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Explore our TEM blogs for expert perspective, real examples, and clear guidance to manage telecom and technology expenses confidently, with fresh insights added routinely.
With the expanding complexity of telecom, there is an ever growing push to integrate cost allocation into expense management. Managers want to know who pays for telecom services and how much they pay, so that they can make intelligent decisions. IT and finance both want deeper visibility into what is driving costs, and hopefully, insight as to how the environment can be restructured to minimize the impact to the bottom line.
Is your firm eager to explore Mobile Data Pooling? Well, a word of caution before you make the plunge. As they say, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure”, and many firms are finding that they don’t have reliable data on what their current wireless plans cost, let alone the assurance that they have optimized as much as possible.
In this video meet Nancy Peckham, Valicom’s founder and CEO. Nancy established the company in 1991, determined to serve those who had been taken advantage of during Bell System’s divestiture in 1984. With the vision for a vendor-independent adviser, Nancy built a dedicated telecom auditing team. Each team assists their clients in unwrapping and decoding the maze of monthly telecom invoices.
A telecom contract controls not only price, but terms and conditions, over a long period of time. Long distance rates, mobile data and minute pooling options, internet package pricing and device purchase costs all affect the bottom line. This means that getting the lowest cost, most flexible agreement possible is one of the very best ways to save money on telecom.
While we’re discussing mobile and wireless optimization, it’s a good time to revisit one of our more popular white papers – “Top 4 Tips to Manage Business Wireless Costs”.Recommended for anyone responsible for corporate wireless management, and seeking best practices in wireless expense reduction and cost control, get your copy from the telecom expense management white paper library.
Outsourcing TEM is one of the smartest moves a growing business can make to regain control of costs. Learn more about telecom expense management and how outsourcing can transform the way your organization manages telecom spending. Welcome back from a wonderful 4th of...
Good morning! It’s Monday again, and this week we have another Slideshare presentation for you. Are your telecom expenses a tangled mess? Who’s managing the invoices, contract negotiations, and billing? Streamline these telecom pieces, and save yourself a headache and a little cash.
Welcome back to the Monday Morning Catch Up! We hope your morning is off to a great start. In this week’s edition, find out what tools and services organizations are using to manage their telecom expenses more efficiently.
Need some fuel to get going on Monday mornings? Take a pit stop at our new weekly blog, “The Monday Morning Catch Up.” Find out the latest tips and tricks for managing your telecom expenses more effectively. Check in each week for intriguing visuals, videos and SlideShare presentations. What’s better than starting your week with the latest TEM resources?
Last post we talked about wireline, and this time we will discuss wireless invoice auditing. There is a difference in what you need to look for, so we separated them to make it easier to know where to focus.
This is where the rubber meets the road. Old school landline telecom invoice auditing. Every piece of paper that comes into your office from a carrier is a place to save money. Incorrect charges, setup fees you were never supposed to pay, items not billing to contract terms – there are a lot of reasons you are paying too much for your telecom services.
Telecom invoice auditing has always been the cornerstone of a strong TEM program. It is the first thing that comes to mind to control telecom and mobile costs, though it is far from universally implemented. Many firms simply receive invoices, verify they are within a tolerable range of variance, and pay them. This is an expensive oversight – analyst research confirms that up to 15% of telecom invoices have errors. Not having a dedicated person or team to review invoices monthly for problems can create a big leak in the telecom budget. A leak you can plug.
Valicom has posted their first SlideShare! The below SlideShare talks about the increasing trend of BYOD. Is it cost effective? Is it security safe? Are there legal and non-compliance issues? These are all important things to think about when implementing BYOD as part of your business. While this SlideShare points out problems created by BYOD, it also discusses alternative solutions that would steer you in direction that best fits your business needs.
Often in organizations, telecommunications expenses are allocated at too high of a level, without regard for the type of usage or the purpose of the service. This kind of high level accounting can short-circuit existing internal incentives that are designed to reduce expenses.
At first TEM programs only focused on telecommunications lines and the bills from carriers. As the telecommunications world has expanded so has the discipline. A number of other practices now fall under the umbrella of TEM.
With the expanding complexity of telecom, there is an ever growing push to integrate cost allocation into expense management. Managers want to know who pays for telecom services, and how much they pay, so they can make intelligent decisions using that data. IT and finance both want deeper visibility into what is driving costs, and hopefully, insight as to how the environment can be restructured to minimize the impact to the bottom line.
Huge not only in dollar value, but in sheer volume. Some firms have complex telecom environments including many locations, multiple vendors, and various services ranging from mobile to WAN. This can mean a lot of paper coming in, a responsibility that may make you want to hide in your office and pretend like you’re on vacation. For a year.
A popular service TEM firms offer is telecom invoice processing, but many clients don’t quite understand WHAT it is or HOW it works. What they do understand is that phone bills are a pain in the neck.
Invoice detail is most often associated with cost allocation and a telecom auditing. User, usage and cost information is made more visible, so errors and overcharges can more easily be seen and corrected. Data can be entered and allocated to a degree of detail dictated by the individual client, as some may want more granular information available for reporting. Electronic invoice copies are also stored in their original layout, as a PDF or other desired format, for archiving and research needs. This creates a rich history of data for use over time, giving visibility to important trends and the distribution of costs throughout the firm.
As much as companies rely on communications to connect with customers, partners and colleagues throughout the world, each channel can add significant costs to the overall telecom budget. This drives a need for telecom expense management to ensure all channels are necessary and optimized for the lowest cost.
As mentioned in our previous post on wireless, inventory management is critical to keeping a lid on your telecom costs. The trick is knowing WHAT to manage. And until the landline telephone goes away, they are still a headache. Here are some best practices we’ve found from twenty years of fixed wireline expense management….