TEM partnership opportunities are one of the most overlooked growth strategies available to IT consultants, MSPs, and technology resellers looking to expand their service portfolio and generate recurring revenue. Learn more about telecom expense management and how evaluating the right TEM partnership can transform both the value you deliver to clients and the financial performance of your firm. First, we would like to congratulate you for looking into options to further your firm’s success. Whether you are new to telecom and technology expense management or you are seeking a change, there are many factors you are probably evaluating. Join us while we evaluate some common hesitations to making the move and evaluating a TEM provider.
Why Your Firm Needs a TEM Partnership
Telecom is always changing and seldom static — this is why one-time audits are just a temporary cure to the headache of an unmanaged environment. Technology is also rapidly changing with cloud, IoT, and pay-as-you-go service models, and you must adapt to these changes to accurately manage your environment. Whether your client’s environment is wireless only, wireline only, WAN, or an assortment of all assets, the following are universal headaches:
- Up to 35% of all invoices have errors and most organizations are paying late fees unknowingly
- Most organizations are lacking in one or more of these three areas: time, telecom expertise, and telecom resources
- Anywhere from 15% to 40% of an organization’s telecom budget is wasted if trained resources aren’t carefully examining bills or optimizing services, plans, and contracts
Telecom and technology expense management will help you free up working capital to put towards growing your business. According to AOTMP, organizations that implement structured TEM programs consistently achieve initial savings of 15% to 30% on their telecom spend — with ongoing cost avoidance compounding those results year over year. A well-structured TEM partnership gives your firm the tools and expertise to deliver those results for every client in your portfolio.
Overcoming Common TEM Partnership Hesitations
Hesitation 1: Are You Currently Using Microsoft Excel for TEM?
Excel is an excellent tool for manual data manipulation — but it is much more cumbersome when it comes to managing workflow processes and getting full visibility into data. IT consultants frequently leverage Excel spreadsheets to track IT spending, invoices, and more. However, it has many limitations that become more costly as the complexity of your client environments grows.
The inability to automate invoice auditing, track contract renewal dates, manage multi-vendor inventories, and generate real-time reports means that Excel-based TEM consistently misses savings opportunities that a purpose-built platform catches automatically. Understanding why you need a telecom expense management system makes the limitations of spreadsheet-based management immediately clear — and frames the ROI conversation that should drive your TEM partnership evaluation.
Would you be willing to have a brief conversation to explore how you’re using Excel and whether you’re realizing the full value of what a dedicated TEM software partnership could provide?
Hesitation 2: Do You Have Other Priorities Right Now?
We would be surprised to learn that TEM is an immediate priority for every firm evaluating this conversation. One hesitation we hear frequently is that partners have other business initiatives in place with little time to allocate towards a new project such as a TEM partnership. With a customer-first vendor like Valicom, most of the heavy lifting is taken off your firm’s shoulders for deployment. Even sales and marketing tools can be designed to your brand in order for you to take off running with the sale of your new TEM service.
The reality is that the best time to establish a TEM partnership is before your clients start asking for the capability — not after. By building TEM into your service portfolio proactively, you position your firm as a more comprehensive, more valuable partner rather than scrambling to respond to client needs reactively.
Hesitation 3: Do You Use an In-House Solution for TEM Services?
Do you have a feel for how many internal resources are being dedicated to your in-house TEM solution? Would you be willing to explore the ROI of a partnered solution and compare it to yours?
According to TEMIA, the initial savings a business makes after investing in TEM software can be as high as 15% — and this doesn’t even factor in cost avoidance against future spend, which can drive this number up to 30%. From identifying billing errors to streamlining negotiations with service providers, TEM software is the ideal solution for any business looking to make their telecom environment more efficient.
A centralized TEM database make difference for organizations currently managing telecom data across disconnected systems and spreadsheets — and this same principle applies to the technology your firm uses to manage client environments under a TEM partnership.
The ROI case for a partnered TEM solution typically rests on three pillars:
IT Personnel Efficiency — When your IT operations aren’t running efficiently, the expertise of skilled IT professionals is wasted doing mundane tasks. By automating time-consuming processes using TEM software, you free up their time to focus on work that drives your business and your clients’ businesses forward.
Overall Business Efficiency — When businesses streamline workflows and offload monotonous processes, everything runs more efficiently. Using TEM software like Clearview boosts overall transparency, reduces errors, and ensures that employees are equipped with the technology they need to be as productive as possible.
Reduced Waste — It’s not uncommon for businesses to pay for services they don’t actually use. With the right TEM software in place, an enterprise can easily identify and cancel these redundancies. The platform identifies billing errors and makes contract negotiations simpler as businesses find the perfect contract offerings to meet their unique needs. This is exactly the kind of value that strengthens client relationships and drives retention — which is why a TEM partnership is such a powerful tool for building a stickier, more defensible service portfolio. For organizations thinking about year-end financial planning, exploring fall financial makeover need telecom expense management frames how TEM savings fit into a broader organizational financial strategy.
Valicom TEM Partnership Options
Valicom offers an assortment of partnership options to better serve you and your clients. Choose which of the following referral and strategic TEM partnership opportunities fits your needs best:
Referral Program — This opportunity is for consultants simply looking for referral income by passing along interested leads. Pass interested clients through to your Valicom team and earn healthy recurring commissions on a per-client basis.
Strategic Partner — Valicom’s strategic TEM partnership option is for consultants seeking more active TEM support and expertise. Even if you are new to TEM but would like to take an active approach, this option is for you. Strategic partnerships include three variations:
- White Label — Let Valicom brand Clearview with your logo and name to make our tool yours. Valicom will brand software demonstrations, sales sheets, and marketing tools with your white-labeled software logo and design.
- Back-Office — Make our team yours by tapping into Valicom’s team for managed services that enhance and expand your current TEM offering. This makes you a stickier, more valuable, and more comprehensive expert in the eyes of your clients.
- Full Outsource — Connect your clients with our full suite of telecom expense management services and push off the heavy lifting tasks like invoice auditing and the loading of invoice data to our team.
About Valicom’s TEM Partnership Heritage
Valicom has been leading the telecom and technology expense management industry since 1991 as a boutique TEM firm offering web-based software and a full suite of services. Valicom takes TEM very seriously and is committed to being a strong partner for consultants.
The Elite Partner Program has been carefully crafted to help you seamlessly add TEM solutions and expertise to your portfolio of services. Valicom respects your expertise and influence in the industry and strives to be a reliable, responsive resource for you in your work. A TEM partnership with Valicom is not a vendor relationship — it is a genuine strategic alliance built on shared commitment to client success and continuous improvement.
Ready to explore what a TEM partnership with Valicom could mean for your firm’s growth? Contact Valicom today and let’s evaluate the options that best fit your business model, your client base, and your long-term goals.
