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There are several models used by mid-market companies for telecom expense management. These models include manual processes performed internally, outsourced services, homegrown applications, on-demand software-as-a-solution (SaaS) solutions and on-premise vendor solutions.  Manual processing includes the use of spreadsheets and other labor-intensive processes to manage telecom expenses. Outsourced services involve a 3rd party that performs all or part of the end-to-end processing of telecom bills including processing and paying the invoices, auditing and analysis for savings opportunities, management of assets such as lines, circuits and devices, and providing deliverables and reports for informational purposes. Homegrown applications include the development of an internal database to assist organizations in managing their expenses. SaaS involves providing self-serve, web-based software and back-office services that enable corporate business analysts to perform telecom expense management in-house, implementing savings opportunities themselves. On-premise solutions involve licensed software that is loaded on a server at the customer’s premises for the purposes of managing telecom costs. So, what are the common approaches to managing telecom expenses today? To find out more, check out this link to my earlier blog on this topic entitled "Mid-Market Companies' Current Approach to Managing Telecom Expenses" or download Valicom's whitepaper entitled "Can TEM SaaS Solutions Lower Telecom Expense For Mid-Market Companies?" or register to stream a webinar sponsored by Valicom about this topic.
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.” They further report that, “the keys to a productive and financially beneficial TEM program are establishing an inventory of telecom services, features, configurations, charges and service providers, and maintaining invoice accuracy.” This report also stated that, “technology assists in unifying a TEM program. SMB companies can simplify work flow, eliminate duplicate tasks and relate TEM information into usable views via technology.”
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The research conducted by AOTMP also reported the following top telecom priorities for SMBs:
* Reduce telecom cost (62%)
* Learn/implement best practices (57%)
* Establish greater control over wireless costs (49%)
* Centralize telecom environment control (48%)
* Secure support for increasing staff to manage telecom (24%)
* Increase budget for more technology solutions (18%)
They further report “savings for SMBs with a TEM program with a focus on the TEM program savings activities are positioned to gain 22% greater savings as opposed to those without a TEM program.”
Today there is an answer to address the TEM needs, or Telecom Expense Control of SMBcompanies! Clearview-as-a-Service (CaaS), Valicom's telecom cost management software brings the power and control of large enterprise expense management to SMBs, who have historically lacked the internal resources and expense volume to realize benefits. Valicom’s CaaS offering is an easy-to-use, fully integrated, on-demand expense management system that provides real-time visibility into telecom expenses, pinpoints areas of corporate cost savings, while requiring minimal time and resources to implement. Designed to incorporate industry best practices and automated expense analysis functions, CaaS helps clients maximize company cost reduction, create greater operational efficiencies and reduce their dependence on suppliers, all while gaining the ability to reduce telecom expenses. Check us out at www.valicomcorp.comto learn more about CaaS and how your company can benefit from this innovative TEM solution!
Mind your features! Opening my personal cellular bill recently resulted in unexpected and unpleasant surprises. You see, I have twin 17-year-old daughters whom, like their mother, love technology…especially their new smart phones with all the bells and whistles. I did not caution them about price point cons for the games, ring tones, data downloads, music, wallpaper, etc. Big mistake. Even worse, I underestimated the amount of texting two teenage girls could amass in one month. Astounding and expensive. I should have told them to mind their features!
You probably see where I'm going with this. You may be responsible for 300 or 1000 cell phones and need to manage texting overages, cute puppy wallpapers purchased, and AC/DC ring tones blissfully downloaded. But, do you really have the time? I’m betting you don’t, so the potential savings go right down the drain each month. Of course, you have company policies in place that spell out allowed features but many employees can't resist the temptation of the VZ Navigator download or they simply either don't understand or choose to ignore their own corporate cell phone plan’s accepted features and limitations. Who has the time to peruse a 500-page cell phone invoice? Who has the time to follow-up on every identified issue from one month to the next?
Here are a few tips for business wireless cost-reduction strategies: - Start by monitoring the monthly invoice dollar amounts. Huge overages should catch your attention but what about the more subtle increases? Trust me, they add up quickly and can ruin your projected annual budget.
- Make the simple change to electronic billing to take advantage of the robust reporting capabilities most carriers offer on-line. Set up your account and navigate your way through the vendor's on-line portal and you'll find a wealth of information at your fingertips: equipment charges, overages, plan information, everything you'll need to effectively audit your invoices.
- Another solution begins with your Carrier Account Manager(s). Request quarterly reporting from them and set up your own parameters so you can get the custom reporting you need. This is a time efficient way to monitor all cellular usage from your carrier.
- Another suggestion, and my personal favorite, is to hire your own telecom expense management firm. They are trained professionals who take care of all the heavy lifting, follow-up, and nagging telecom annoyances you don't have time to take care of yourself. Find a telecom expense management firm who will work with you for a productive partnership and flexible fit.
Just a few easy ways to manage your business cellular expenses, saving you from the dreaded unpleasant surprise of overages, add-on’s, and everything in between.
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.  From this data, I wonder what the level of support or assistance from the TEM/WMM suppliers has been in the implementation phase for the transition to take this long! Granted, many client environment's are complex and the process of gathering invoices, cost allocation codes, customer service records (CSRs), contracts etc. can be a daunting task; however, with the support and project management of an experienced TEM/WMM supplier team, the transition should take no more than 3 - 4 months even for companies with over $1B in revenues. Valicom has been implementing TEM/WMM solutions for the past 20 years and the average time it has taken for our most complex business process outsourcing solution for companies with over $1B in revenues is 3 months. With our Clearview-as-a-Service (CaaS) solution, implementation can occur in as little as one month depending on client size and the volume of invoices, circuits and wireless devices they may have. Time is money and the focus is to properly manage the function and reduce business costs. With many clients, one of the main benefits of a telecom expense management solution is company cost savings through reduced telecom expenses. Operational efficiencies can also be achieved by utilizing best practices and automated telecom cost management software, once fully implemented. With conversion times as high as 10.5 months, I can only imagine that the return on investment (ROI) is quite long when using other TEM/WMM suppliers based on the AOTMP research statistics. Over the past 20 years, Valicom has achieved an average telecom cost savings track record of 30.4% savings on our client's telecom expenses and in most cases a return on investment is realized in the first year of the engagement. With our Clearview-as-a-Service telecom cost management software at a lower price point than business process outsourced services, and an almost immediate time to savings, the return on investment is generally much quicker. If you would like to experience the quick implementation first-hand, try our free 30 day CaaS trial. I guarantee you will be impressed! Valicom is the key to achieve true strategic cost reduction. Contact us today!
Many corporate enterprises have expanded their geographic presence through organic growth and mergers and acquisitions. Telecom expense control and reducing business costs become rather difficult as the proliferation of services and invoices abound across various regions. Telecom audits become challenging with a myriad of different vendors and services between locations. Centralization of telecom expenses coupled with the utilization of effective telecom cost management software is the key to greater control and telecom cost reduction. By consolidating vendors, there is greater volume to leverage rates and perform effective telecom contract negotiations. In addition, telecom auditing becomes more manageable with fewer invoices.
Valicom's Clearview® solution can assist in providing your company with centralization and telecom cost savings. This software as a solution takes all of your telecom invoices and inventories and populates all of the critical information in one central repository with detailed financial, asset, and issues reporting available on-demand. Invoices, vendors, and services are consolidated to simplify your telecom expense management functions. Telecom contract negotiations are also performed to ensure the best rates, terms, and conditions achievable with your suppliers. You can experience this first-hand by trying Clearview® free for 30 days. Through this trial, you can see how this solution will assist you in centralizing your services, reducing telecom expenses, and providing greater telecom expense control.
By Sandy Thompson I have seen more organizations auditing their telecom use for significant corporate cost savings which often will result in a newly revised corporate cellular policy. Opening my own personal cellular bill has often resulted in unexpected and unpleasant surprises. I have twin 17 year old daughters, whom like their mother - love technology. Especially their new smart phones with all the bells and whistles. Thinking that they would not be cell phone savvy I did not caution them about the games, ring tones, data downloads, music, wallpaper, etc. Big mistake. And an even bigger mistake I under-estimated the amount of texting two teenage girls could amass in one month. It was astounding and expensive. You probably see where I'm going with this? You may be responsible for 300 or 1000 cell phones knowing you can't manage every texting overage, cute puppy wall-paper purchased, and AC/DC ring-tone blissfully downloaded. Not to mention the surprise roaming charges! Of course you have company policies in place but many employees can't resist the temptation of VZ Navigator download or they simply don't understand their own corporate cell phone plan features and limitations. Who has the time to peruse a 500 page cell phone invoice? Here is your lifeline for business wireless cost reduction strategies: - Start by monitoring the monthly invoice dollar amounts. Huge overages should catch your attention but what about the more subtle increases? Trust me, they add up quickly and can ruin your projected annual budget.
- Make the simple change to electronic billing to take advantage of the robust reporting capabilities most carriers offer on-line. Set up your account and navigate your way through the vendor's on-line portal. You'll find a wealth of information at your fingertips. Equipment charges, overages, plan information, everything you'll need to effectively audit your invoices.
- Another solution begins with your Carrier Account Manager(s). Request quarterly reporting from them and set up your own parameters so you can get the custom reporting you need. This is a routine and time-efficient way to monitor all cellular usage from your carrier.
- Another suggestion, and my personal favorite - Hire your own telecom expense management firm. They are trained professionals who take care of all the heavy lifting and the nagging telecom annoyances you don't have time to take care of yourself. Find a telecom expense management firm who will work with you for a productive partnership and flexible fit.
These are just a few easy ways to manage your business cellular expenses.
By Michael Krogman Most organizations are doing fairly regular wireless audits and telecom optimizations. Hopefully your company is automated enough to do this monthly. But those regular monthly audits and optimizations are usually only uncovering one picture... plan changes, text messaging overages, international calling, etc. But bigger issues do remain. Does everyone at your organization who has a wireless device use it or need it? Over the past two decades most organizations have gone from executives only using cell phones to almost every employee having either a cell or smart phone and many with Air cards. With budgets getting tighter there is a need to reign telecom costs back in with telecom expense management. Below are a few steps to get a telecom audit started with big savings at the finish line. - Identify Zero/Low Use Users: All wireless vendors offer basic billing summary reports that you can use to identify users who are using their device very little, or not at all. We typically recommend using a three-month accumulation of this data. These reports should be available through your corporate on-line access on your wireless vendor's website. Or you can always contact your account rep to request them.
- Locate Zero Use Users: Once you start trying to track down zero use users you'll no doubt run into a percentage of users that no longer work at the company, have lost their phone months ago, or don't ever use it as it sits in their desk. You can get those disconnected right away. The rest of the zero use users fall into two buckets. Those in bucket one need their phone and you validated that necessity. Those in bucket two you couldn't locate. Which leads us to the next step.
- Suspend: Now suspend the user lines that you were unable to track down (make sure your boss’ phone is not one of these). Those people who did need their device will holler at you for sure and it's usually quick and painless to get their phone active again. Those who don't make noise we'll assume they didn't' need it and this adds more to your telecom savings.
- Low Use: Dealing with the low use users can be trickier. Talk to department heads or managers about reducing wireless costs. And by getting user reporting in their hands usually can motivate them to identify some of the low use users that maybe don’t need their device at all. You may even recommend device sharing among departments to further reduce your telecom spending.
During the recent economic downturn most companies had to tighten their financial belt and in a lot of cases take desperate measures to reduce and control cost. This is a process that should be taken seriously at all times and not just during lean years when management has a tendency to make knee-jerk decisions. The easy approach is always to look at human resource costs because this cost is usually the largest and the most visible on the balance sheet. Further, during times of severe need many companies claim to be experts in reducing costs and the ability to create solid cost reduction ideas that can impact the bottom line. When companies are desperate for corporate cost savings they may not have the time to compare and contrast one telecom service provider from the other.
As our economy starts to turn around and companies begin to recover the focus on a partners reputation is becoming more critical. Make sure your telecom expense management firm is value-based and that the values are aligned with your organization. Building a relationship with a telecom cost management company that you can trust to deliver is the key. Trust and integrity are two values that are required in establishing a foundation for any relationship. Be aware of telecom expense management providers that claim to be a cost reduction company just to meet your specific point-in-time financial pain points. Align your company with a proven leader in telecommunication expense management.
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