Birch to Help Mattress Firm Consolidate Communications Nationwide

By Christopher Mohr
Contributing Writer

Birch Communications announced recently that it would begin work on consolidating the communications systems of Mattress Firm. The project is expected to simplify much of the company’s operations and reduce costs substantially.

Mattress Firm is a Houston-based mattress retailer with 2,300 corporately-owned and franchised locations across the U.S. The company has grown rapidly past few years, through a combination of its own store additions and several key acquisitions, which may be a major reason why Mattress Firm has so many disparate phone systems.

According to the Austin Business Journal, Mattress Firm acquired Mattress Pro, a 35-store chain in a deal brought Mattress Firm’s store count to 440 stores back in 2007. An even larger deal came in September 2014 when Mattress Firm acquired Sleep Train, a Sacramento, California-based retail chain with 310 stores. This came after Sleep Train had acquired Sleep Country.

Birch Communications’ expansion as a communications provider bears a similar resemblance to Mattress Firm’s expansion as a mattress retailer. As a result of transactions like the OrbitCom and Globalinx (News - Alert) acquisitions, the Atlanta-based communications company has a presence in all 50 U.S states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and Canada. It has also added fiber service to several metro areas.

It may seem to some that phone consolidation would provide little, if any, benefit. Whether retail locations needed to talk to each other or to corporate, they could easily accomplish that task with a regular phone call; who cares if they all have different phone systems?

The savings will come from the reduced accounting workload for Mattress Firm, taking less time to do A/P work and cut checks to pay the phone bills. The benefits of consolidation are evident in other projects. The University of Buffalo, for example, recently consolidated 70 disparate phone systems, saving the school $700,000.

It appears to be sound business decision on the part of Mattress Firm to have Birch consolidate its communications system. Not only will it save money on accounting work, it also makes sense, given the nationwide scope of Birch’s network and Mattress Firm’s locations in 40 states.