Are you in charge of reducing business costs by negotiating your telecom and data contracts? If so, you may be wondering if you are being offered the lowest rates.The standard for your industry has been set by benchmarking, how else do you know how you stack up against the competition? Why not take the same approach to further help reduce your telecom expenses?
How big does your organization need to be to benefit from Telecom Expense control? What tool do you utilize to manage this function? Are you using a spreadsheet? How about telecom cost management software? Typically, there are plenty of soultions out there from pure outsourcing to expensive telecom expense management (TEM) software that requires a ton of care and feeding.
Inside the telecommunications expense management world, wireless is one of the fastest changing and most behavior based portions of a company’s spend to manage. One great way to head off some of the clean-up effort, is to periodically perform a wireless optimization.
The current telecom expense management (TEM) competitive landscape is made up of TEM solution providers focused on the upper end of the market (companies with over 5,000 employees). According to “The Value of TEM to the Small to Mid-Size Business (SMB)” authored by AOTMP, “there is a common perception of greater effort and cost than financial gain” causing “small and medium size businesses to shy away from implementing a TEM program.”
Valicom, a twenty year veteran of telecom expense management, reports continued high client satisfaction survey scores with its third quarter 2011 results. A strong combination of web-based software, flexible delivery options and excellent, experienced Telecom Audit teams creates an environment for client success, savings and satisfaction. The client satisfaction scores were 3.89 on a 4.0 scale, a record high.
Historically, the decision for companies to outsource their management of telecommunication expenses and desire for telecommunication optimization has always been directed at C-level. This decision can be complex in having to determine if Telecommunication Expense Management (TEM) is a part of the company’s core competency. Then the task was to create an Request For Proposal (RFP) and select a partner that will benefit the company the most.
Over the last decade, most organizations have reclassified their internal telecom expense management as an IT function and handed the responsibility to an already overburdened IT staff that is generally not knowledgeable about telecom services. In addition, a well-managed internal telecom expense function involves a cooperative effort between the IT/Telecom staff and the Accounts Payable staff. This also requires streamlined, well-defined and automated processes.
When conducting local service telecom phone audits, some of the most common cost reductions opportunities are due to a need for a local calling plan or un-needed local calling plans already in place. These are typically not large cost saving items, but can add up over time, and are very easy to implement.
When conducting telecom contract negotiations, large businesses know and expect to scrutinize all areas of those contracts prior to signing them. They not only review the contracts for pricing negotiation, but also for terms and conditions negotiation. The latter, the so called “T’s and C’s”, are what we often see small and medium size businesses overlook.
If you have, then the next steps would be to determine where your company fits in the range of telecom expense management solutions we offer. As we remarked in a recent post on TEM options, telecom management best practices can come in one of three flavors. Contact us for more details on any of these, or to setup a short discussion so we can recommend something for you.
Telecom expense management has been around for a long time. But many organizations avoid taking a more aggressive approach to managing their telecommunications expenses because they lack the expertise and don’t know where to start. When faced with the dozens of different types of invoices and the multitude of telecommunications technologies that an organization can be responsible for, it’s common to react this way.
Variable cellular costs can add up quickly. Most of the time you don’t know they are going to happen until they hit your bottom line. Then, OUCH! you certainly feel it. If these costs aren’t being watched and controlled it can happen month after month and really add up. Variable costs include text messaging, downloads, and – with most carriers new data plan changes – data overages.
In our twenty years of doing telecom expense management and telecom auditing, we’ve found that most firms are wasting anywhere from 10 to 30% of their annual IT budget. Why? By overpaying for telecom services. How? A variety of reasons, but the primary culprits are usually…
One of the biggest hurdles for any organization when it comes to taking a more aggressive approach to managing their telecommunications expenses is simply getting started. The first step on the road to reducing costs and increasing expense visibility is to develop a complete, detailed, and organized inventory that accurately reflects the entire telecommunications spend.
I have been reading the AOTMP telecom expense management (TEM) discussions on LinkedIn and I find it astounding that, after interviewing hundreds of enterprises, AOTMP found that corporations with over $1B in annual revenue experienced an average implementation time for wireless mobility management (WMM)/TEM technology of 10.5 months and companies with less than $50M in annual revenues experienced an average conversion time of 8 months. I’m assuming that enterprises between $50M and $1B in revenues experienced an average implementation time somewhere between the 8 and 10.5 month range.
Over at Mobile World Live, Matt Ablott wrote a great post about how the decline of SMS in mature mobile markets in Europe is driving carriers to rethink their profit structure. As we’ve reported on several times, the appearance of new “non-text” messaging options, like Apple’s iMessage which allows Apple device users to message one another directly, bypassing their cell provider’s paid texting service, is putting a crimp in a very lucrative profit sector for carriers.
Telecom Expense Management; a necessary requirement in the quest to achieve strategic cost reduction. Regardless of the size of the company, all businesses are always looking for ways to understand, validate, control and reduce business expenses. Companies that recognize the need for telecom expense control can choose between the following methods:
Telecom auditing and expense management firm Valicom is pleased to be involved in the Society for Telecom Consultants (STC) annual conference October 25-28 in Orlando. Valicom founder and CEO Nancy Peckham will be attending and participating in the vendor advisory council networking session. Valicom provides telecom consultants with the telecom expense management software Clearview and a suite of telecom auditing services to help them expand and grow their consulting practice.
At Valicom we have found that one of the best ways to reduce telecom expenses is by going out to Request For Proposal (RFP) for inactive or soon to be inactive contracts. Even if a Client doesn’t want to change Carriers, they may be surprised to find changes other Carriers have made since they last looked into their services. These could be changes in service, pricing, equipment and more.
The vast majority of America’s wireless carriers came to terms with the Federal Communications Commission on Monday, agreeing to alert consumers when they are approaching their monthly limits for voice, data and text messages, or when they are about to incur international roaming charges. Mobile providers will send a second alert when customers reach those limits.
As part of a continuing wave of profit-eating options to regular text messaging plans, Apple is set to release its new free iDevice-to-iDevice texting app called iMessage as part of an update to its mobile operating system. Essentially, it allows Apple doodad owners to send and receive messages with text, photos and video to each other over a Wi-Fi or cellular data connection.