Explore our TEM blogs for expert perspective, real examples, and clear guidance to manage telecom and technology expenses confidently, with fresh insights added routinely.
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.
Ok, now that we have your attention, let’s talk tactics. Remember that the telecom vendors are in business to make money. YOUR money. So they are good at this, and maybe you aren’t. Either get someone to the negotiating table with you that has experience, or at least be aware of these basic tactics….
As Valicom’s telecom expense management software Clearview is deployed as a SaaS application (software as a service) we always keep our eyes and ears out for research and trends in that area.Gartner released some new data yesterday on SaaS adoption. They find that over 95 percent of organizations expect to maintain or increase their investments in software as a service (SaaS) and more than one-third have migration projects under way from on-premises to SaaS, according to their recent survey.
Keeping track of your contracts is another imperative step to a good telecom expense management program. Granted, you may wonder why you care…. So we’ll tell you.
A difficult task for any IT or telecom manager is issue tracking and change management. People get hired and fired, buildings open and close, and products get retired and replaced. You need to know WHAT is going on, WHO did it, WHEN it happened and if it actually got done.
This is where the rubber meets the road. 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.
As we run through good telecom management tips, we should pause and talk about tools. Anything is easier to do if you have the right tool. In the case of telecom or wireless management, we have spent years perfecting Clearview – our web-based telecom expense, invoice and inventory management software. It is the engine that drives our entire telecom auditing service menu, and is available for use in your telecom department too.
A major source of headaches for telecom managers is dealing with telecom invoicing. Lots of paper = lots of mess. And you know you should really review those suckers EVERY time, EVERY month, but really – who has the time.So finding a way to streamline invoice processing should be high on your list. A few tips to make your life easier…
It’s fall, and while most eyes are turning to football, those in charge of company finances are eyeing balance sheets and chewing their fingernails thinking about year end reports. So we thought it might be a good time for a reminder that you should also be taking steps to cut the fat from your telecom and wireless budget.
News reports just hit the wire that the US Justice Department is taking action to oppose the mega merger of AT&T and T-Mobile.
As everyone knows, smartphones are rapidly taking over plain old cell phones in the business realm. That means expensive wireless devices, fat data plans, apps apps apps, and costs costs costs!
