CASE STUDY
Multi-Brand Retail Portfolio Recovered $1.85M in Carrier Overcharges and Reduced Its Annual Telecom Budget by 16.9%
At a glance results
- $2,122,436 Total carrier overcharges identified
- $1,852,314 Credits recovered — 87% collection rate
- $270,122 Currently in active dispute resolution
- $120,584 Early termination fees waived
- 16.9% Reduction in expected telecom budget
- 95% Invoice coverage in BearGuard™
The Client
SPARC Group LLC operates a multi-brand retail portfolio — Aeropostale/Nautica, Brooks Brothers, Eddie Bauer, Forever 21, Lucky Brand, and Reebok — across hundreds of store locations throughout the United States.
That footprint is not static. Store openings, relocations, and closings occur continuously across all six brands, often simultaneously. Each transition generates carrier activity: new circuits provisioned, old ones cancelled, billing accounts updated, contract terms triggered. The governance challenge isn’t just invoice volume — it’s the rate of change.
The Governance Gap
Before Bearstone, SPARC’s telecom environment had no centralized inventory, no systematic invoice validation process, and no dedicated dispute management function. Carrier invoices were processed and paid. Billing errors accumulated.
The pattern Bearstone identified on engagement is consistent with what we see across enterprise clients: unused services continuing to bill after store closings, outdated rates persisting after contract changes, bandwidth tiers that no longer matched active site requirements, and charges at locations that had been decommissioned. These aren’t isolated incidents. They are the predictable result of a vendor relationship that operates without governance structure.
No carrier is responsible for catching errors that benefit the carrier. That responsibility belongs to the enterprise — and it requires a continuous process, not a periodic review.
The Outcome:
Financial Results (January 2023 – July 2025)
- $2,122,436 in carrier overcharges identified across all brands and both carriers
- $1,852,314 in credits recovered — an 87% collection rate
- $270,122 currently in active dispute resolution
- $120,584 in early termination fees waived through carrier contract negotiation
- 16.9% reduction in SPARC’s expected telecom budget from FY2024 to FY2025
Operational Outcomes
- A single, accurate, always-current inventory of all telecom services across all brands and carriers — enabling budget forecasting with confidence rather than estimation.
- Recurring billing error detection on a monthly cadence, preventing the re-accumulation of errors between review cycles. Bearstone’s client base experiences approximately 10% monthly carrier over-billing on average; the governance process prevents that baseline from compounding.
- Full-spectrum billing visibility: when Office@Hand invoices were identified as under-billing, that variance was surfaced to the SPARC finance team as well — no payment surprises in either direction.
- A documented dispute and credit history across Granite and AT&T, accessible to the SPARC team at any time for budgeting, forecasting, and carrier negotiations.
- Carrier relationship structure: SPARC’s vendors now operate knowing their invoices are validated every month. That accountability is itself a governance outcome.
