knowledge and technology platforms to do it on their own after engagements are completed.

“By using advanced practices such as Voice of the Customer, Business Process Management, Six Sigma and Lean Enterprise principals, we will help telecom companies develop ways to increase their ability to listen to and respond to the demands of their customers, even as they lower their costs,” said Zachery Brice, a Six Sigma Qualtec Managing Partner, and the head of the company’s telecommunications practice. Brice, a Six Sigma Master Black Belt with more than 20 years’ experience in performance improvement at companies such as MCI and GE, noted that new rules make it easier than ever for customers to switch phone service providers, especially wireless service. The rules, he said, represent the providers’ toughest challenge ever.

A recent report from industry analyst Forrester Research indicates that more than half of all wireless subscribers who spend more than $40 a month on their phone bills are three times as willing to switch from their current phone company, since they can now take their existing phone number with them. Another analyst report, from the Yankee Group, indicates that carriers could spend as much as $3 billion to try and keep the effects of customer “churn” to a minimum.

Six Sigma Qualtec’s new telecommunications practice focuses on specific areas of improvement, such as maximizing the customer experience by reducing service wait times, improving network quality and streamlining the cost of doing business.

“Six Sigma Qualtec has proven its ability to deliver customer results across multiple services industries, and it is uniquely positioned to help phone companies at the very time they need it most,” Brice added. “They are not only competing against each other for customers; they must face competition from providers like cable companies, which have far lower costs to entry, and face less regulations. Consistently enhancing the way they do business and paying vigilant attention to the voice of their customers is at the heart of Six Sigma Qualtec’s solutions and we combine them with an industry-specific focus that will obtain the results these companies need.”

More information about Six Sigma Qualtec’s telecommunications practice is available by calling the company at 800.247.9871.