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 In part four of managing your telecom costs, we talk about the Deadbeat. Not necessarily a person, but an asset. If you have phones/lines/pagers/devices that aren't being used, or are being used a whole lot less than you are paying for, then you have a problem. This is something else your telecom invoice auditing and telecom inventory management can tell you. Do you have too many phones? Too many wireless minutes? Lines that don't go anywhere? Each one you can identify is a place to SAVE on your telecom costs. Shut them off, adjust them, merge them, whatever you need to reduce business expenses. And note that a good telecom expense management software tool can make this a whole lot easier, as it has some visibility tools that take the work off your eyeballs. Next up in managing telecom costs? A good wireless policy. In other words, learning to say "NO".
The research gurus at Gartner released a report today stating that the mass move of businessess to Windows 7 is going to mean a serious hit to IT budgets. The need to migrate from Microsoft Windows XP and Windows 2000 to Windows 7 in a tight time frame will create an extra budgetary and resource burden on companies from 2011 to 2012. “We estimate that large and midsize organizations worldwide will migrate approximately 250 million PCs to Windows 7, during the migration timeline..." said Charles S mulders, managing vice president at Gartner.
This spike in spending will come not only from expected software costs, but also from hardware upgrade costs and IT consulting expenses. And that money in your budget has to come from somewhere. Unless you have a giant pool of profits sitting around, which in this economy isn't likely, where is it going to come from? We have a suggestion. One of the best ways to make money appear out of nowhere is to NOT SPEND IT. Cut costs somewhere else, and re-allocate. It's magic, like pulling a rabbit out of your hat. And one ripe spot to cut business expenses is in telecom. If you can reduce telecom expenses through a telecom audit, or managing your wireless costs better, maybe find a few invoice errors that add up to savings.... then you can spend that money on some new PCs. Valicom can help you do that. We've been saving businessess money on telecom costs for almost twenty years. Want to know what we might be able to save you through strong telecom expense management? Just contact us for a free consultation and see if we can help fund your Windows 7 upgrade.
Building a business from the ground up is hard work. Keeping it standing can be even harder. With the diverse economic pressures coming to bear on modern business owners, it is often hard to stay on top of best practices in managing your expenses. Payroll, insurance, shipping, training, bathroom tissue, paper clips…. the bill seems to get bigger every day. Add to that the complexities of running a business in today’s technology-saturated marketplace, and the impact to the bottom line grows yet again. To compete effectively, you have to have the right tools. This means telephones, smart phones, pagers, expensive high-speed internet connections, laptops with wireless capabilities, the list goes on and on. And, over time, the list not only gets longer as new gadgets hit the market, but the number of people within your organization who needs these things goes up. And while most firms see the value in upgrading their technology infrastructure, they often don’t realize how ripe with opportunity this sector of their spending might be. Opportunity for savings. Steps to Reduce Telecom Expenses So what should you be doing to reduce your telecom expenses? Here we'll start a discussion of the “must do’s” in telecom expense management. Step One: Get all your telecom data in one place Whether you use a simple spreadsheet, or a streamlined web-based telecom expense management software, you want to put all your info where you can see it. Invoices, order changes, cancellations, additions, inventory, etc. You need visibility to generate good management because, as they say, you can't manage what you can't measure. And you can't SAVE if you don't KNOW. Getting the fine detail from your telecom vendors, your internal departments, accounting, IT - anywhere that might have part of the puzzle, helps you see the whole picture. Once you can get a handle on that, then you can move on to the next steps.... Stay tuned for Part Two: The Flood of Stuff (telecom inventory management)
For many companies, the best approach for managing telecommunications expenses and reducing costs, is to outsource the whole process to an experienced TEM consulting firm. Often, in these engagements, the focus is primarily on auditing and cost reductions. And while these activities are certainly paramount to an TEM project, there is another equally important side to these engagements. Most TEM firms can achieve cost reductions and provide standard auditing services for their clients - they wouldn't be in business if they couldn't. But only a few, such as Valicom, bring a truly unique and personalized approach to the TEM engagement. Valicom's project teams pride themselves on learning your business and becoming a seamless extension to your staff. Having this kind of relationship with your TEM firm means that you will realize more savings and cost reductions, while incurring less disruption to your internal processes, and enjoying a more transparent project. So when it comes to selecting the right TEM firm to meet your needs - make sure you consider the culture aspect of the firms in question. Finding a TEM like Valicom can go a long way to establishing a foundation for success for years to come and providing a solid shared strategy for continued cost reductions and expense management.
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 market for Telecom Expense Management software is getting crowded. Not much more than five years ago, our challenge was mostly centered around educating organization that Telecom Expense Management companies existed and that there is an entire industry whose goal is to reduce business costs, perform telecom audits and provide telecom cost management software. Now, the word is out and the challenge has shifted to differentiating one expense management solution from another.
 The good news here is that the consumer has choices and is in a position to be a little picky. When it comes to this pickiness, the savvy buyer is wise to make sure that any telecom expense management software solution can serve as an audit workbench as well as an information repository. This is to say that any TEM software is going to give you reports, trending, and a way to organize your expenses at a glance. What can differentiate a select few from the many are additional tools to give you the power to perform telecom auditing, expense analysis, and other activities to reduce business costs.
Even if you use a third party telecom expense management firm to help you today, who knows what the future holds? Today you may outsource certain functions that tomorrow you may want to take in house. All things being equal, a true workbench that provides customizable audit screens, issue tracking and resolution, and tools for optimizing telecom expenses, in addition to access to information, could save a lot of time and money in the long haul. Let the telecom expense management workbench be your key to hammering the fat out of your telecom expenses. –SAM
www.valicomcorp.com
The coming wave, and how it can totally blow your telecom expense budget....
A new IDC/Unisys report shows that managing the rise of consumer devices and apps in use in the workplace is taking many IT departments by surprise. At a time of slim budgets and tight staffing, the new wave of computers, smart phones, audio players, tablets, and eBooks is adding yet another layer of complexity to an already overburdened department. Many of the remote or roaming staff using these tools, referred to as "iWorkers" "don't often differentiate among activities, devices, and applications used for work and those used for personal pursuits,'' said John Gantz, IDC chief research officer, who authored the Unisys-sponsored report, "A Consumer Revolution in the Enterprise." "The pressure on IT organizations to integrate consumer-oriented devices and applications will only increase as younger workers, who have grown up in a world of texting, social networking, and smartphones, make their mark in the workplace," said Gantz. For example, IDC is projecting that the number of employees using smartphones at work will rise from 90 million at the end of 2009 to 160 million through 2014 in enterprises with 500 or more employees. And the number of smartphones apps will hit 500,000 this year, according to the IDC research. "We're not heading toward an age of total mobility. We're essentially there,'' said Alex Manfrediz, an IDC project manager on the study. "Having mobile devices and access to information anywhere, whether WiFi or not, that is fully expected." Manfrediz said the study confirmed a lot of blurring of the lines between personal and business activities, but understanding the scope was one of the more interesting findings. "Employees are telling us they're doing it significantly and employers are aware of it but feel there is a disconnect" between the level of control and employees wanting more and more access. *
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 The data in this new report only underscores the rapid ascension of telecom expense management as a key business cost reduction factor. All those people, using all those devices and data plans, are going to blow your budget. Big time. Unless you get on top of it NOW!
It's time to implement telecom expense control NOW as part of a mobile phone management plan, including a good wireless policy. Adopting a rapidly deployable, web-based tool like Clearview, which has little to no impact on IT resources, can help save the day. Read more and check out a demo of Clearview.
* Read more on this article here...
Kick the Tires, Honk the Horn, won't cost you a thing....
 We know that you'd never buy a car without checking it out, looking under the hood and taking a test drive. And while Valicom, with our twenty year history and record client satisfaction scores, isn't exactly "Honest Al" over at the local car lot, we'd still like to offer you the same courtesy. In February, we led the TEM industry by releasing our third-generation telecom audit platform Clearview as a Software-as-a-Solution (Saas), giving small to mid-sized businesses a new tool to reduce telecom expenses. It can also be used by telecom expense reduction analysts or telecom consultants to help them deliver results. Now we've made it even easier to try out Clearview by launching a short online demo, so you can see just what you're missing. And Clearview is designed to do just that - give you a " clear view" of your telecom spend. Delivered securely online, it allows you to review your telecom invoices for errors, see wireless expenses - like mobiles phones and data plans, organize all your telecom assets in one place, track changes, additions or deletions, and in general make order from chaos. And in doing so, you'll save TIME and MONEY, which is really the whole point. So if you'd like to take a test drive of Clearview, just head on over to our website and we'll give you the keys....
“You can't do today's job with yesterday's methods and expect to be in business tomorrow”
– Unknown Most of us have probably heard this sensible business advice, but are you taking it to heart in your current work processes? Maybe not… We all know that it’s a lot easier to use tried and true tactics, going down the same path every day, rather than tackling anything different. Heaven forbid - you might have to learn something new! But the price you pay for stagnation can be huge. New techniques arise, best practices evolve over time, fresh technology comes out…. Your competitors are probably on board. The 25-year old guy in the corner cube who wants your office is probably on board. You better get on board too, or the boat is going to leave without you. So what kind of neat shiny new things am I talking about? Well, I’ll give you an example. A HUGE example. Granted, this doesn’t have much to do with telecom expense management or telecom invoice auditing, but we get to that in Part Two. This one tool helps to illustrate how the software-as-a-service technology is changing the face of business. Something you can use to automate workflows, and reduce costs for your business. But, this example is at work in your sales department… Ever heard of SalesForce.com? If you’re in IT or a CFO, I forgive you if you haven’t. But, if you work in sales or customer service, you’re in trouble if you don’t know. It’s only the fastest growing, most heavily adopted, and slickest customer relationship management tool out there. Best part? It’s web-based. Delivered online, real-time with a password, it means you can access your data from anywhere, anytime - even at 3 am when your flight out of O’Hare is cancelled for the third time. At a convention in Singapore? No problem. One click, and all your customer data is at your fingertips. On vacation in Costa Rica? Just log in and there are all the campaign stats for that email you sent out last Tuesday. Sure beats that crummy old rolodex sitting on your desk, doesn’t it? And with this new technology comes an avalanche of new best practices, tactics, ideas, collaborative plug-ins allowing access to third-party data and services, and so much more. Probably something you'd want to know about, and be using to save your business money, before Jimmy-in-the-Cube figures it out and you end up working for him. So, now that you get a taste of the type of tools available, stay tuned for Part Two to see how it can be applied to your telecom expense reduction tasks. Whether you’re an IT staff managing wireless expenses, a CFO looking for business cost reduction options, or a telecom consultant wanting a way to increase your capabilities while saving time and money, we’ve got a new toy for you…
A couple of weeks ago, I attended an Accelerate Madison event entitled "Cloud Computing 101." One of the speakers, Todd Loeppke of Savvis, Inc., a global IT utility services provider, did a nice job of outlining the various different cloud delivery models, cloud advantages, challenges for clients, top cloud applications and cloud service providers.
 The top cloud applications included collaboration apps, web apps, data backup, business apps, personal apps, storage on demand, IT management, server on-demand, analytics, appdev and technical apps. What might drive organizations to the cloud? According to Savvis' research, the following were the top 3 reasons:
1). The ability to scale up and down resources to manage demand: 36%
2). Lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for infrastructure: 33%
3). Improved reliability: 25%
The cloud delivery models that were outlined included Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and any combination of these models. The top SaaS applications were web-conferencing and CRM. Once again, there was no mention of telecom expense management, as a SaaS application.
Based on Valicom's market research and the interest we are receiving from small, middle market and larger clients, there is a significant need for on-demand, self-service telecom expense management solutions.
Additionally, best practices training and education in conjunction with access to a telecom expense management SaaS application can significantly impact client's cost efficiencies and hard dollar telecom savings results.
Clearview, Valicom's telecom cost management software, is a SaaS TEM application that answers this marketplace demand. It is a middle ground for those who are not looking to outsource telecom expense management and have a need to enable internal analysts by automating their TEM processes to maximize telecom expense control. To check out how Clearview can benefit your organization, go to www.valicomcorp.com and view our free demo. It will be worth a few minutes of your time, I promise!
It's all about Mobile Management.
The days of handing a new employee the phone number to your wireless provider are long over and yet, I still see some really relaxed cellular expense management.
Standardizing the devices themselves and limiting choices of cellular phones and Blackberries will help reduce your spend and limit the dreaded "phony envy" amoung employees. And be sure to negotiate with your vendor prior to signing a contract; I love it when vendors offer a free cellular device or a Blackberry for a penny.
Standardize on one provider, if coverage allows. Obviously, the more devices under one contract, the deeper the discount. Granted, the debate over "who's the better provider" can really get heated amoung users, but unless there are big coverage issues due to real-estate expanse, try to stick with one provider.
Standardize features. Is there a business need for texting? A business need for email/internet? Establish a firm protocol and don't deviate.
Standardize equipment. This is a big one, folks. All the major providers offer headsets, BES licenses - you name it, they'll sell it to you. Do negotiate a discount on equipment, as well as the device themselves, but also be sure to shop around. I have a client that standardized on a specific headset, purchased with a 15% discount via the contract. The headset retailed for $49.99 (discount included.) I took the item number off the invoice and did some price shopping. I ended up finding the exact same headset for $14.95 PLUS free shipping. My client now purchases these headsets online for a big savings. Another client was purchasing their BES licenses through their carrier, thinking that because they also got a percentage off, they were getting a good deal. They weren't.
Nothing cutting-edge or earthshattering here - just a good reminder of telecom contract negotiation standards and strategic cost reduction methods.
- ST
ROI…or, if you prefer, Roi. If you have a business bone in your body, you know that ROI means “Return on Investment.” If you have any French blood in your body, you know that “Roi” means “king.” If you have both business bones and French blood in your body, you are one of the rarest forms of humanity who has ever walked the earth. Still, mon ami, enjoy my blog, where freaks of nature are not only welcome, but celebrated. 
French bashing aside, from a telecom cost management point of view, the homographic relationship between variations of “ROI” is perfect. This is because organizations looking to outsource telecom services and reduce telecom expenses, should consider ROI to be king when it comes to reasons to take action. Case in point: your organization spends, say, $5 million annually on telecom expenses. You perform an expense analysis and determine that there’s probably a way to reduce telecom expenses through better telecom vendor management, contract negotiation, and strategic cost reduction. The problem is that your staff has neither the time nor expertise to do this job properly. On this basis, you decide to give up and live with your suspiciously high telecom expenses. Before letting yourself become this example, crunch some numbers. If you’re spending $5 million and saved a meager 5% by outsourcing telecom expense management activities to a qualified firm, that’s $250,000 you’re saving on an annual basis. This is likely enough to cover the costs of outsourcing and, more importantly, is probably far less than you’ll actually get back. Good telecom expense management firms average between 15 and 30% savings if you let them give you the full treatment. Talk about ROI! In the end, the business case clearly supports taking action here. So make the call, crack open your Beaujolais Nouveau, and enjoy your four hour lunch. Bon Appétit! -SAM www.valicomcorp.com
Spring is in the air, the courses are opening, and I cannot WAIT to get back to playing the game of golf that I love so very much. The only thing I dread? My putting. It's horrible. Seems like no matter how much I practice, I pull it left or right. I have this awful, sinking feeling when I pull my putter and prepare to hit. It never fails, I three-putt almost every hole. What this means to my game, is that I consistently score in the low 100's. But if I could control my putting by two-putting every hole, my score could easily be in the 80's! Oh the bragging rights I would have! My big plan to achieve two-putt status this summer? Prescription sunglasses. I have astigmatism and if I purchase some cool Ray Ban aviators - I've got it all under control. (By the way, this is also John Daley's putting fix, so I have to be on the right track here.)  I only bring this up because I had a conversation with one of my telecom business clients the other day. The conversation went something like this: Me: Mr. Client, did you know that by going after XXX billing error, you'll save $$ a month? Mr. Client: Sandy, it's not worth having someone on my team chase these dollars. The amount in question isn't enough to bother with..... Me: Actually, if you if annualize these dollars over the life of the billing contract, your savings amounts to over $15k. And we've already started working on the corrections - no involvement from your team is needed. Mr. Client: That's fantastic, you just gave me more budgeting power for the Gateway Servers we're buying! The outcome is real and this client's business cost's were reduced with little to no effort on their part. So you see, it's well worth turning over rocks, finding the nickels, and shaving off every single stroke. They all absolutely DO add up. What is your Telecom Expense Fix this summer? I recommend a good Telecom Expense Management Company to help you achieve your goals. See you on the course!
Walking around here on a Monday morning, the passion that our telecom audit teams have for their job may not be immediately apparent. But quarter after quarter, Valicom surveys our clients, and finds an increased level of satisfaction with our ability to reduce telecom expenses. We have hit a record 3.79 score, as shown in our latest press release. However, this wouldn’t come as a surprise, if you knew our project management people. They don’t just care about wireless expense management or telecom invoice auditing, they care about the person on the other end of the phone. We’re here to solve problems for our clients, whether through our telecom management outsourcing, or via our new Clearview software-as-a-service. And that attitude IS apparent when you discuss day-to-day operations with our team members. You hear about projects and problems, true, but also about personalities. It’s obvious that there is a deep connection with our clients, a desire to help them do their jobs. We know that our key deliverables are cost reduction and expense management. We can save our clients money, resources and time, and that is increasingly important in the current rough economic climate. That good feeling - knowing that we are helping them make better business decisions and strengthening their bottom line - makes it worth getting up in the morning. Read more in our latest press release - Valicom Reports a Continued Increase in Customer Satisfaction Scores.
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.”
Interested in strategic cost reduction?
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!
- Sitting at a stop sign on my way to work the other morning, I quick grabbed my Blackberry and opened a new email.
The email was from a client from a large Broadcasting company. She simply asked for a copy of an invoice to be emailed back to her. Most respondents of the email might simply honor the request and send the invoice back to the requestor. End of story. Everybody's happy. Not me. The request nagged by brain for the rest of the way to work. WHY did she want a copy of the invoice? I felt like I was missing something; a bigger opportunity to help. I called my client when I arrived at work and sure enough - there was a great deal more to the story. What she really needed was some reporting. In great detail, she explained the project she had been given a week to finish. I could tell she dreaded the data compilation that was going to take her and her co-worker hours to put together. These are the phone conversations I have several times a day. I'm always thrilled when I am giving the opportunity to really get to the heart of a client's issue and provide a same-day solution. Enter Valicom's Clearview Telecom auditing software! I was able to log in quickly, and within minutes - pull the data she needed to finish her project. The best part was her response when she recieved the reporting from me. "Oh my gosh, you just saved us at least five hours of digging!" By the way, not only did we save our client's valuable time - but we also helped with Telecom Cost Management as the reporting allowed the company to make some very informed business decisions as it related to their cellular expense. It was my pleasure.
Benchmarking is an extremely helpful process for companies as they prepare for a Telecom Request For Proposal (RFP). However, many organizations don’t take advantage of it?
Benchmarking is well worth the effort and cost to obtain assistance from a Telecom Expense Managerment or IT/Telecom Consultant to provide benchmarking on your existing telecommunications services. Not only can it provide you with a clear picture of where your services can be from a pricing standpoint, but also help you make RFP savings estimates by service type. This can further allow you to provide direction of where to apply the most effort during the RFP and telecom contract negotiations to maximize strategic cost reductions. It’s always good practice to have goals for how you would like your pricing and contracts to look when the RFP efforts are completed. Here are some tips on what to expect from the benchmarking of specific services. Local Services: These LEC services, including POTS, PBX Trunks, DID Trunks, Centrex, PRI T-1, Point to Point T-1, Analog circuit, etc., are all benchmark dependant on location. With the local POTS, Trunks, and PRI’s you’ll be able to have a nice range within each state of what the pricing would look like on the low and high ends. Keep in mind that some circuits such as Point to Point T-1’s often have too many variables to get that detailed, such as, the specific end point addresses, mileage between them, and distance from the LEC Central Office. Long Distance: The pricing here is more of a commodity, and typically will have a fairly close range of what can be expected based on your volume. It's especially important to have solid benchmarking on the International and Instate rates, as that is where the vendors often have the most variance in pricing. Data/Internet: This benchmarking effort is largely based on location and discounts provided. There’s typically a fairly large range here depending on service, size, and other specific variables. Wireless: Benchmarking of Wireless services such as, Cellular, Data Devices, Aircards, and Telemetry, is typically based off of a few metrics. Cost per minute, cost per KB/MB, and cost per device. Benchmarking here can be very accurate based on device quantity and discounting structure. I encourage you to take advantage of the valuable tool of benchmarking when you are planning you’re next RFP.
Let the experts at Valicom take your business cost reduction to the next level! Mike Krogman
Project Manager
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!
In the telecom expense management world, we know that sending checks to telecom carriers is always somewhat risky. You have little control over when the check will arrive and how it will be applied. Unfortunately, until recently, this has been the only option for most businesses.
When the check arrives late because the mail was slow, you get hit with late fees. And what can be worse, if the check is misapplied to a different account, you are stuck spending sometimes hours on the phone getting the issue resolved. And in the process, your service may even be disconnected. Increasingly, electronic forms of disbursement are becoming accessible to small and medium sized businesses. Using technologies like ACH (Automated Clearing House) for example, you can transfer to funds directly to the carrier’s account and even attach the remittance information electronically. Using electronic methods of disbursement such as ACH ensures that your payment gets to the telecom carrier quickly and accurately. And in the long run, avoiding late fees and misapplied payments can save your organization a lot of time, and a lot of headaches.
Avoiding late fees and unnecessary disconnects is a simple, yet critical part of managing your telecommunications expenses. By using the most modern tools and methods available, you will not only reduce costs - but also save time, which can be spent researching other, more lucrative ways to reduce your overall telecommunications spend. Valicom, the only answer for your telecom expenses!
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