A recent study conducted by research firm IDC has found that connected device shipment will surge past the 1 billion mark in 2012, and by 2016 we could see upwards of 2 billion connected devices. According to IDC, a new era of computing is upon us, deeming it “PC Plus,” as consumers turn to multiple devices for business and for pleasure, including PCs, tablets and smartphones. For businesses, this report is a Bring Your Own Device wake up call. A strategy is needed to handle the broad range of devices and the possible consequences of a BYOD policy, such as the loss of sensitive company data. Before developing a strategy and creating a policy, avoid some of the common pitfalls of BYOD.

No Solution

BYOD can offer cost savings to companies, but it must be managed correctly. Businesses should be able to monitor the data usage of devices, should they be reimbursing employees for associated bills. Integrating a solution that offers visibility into usage as well as security and expense management will help to keep track of the devices as well as any related costs.

No Control

Control is important, not only for security purposes, but also in terms of savings. The ability to monitor and block inappropriate device use is important to ensure that sensitive company data is not leaked. Certain device management solutions can restrict access to devices or data if they do not comply with the BYOD policy. Additionally, the MDM solution should provide monthly reports on active devices including information regarding reimbursements. This information is critical and often overlooked, leading to payments being made to devices no longer in use.

Allowing All Apps

Mobile applications can cause a flurry of problems if not handled correctly. Thousands of new apps are introduced every day, and while many of these apps are business-oriented, they can lead to a decrease in employee productivity, in addition to a potential security breach. It is possible for apps to store viruses or steal data, a common misconception among users. For these reasons alone, BYOD policies should restrict certain applications on employee-owned phones, especially those that house sensitive data.

Not Requiring Passwords

Just as employees use passwords on their work PCs, mobile devices should be treated no differently. A locked phone is more difficult to crack, should an employee’s device be lost or stolen. If you have an IT department handling these devices, allow them to utilize a mobile device management (MDM) platform to monitor the passwords of employee-owned devices. Doing so will ensure that passwords are routinely changed and employees can’t forget them.

Avoid the risks associated with BYOD by following the above guidelines and making the best decision for your business and employees. Creating a BYOD policy incorporating these practices can help to bridge the gap between IT, who is trying to manage multiple devices and platforms, and end users.

Generation Y has landed in today’s workforce and they are challenging the status quo in enterprise IT departments across the globe. This generation of workers has grown up with computers, mobile devices and internet access 24/7 and has no plans to relinquish that access even during work hours.  Many enterprise CIOs and IT Directors have restricted access to the internet on work devices by employing limited data plans on mobile devices and blocking social networks due to productivity and security concerns.

Yet we must remember this is not the generation of your parents or even your generation. This new workforce has been multitasking between devices and social networks since they were in school and will demand more flexibility and openness in their work environment. If enterprise organizations do not start devising a new strategy to manage these demands, it may hinder their ability to recruit and retain new talent.

So how can an enterprise keep this generation’s workforce happy, productive and efficient? It is likely that the strategy should be more about changing perceptions and behaviors and less about control. By encouraging collaboration from all employees, cross-generational, enterprises can get a better pulse of what types of technology, devices and applications are most beneficial.

Many studies have shown that when enterprises adopt a mobile workforce, they often increase productivity while reducing costs. Added flexibility and collaboration can be extremely helpful when integrating this new generation of works.

At Quickcomm, we employ solutions for multinational organizations to help them facilitate a global mobile workforce.  From mobile inventory management and service optimization to device management solutions, Quickcomm provides CIOs and IT Directors the ability to better manage a new generation of mobile workers.  An enterprise’s telecoms environment can be extremely complex and Quickcomm can help you simplify those complexities so your organization can not only survive but thrive with today’s hyper-connected generation.

Enterprises across all industry verticals are adopting mobility at a rapid pace. As more and more mobile devices and applications emerge, enterprises are faced with challenges such as cost, mobile security, and application usage. Recently, xcube labs created an infographic highlighting trends and behaviors in the implementation of mobile devices and apps in the enterprise. The graphic itself contains a lot of information, but enterprises should exercise caution when using the data as a basis for developing their mobile device strategies.

According to xcube, 63% of enterprises are adopting mobility for cost savings. And according to the chart,  30% of respondents already believe that an area of immediate benefit is operational efficiency and cost-reduction. However, we need to ask how enterprises are measuring this? Is it supported by data, anecdotal responses by employees, or an assumption of how mobility should be benefiting the enterprise? These measures are qualitative, and perceived benefits are often exaggerated. If an organization is unsure of the pros and cons of mobility and cannot successfully measure the cost savings and productivity value, unilaterally deploying mobile devices may not be the best decision.

What we can take away from this graphic is an idea of the value that enterprises want and expect mobility to provide to their organizations. The next step is to identify KPIs and policies to help enterprises gain the most value from their mobility solutions.

Mobile applications pose additional challenges to the enterprise. Xcube’s infographic states that enterprise mobility solutions will generate nearly $40bn in annual sales for developers by 2016. It’s clear that apps are a hot commodity. Even Flurry’s data supports the increase in app consumption and usage noting that app usage surpassed web usage (on mobile phones) in June 2011 and that the gap is increasing. But an extremely important point is what people are doing: social networking and games capture the lion’s share of application consumption at a combined 79%. Entertainment and news comprised 13%, while “other” – which may or may not be business related uses – accounted for only 8%.

What does this mean for enterprises? Mobile device adoption in the work place is inevitable, as is the adoption and use of apps. However, enterprises need to more clearly understand not only what they want to gain as a result, but also their employees’ behaviors. The challenge is balancing the way enterprises want mobile devices and apps to be used – and the impact on the business – with how employees are using them. As we’ve noted before, the rapid growth of the enterprise mobility market makes it extremely important for enterprises to develop a comprehensive solution to manage and control the complex processes associated with a mobile strategy.

With 2011 behind us, we look forward into 2012 and what it will bring to the TM market. Currently, there are 5.9 billion mobile phone subscriptions around the world; that’s 87% of the world’s population! As significant as that statistic is, we expect for the number of mobile subscriptions to increase in the coming years. Mobile access through tablets is projected to be a major factor in the telecoms environment with tablet shipments expected to climb to 99.3 million this year alone.  This explosion of mobile devices is sure to result in a significant increase in the use of applications (both personal and enterprise), cloud computing, and software-as-a-service (SaaS).

According to Quickcomm’s Kurt Brown, Vice President of Innovation, who was recently cited in BusinessNewsDaily’s 30 Big Ideas, Trends and Predictions for 2012, “The expense management of mobile applications, cloud computing, and SaaS subscriptions (salesforce, LinkedIn, etc.) are three areas that we feel will significantly challenge many organizations in 2012.” In order to avoid these challenges, now is the time to observe your current telecom expense management strategies to ensure they will be effective enough to keep costs under control.

As cloud computing and SaaS subscriptions continue to expand, organizations will need to understand the options offered by vendors. Additionally, hidden costs such as hardware, training, customization, maintenance, and upgrades must be taken into account. These types of hidden costs should be analyzed and budgeted prior to procurement.

At Quickcomm, we are gearing up for a big year in wireless. Follow along with us on Twitter as we discuss these predictions, the world of TEM, industry news and tips on how to control telecom spend within your organization.

Best Practices for Enterprises and Suppliers that Raise TEM Performance through Key Performance Indicators and Industry Standards
Published by TEMIA

Why are TEM Standards and KPIs Needed?

Telecom Expense Management (TEM) has evolved from simple programs to complex offerings to meet customers’ specific needs. Efforts to develop tailored solutions for clients have made the market appear to be more complex than it really is. It is like going to a restaurant that has suddenly changed its menu by adding hundreds of combinations of entrees that are now written in foreign languages. You are hungry so you go to your favorite restaurant to order food that will satisfy your hunger, but it is much harder to know if you will like what you order.

TEMIA is working to establish standards and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that can be used by managers and personnel that are performing operational roles at enterprises and suppliers. Customers need standards that can be used to help answer critical questions.

• What are the essential elements of a TEM solution?
• How can I clearly define the scope of work?
• How can I streamline the buying process?
• What are the critical factors that contribute to supplier performance and a better return on investment?
• How do my results compare to “best practice” performance metrics?
• What Service Level Agreements (SLAs) will drive results?
• How will I measure the success of the TEM solution

Requirements for TEM Standards and KPIs

TEM engagements vary considerably from one client to the next, and suppliers vary in their capability and focus. Our goal is to provide clear points of comparison and guidance for measuring TEM results that will help to eliminate confusion and raise performance of all TEM programs. Ideally these standards will work like “miles per gallon” for cars. The standards and KPIs must meet the criteria list below:

Openness Each measure, its definition, and calculation must be completely open and visible to all interested parties.

Quantitative vs. qualitative The standards should provide clear quantifiable measures that are objective, granular, and comprehensive.

Universally applicable The standards must be able to be applied and provide valid outputs or results and immune to variances in methods, process or tools applied. Standards must apply regardless of whether the TEM program is managed internally, licensed software installed behind a corporate firewall, hosted software, or a business process outsource solution.

High inter-rater reliability No matter who applies the metrics, the results will be the same given the same input data. There will be minimal variance between measures, given the same data.

How to find easy money by organizing and validating your telecom service inventory.

This paper was developed from ideas put forth in a Quickcomm webinar by the same name. The goals of this paper are to help companies to:

• Learn how to create and maintain a clean telecommunications inventory
• Know where to go to get started with telecom expense management (TEM)
• Create an internal telecommunications evaluation process
• Understand what is driving their telecommunications expenses
• Make the best use of their own internal resources

The challenge is how to turn existing practices that “spot check” telecom expenses into a “best practice” process of ongoing telecommunications expense management. As with any such undertaking, where and how to start can be major stumbling blocks. There are issues of who is responsible for what and who owns the information, as well as how and where do companies store the information needed to truly and effectively manage telecommunications expenses.

What is the Nature of the Problem?

Many executives may wonder what the problem is in the first place. Is it important enough to warrant a lot of effort and resource? A few simple facts will help to illuminate the nature and the scope of the problem.

• 10-12% of telecommunication invoice charges are wrong!
• Of those, 85% of the errors are in the telecommunications carrier’s favor.

Companies regularly under and over utilize services and still have active telecommunications services for people and places that are long gone.

Simple math is all that is necessary to realize that any substantial company is incurring telecommunications expenses that range from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars that they should not be paying.

Getting Started Means Collecting Information

For any company, the first step in getting telecommunications expenses under control is to collect the right information. The collection of data is a three stage process:

Stage 1: The company should collect account numbers with detail.

Stage 2: The company should breakdown and list “service numbers”.

Stage 3: The company needs to gather information about locations including open and closed locations as well as historical and pending lease terms. From human resources (HR) they need to gather at least 3 years of records on active and terminated employees. Existing inventory, IT records, provisioning information, and cost/project codes should also be gathered.

The first place for a company to start is to collect information from their carriers. It is very important that the data must contain service numbers, service types, and physical service locations. If the carrier provides bills on paper the company can still request an inventory in an electronic format.

The next place to collect information is internally. A great deal of the information will be found in HR and Finance systems such as PeopleSoft, SAP, Oracle and other databases, and spreadsheets. Additional provisioning information may be found in IT systems.

Extend the Value of the Exercise – Make it a Repeatable Process

It is important to move this exercise beyond a one-time “snapshot” to a constant and repeatable process. To do this a company will need to convert their paper data into an electronic format. Inventory data will need to be normalized into a single database. It is important to combine mobile and landline services and create templates for storing information. A company should clean the data as they go so that they have a clean, organized service inventory that ties into other important data sources.

Employ a TEM Solution to Help

A telecom expense management (TEM) solution can help with the gathering, storing, and normalizing of telecommunications data. In addition, it can help a company to:

• Automate validation and manage by exception
• Understand Usage Drivers
• Ensure Contract Compliance
• Retire Outdated Technology
• Enforce Corporate Policy
• Create an Ongoing Validation Process

What a Company Will Find

Companies should target their hunt for problems in the following order:

• Locations
• People
• Cost Codes
• Corporate Projects

Following are the types of problems that they will find.

Company Mishaps

A company will find problems such as:

• Services are for invalid cost/project codes
• Billing is active for invalid cost/project codes

Vendor Mishaps

Companies will also identify problems with their vendors, such as:

• Incomplete MACDs (moves, adds, changes and deletes)
• Complete MACDs that were never reflected on bills

Combination (Company/Vendor) Mishaps

The company will also uncover problems that can be laid at the feet of both the vendor and the company, such as:

• Billing is active for services at closed locations
• Billing and services are active for terminated employees

What Should be Done with the Findings?

A company should first identify if the problem is internal vs. external. If the problem is internal, the company should:

• Develop or change business processes to address the problems
• Implement or enforce corporate policies

If problems are external, the company should:

• Understand their rights as well as the statute of limitations (there is no point wasting time on issues that can no longer be addressed)
• Submit findings to their carrier or carriers with as much background detail as possible
• Track credits to validate timely resolutions
• Escalate problems where necessary

Whether the problem is internal or external, the company should record the steps that they take and the lessons learned.

Conclusion

By collecting the right information, putting in place repeatable processes, and supporting the effort with a telecommunications expense management solution, any company should be able to successfully cut telecommunications costs by simple identifying and rectifying errors. Rectifying internal problems will help to prevent costly problems from happening. Identifying external errors and obtaining credits from carriers will save additional expense dollars.

As organizations employ more remote employees and sales staff across the globe, the mobile devices these employees use as their corporate lifelines are creating numerous challenges for those charged with managing the rapidly expanding universe of telecom expenses. With new services that include voice, data, text, Internet, and video being added to bills, organizations are experiencing growing difficulties in managing the charges and in ensuring that erroneous errors do not occur. Managing the invoicing for tens of thousands of wireless devices requires specialized systems and processes to ensure that they are getting the best deal for a continually growing corporate cost.

Enter Telecom Expense Management (TEM). TEM solutions allow organizations to let software handle the complexities of millions of dollars in telecom charges each year. Many people think that TEM is a way of processing large invoices more efficiently and therefore, paying bills on time. But, in truth, such a definition misses the point. As organizations continue to evolve, telecom strategies have become far more complex than ever before. The result is a glaring need for telecom management platforms that go beyond invoice management and help companies manage their telecom resources more holistically and in real-time. Effective TEM requires a strong combination of people, process, technology, and market intelligence.

Technological developments within the TEM industry are allowing organizations to analyze and process their telecom expenses more efficiently-and accurately. One development that has enabled software developers to integrate TEM software with their carrier’s billing internal methods is e-billing. Instead of receiving endless paper statements, carriers now send bills in electronic format and correspond directly with the TEM software to analyze the charges.

Increased automation allows organizations to see more information, reconcile inventory charges, validate contract rates and streamline the payment process. When all these processes are automated, management can concentrate on optimizing telecommunications investment and focus on their core competencies.

With consumers and organizations doing more business over the Internet than in previous years, online procurement is gaining favor as another way of utilizing technological developments to create a more efficient use of TEM software. Automation of procurement is a time-saving and efficient way of transmitting orders for moves, adds and changes (MACs) to vendors, creating less errors in ordering and keeping a better handle on inventory.

Software has also evolved to support an organization’s global footprint. Some TEM applications are Rich Internet Applications (RIA); in others words, they provide more functionality than HTML applications. They are easy to deploy, compatible with any browser and can be implemented globally, creating the ideal scenario to use the software to save valuable time and money.

Most organizations view software applications as an additional business expense. In this case, however, TEM software can save up to 20% of annual telecom bills by simply creating a more efficient, automated billing, procurement, payment and analysis processes, allowing organizations to focus on larger issues within their business. Additionally, global companies with employees across several countries each with diverse carriers, languages and telecom regulation, can benefit by implementing a uniform system across all locations to avoid costly mistakes. Bottom line: TEM software is no longer an investment, but a necessity for cost savings and greater visibility to the billions of dollars spent each year on telecommunications.

The common misperception with Telecom Expense Management is that its primary purpose is to manage the overwhelming quantity of complex and voluminous invoices that need to be paid each month.

Its not!

Let me draw a parallel. Suppose I have a small business that leases 5 cars. Each car costs $1,000 per month plus mileage used. A single invoice arrives once a month and the detail shows the costs for the 5 cars, each identified by the license plate and representing a component of the overall monthly total.

When trying to determine if the invoice is correct, I check with each of my drivers and confirm they still have the car and they accrued the miles detailed on the invoice. Effectively, the invoice itself becomes irrelevant. I need to make sure that I get the value or service from the cars – not the invoice itself.

The telecommunications world is similar to the car scenario, but far more massive. As a consequence we don’t have a hope of looking at all the detail and simply elect to check only the front page of each invoice. What have we done? We have moved from paying for the services we use to paying invoices with no real visibility into what they contain. This is a crime!

Each invoice contains the thousands of individual Services that I get from my provider. Each Service attracts recurring charges for the service, plus charges for volume of usage (usually calls). Each of these charges is then further broken down into its component parts and categories resulting in each individual service consume dozens of pages of detail. For a sizeable invoice billing hundreds of thousands of dollars per month, the quantity of these services becomes so large that without a dedicated system, they are simply not going to get checked.

Think of the parallel with the 5 cars. To check each service is correct, I would have to itemize each one and its charges and then refer to the user within my corporation and ask them to check it. In the enterprise telecommunications world, this is usually the IT group.

This is a very relevant point isn’t it? For the most part in large organizations, the finance group pays invoices and the IT group use the services. Does finance go and ask IT to check every line item in the invoices they pay every month? Of course not. The result therefore is that invoice are being paid by people without the expertise or information they need to verify them.

The results are obvious. Invoices get bigger and bigger and more and more unwieldy and the percentage of error in them gets bigger and bigger. The outcome is clear – the phone bill is wrong by 10%, 20% or perhaps higher.

What can you do?

It’s a question of looking at the problem properly. There is normally a complete disconnect between the IT group and the finance group. Not only are they driven by different objectives; finance need to pay bills and IT need to keep the infrastructure going; but additionally they have quite different skill sets and speak different languages. To compound this, they are dealing with different objects. Finance has a list of thousands of account numbers they deal with and the IT group has tens of thousands of services.

To address the issue, you need to create the flow of information between IT and Finance.

How?

Clearly the issue cannot be resolved with mountains of paper invoices – It is just too much information.

Fortunately invoices can be readily received in electronic form. These invoices contain all the services information that comprise the total invoice (the 5 cars) and all their detail charges. This information is worthless to the finance person, but is exactly what the IT group will understand. So therefore if the information about services the IT group naturally hold to be able to do their job can be compared to charges on the invoice, then you have reconciliation!

Now that we have electronic invoices, this reconciling can be done with software. Features need to include:
The ability for IT group to house all services (cellphones, data circuits, voice circuits, air cards, etc.) and their details in a centralized database. What is it? What do I use it for? Who pays for it? Where is it located? And so on. This is your inventory – it’s what you need to run your business.

• The ability to keep this information up to date. The solution must handle Moves, Adds, Changes and Deletions so that every event is captured and keeps the inventory up to date and trustworthy.
• The ability to hold contract information. “AT&T agreed that I would be charged this schedule of charges for the services in my inventory provided I spend $1m a year with them.”
• The ability to import and break down all of the invoices I get from my service providers and have the system compare the components against the trustworthy inventory that the IT group maintains.
• The ability to receive information from other systems such as the HR system. “All of these cellphones that are on this invoice belong to these employees and the HR system confirms that they are still active.

What do you get for this?

Easy.. Once the inventory is being reconciled against billing automatically each month, it will highlight discrepancies:

Services on the bills that

• don’t exist in the enterprise
• that have been cancelled
• that are at locations since closed
• that belong to employees since terminated
  that don’t match the contract rates I agreed to pay.

Additionally, all of the current manual processes for paying invoices becomes automated. If the invoice passes muster, then you get a green light and can pay with the confidence that its right. Imagine that! Only working the exceptions….

Summary

Don’t get caught in the trap of just outsourcing the whole mess. There are quality TEM outsourcers out there who are very experienced with telco billing, but regardless of their expertise they clearly need to understand your inventory as well as your IT group does. Ask your potential provider how the moves adds and changes will get to them and update their inventory. The answer is important.

Question whether being able to automate through dedicated software in house would mean the task becomes quite manageable enough to do it yourself.

In a nutshell – whichever path you follow, aim to stop paying invoices and pay for what you need.

It isn’t Telecom Expense Management you need to address – its Telecom Management.

What is Telecom Expense Management?

You are probably thinking: “telecom expense management, what on earth is telecom expense management?” It’s a good thing that we did not start this article with the acronym “TEM” because you would have been even more lost.

So, telecom expense management, or TEM for short – why do you care enough to read further?

Today enterprises rely on an extensive network of voice, data and wireless services to conduct business. These services cost any enterprise an enormous amount of money. To make matters even more confusing, the telecommunications service provider environment is complex and constantly changing with mergers, new vendors and changing services.

Large enterprises face challenges managing this dynamic environment and controlling these. Telecom expense management is a disciplined process for managing telecommunications and telecommunications expenses that can help any enterprise to save substantial amounts of money – potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars (now that should have caught your attention and made you want to read further). A successful TEM process enables organizations to evaluate, simplify and manage complex telecom expenditures. This article will describe TEM and the issues it solves, and of course, how it can save you money.

Telecom Expense Management is a Process

To manage telecom services and telecommunications costs, companies have implemented a process known as Telecom Expense Management, or TEM. TEM is an end-to-end business process intended to manage the entire telecom lifecycle, which includes but is not limited to the following:

• Ordering and procuring telecom services
• Managing an inventory of telecom services while tying them back to locations and people
• Billing management including bill processing, auditing and reconciliation
• Contract management and validation
• Paying for services

The TEM process accomplishes several objectives:

• Effectively manage the inventory of services to locations and workers who are geographically dispersed
• Optimize the entire telecom infrastructure
• Identify errors in telecom billing (most of which are in the carriers favor) leading to refunds
• Obtain the most advantageous pricing when sourcing telecom services

Implementing a telecom expense management process includes the following steps:

• Collecting information about telecom accounts, locations, and employees
• Converting the data into an electronic format so that it may be easily managed and maintained
• Determining if problems are caused internally (the fault of the company) or externally (the fault of the carrier)
• Enforcing existing company policies or creating new processes to deal with internal issues
• Obtaining credits from telecom carriers for erroneous billing

So at this point you’re thinking, this sounds like a lot of work, do I save enough to make it worthwhile. The answer to that is an emphatic, “Absolutely”!

So now it is time to “show you the money”…

Generally accepted industry data indicate that as much 10% to 12% of telecommunications charges are erroneous. Most of the errors (85%) are in the telecom vendor’s favor. This means that the typical company is spending 8 to 10% more than they need to on the telecommunications services!

Automation to Make it Easy

If saving the money is not enough incentive on its own, the efficiency gains should be enough. The process does not have to be an onerous one. A company can automate the process by employing a telecom expense management solution. An automated solution serves as the central information repository incorporating the company data collected as well as telecom bills which are accepted electronically. It then does the “heavy lifting” by helping to reconcile bills and services identifying the areas of discrepancy.

Conclusion

Telecom expense management serves a critical function within any organization helping them to manage their telecom expenses while providing visibility and actionable insight into the entire procurement-to-payment process. The process can be automated to make it relatively easy, and in the end will save any organization substantial amounts of money. Easy and saving money – what’s not to like?

The Disconnect

Captain Obvious says, “Newsflash! Nearly all corporations suffer from a lack of internal communication and processes! Effective collaboration and employee accountability are NOT the norm!”

In a perfect corporate setting, everyone works well together and they communicate effectively with each other. Unfortunately for most, if your employees are talking to each other, it’s around the water cooler and usually involves last night’s episode of The Flight of the Conchords.

We all know this but this lack of communication rings true especially when it comes to the IT, Finance and Procurement groups in a company (yes, even your company). Getting these groups to work cohesively is one of the most difficult of tasks when managing your company’s telecom expenses. “So what”, you say? So, this problem can be equating to an overpayment of up to 25% on telecom bills alone. Let’s put that into perspective:

Your car payment of $400 – toss another $100 on there each month
Your mortgage payment of $3000 – a mistake costs you $750 here too
Your son’s tuition bill of $20,000 – you won’t miss that extra $4000, will you?
You won’t mind a mark-up of $1200 on your new flat screen TV when the bill arrives.

If you ran into any of these problems, you would immediately start making calls to fix the mistake. The same goes with your company’s telecom billing. So here is where I am going to help you figure it out without having to make a number of calls to customer service just to get put on hold.

Getting To The Bottom Of It

Your IT, Finance, and Procurement groups are focused on different areas within their respective roles. The IT group deals with the infrastructure. They ensure the phones are working, everyone has internet access and the new COO’s cell phone is ordered. While the Procurement group is focused on making sure contracts are renewed. The Finance group is trying to pay the invoices on time, coding the charges and synching up with the general ledger, leaving little or no time to analyze bills. On top of all of this, these groups use at least 3 separate systems that each have their own set of dynamics. All of these components can cause a mismatch in inventory against bills anywhere from 19-24%.

How is this disconnect affecting me?

You know that your telecom management process has holes in it. Hundreds of companies are facing the same issue. So let’s take a look at how this affects companies like you and how it impacts the bottom line. Some commonplace issues include:

• 10-12% of telecom invoice charges are wrong
• 85% of errors are in your carrier’s favor
• +/- 20- service interruptions per year due to non-payment
• Under/over-utilized services further drain expenses
• People and places that are long-gone still have active telco services
• The competition is getting a 20% discount (and an edge) that you aren’t getting.
• Well-negotiated contract rates often do not make it to the bill and you can’t tell.

You may be asking yourself, “What does this mean to me?” A drain in expenses can easily limit growth potential for both companies and individuals. Less money for your organization leads to hiring freezes, tighter budgets on new projects and even a lame Christmas bonuses.

How are other companies handling these issues?

In 2003, CSC, a leading global information technology (IT) services company, began searching for a solution for its internal telecom operation as well as a future external TEM offering. The annual internal telecom spend at the time was approximately $60M internally in addition to managing over $500M in customer’s telecom bills. Bills were being managed manually with spreadsheets and the invoices were received in a combination of electronic and hard copy formats.

CSC’s TEM process was extremely labor-intensive. Besides the large amounts of man-hours taken to manually enter telecom data and the lack of communication between IT, Finance and HR departments, there were several key factors that hindered the process:

• Inaccurate allocation of costs existed
• Poor method of managing inventory was prevalent
• Cost center charge backs were difficult to manage
• Bills were not reconciled correctly due to disparate systems

CSC’s frustration and the need to effectively manage its internal telecom infrastructure as well as to drive a TEM offering to customers was the catalyst for focusing on installing a TEM application. They wanted to successfully connect the procurement department’s ordering and inventory management to telecom billing to ensure they were being reconciled correctly.

When CSC decided to go with a software partner that would meet the challenge to help service its large client base, they immediately started to see results. Within the first few weeks of using a centralized solution for all of their departments, they discovered and cancelled over $1 million in active services for a location that had been closed for 2 years.

CSC now offers their clients a savings of up to 30% on their telecom cost. They reduced the time spent managing their expenditure, effectively allocated resources to proper cost centers, reconciled telecom bills, and eliminated conflict errors from carriers and incorrectly applied tariffs.

Bridging the Gap – Where do I start?

Can you imagine if you saved over a $1 million for your company? I can! So, how do I get to the point where I am carried on everyone’s shoulders and hailed as employee of the month?

I know you probably get a cold call a day from TEM suppliers, so you already know that there are a number of TEM solutions from Software to Outsourcing. What you might not know is where to start. You have identified that there is a problem that needs to be fixed. The first step is completed, but now it’s your job to understand the current environment and challenges before deciding on a TEM solution.
The first step to creating any new initiative is to identify your goals and what you want accomplished. For example, some goals may include:

• we are expanding globally and want to would like to enforce a global process
• we are looking to centralize management of telco expenses
• we will keep control locally
• we want visibility and accountability of expenses

I want my team to receive the praise and recognition they deserve..(you may want to keep that goal to yourself)
On a side note, while performing this exercise, you are also getting everyone involved in the process and setting expectations for the project. The more buy-in and comfort you can secure from the groups involved, the quicker and more effective the project will be.

The next step is to understand your current TEM process. After breaking down the current process, 99% of the time, you need undergo some business process changes to become more efficient and eliminate waste. Here are some questions an organization should look to ask when examining their current process:

• Where do all the bills go today?
• Who manages the contracts with the carriers?
• How do costs get allocated for invoices now?
• Are wireless devices corporate billed or expensed?
• What financial reporting do we need to execute each month/period?
• What activity causes the most pain now?
• Who are the people who look after inventory (voice/data/wireless)?
• What systems do we have now to track the services?
• How do services get ordered, cancelled, changed?
• Where are all my services?
• What help is out there?

There are a number of outlets that will help you create and maintain a successful TEM project.
Carriers -Contrary to popular belief, they are not the enemy. They are there to help and certainly do not want to jeopardize losing a client. Speak with them about getting bills in an electronic format, which can contain service numbers, service types, and physical service locations.
Software providers -Software applications can help enforce corporate policies and a centralized database can store and analyze all internal data worldwide. No one knows the company and processes better than an organization’s own people and an application enables them to keep control. An application will create efficiencies and exponential savings across the board.

Managed Service providers – Are you the only one managing the entire process? Then talk to a service provider who can help you manage the work and take some of the pressure off of you. The key here though is choosing a service provider that has a solid software application powering their offer.
Consultants – There are a number of consultants available who can assist in gathering information and provide invaluable advice on how to move forward on the project.
Conclusion

Ta-da! The groundwork has been laid. Once all of the steps above have been accomplished and you have researched the best options for your team, you will be in a position to implement any TEM solution. Now is the time to hurry up! You’re probably losing money on a daily basis. Do you want your CFO asking you how it happened or do you want to be the one who fixed it?