Categories
Category: Wireless Expense Management
Big Bad BYOD – and where it goes wrong
TechRepublic just posted an interesting article on BYOD (bring-your-own-device), and some worst case scenarios. Whether or not to implement BYOD is a decision each firm has to make for itself, and its own environment. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. If you’re still on the fence, it may be worth contemplating some of these issues before you take the plunge.
The article covers these 10 possible problem areas…..
1: Exposed data
2: Passwords in the wild
3: Declining productivity
4: Compatibility issues
5: Bandwidth overuse
6: Device management
7: Wireless bottlenecks
8: Autonomy overuse
9: Virus infections
10: Compatibility complaints
If video is 50% of traffic – What are your employees watching?
Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam recently stated that 50 percent of their wireless traffic is for video consumption. He expects this to grow to 66 percent by 2017.
With the death of the unlimited data plan, those kinds of numbers can take a toll on your wireless data bill if you don’t have a handle on what your employees are doing with their phones. As we’ve long said, the old business nugget “You can’t manage what you can’t measure” really does apply to telecom cost control. If you don’t know what your actual data usage is, and who is using that data – and for what – you can’t make intelligent decisions.
Now granted, most business employees probably aren’t watching a lot of video on a tiny smartphone screen. But as iPads and other tablets come into the mix, and more television and cable channels make it easy to stream content, the situation is changing. The options are rapidly expanding beyond cute cats, giggling toddlers or flashmob videos on YouTube. Based on that, it isn’t a stretch to think that someone might sneak a peek at their alma mater’s March Madness showdown or stream a missed episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones.
Thanks to these changes, and faster internet speeds like LTE, , the need to get a handle on wireless data usage gets even more critical. Need some help? Download our recent white paper “Top 4 Tips to Manage Wireless Costs” and read the full article on what Verizon’s CEO had to say about streaming video.
Valicom Releases White Paper: “Top 4 Tips to Manage Business Wireless Costs”
Valicom released a new white paper today titled “Top 4 Tips to Manage Business Wireless Costs”. Recommended for anyone responsible for corporate mobile and wireless management, and seeking best practices in wireless expense reduction and cost control, the paper can be accessed from the Valicom telecom expense management white paper library.
Founded in 1991, Valicom offers Clearview, a web-based telecom expense management software, and managed services for both wireline and wireless environments. Their new white paper covers best practices in managing costs for corporate mobility, a growing need in the marketplace.
Valicom President Jeff Poirior states, “Companies are experiencing an explosion of wireless devices and mobile expenses are skyrocketing. Managing voice and data plans, wireless invoice auditing and wireless plan optimization all combine to make wireless expense management an enormous task.”
He continued, “This leaves many telecom managers not knowing where to begin to get a handle on costs, so we put four strong ideas down on paper to get them started.”
An excerpt from the paper reads… “It’s no surprise that the top thing on most telecom managers’ minds these days is mobile. It seems that wireless keeps getting more and more complicated, as tablets and next-generation smartphones keep piling up, and the number of devices each employee has expands. Throw in things like minute pooling, data pooling, and carrier contract negotiation and the complexity grows. So whether you are currently implementing, or avoiding, BYOD (bring-your-own-device), it doesn’t hurt to have a few strong ideas of how to control wireless costs.”
To download “Top 4 Tips to Manage Business Wireless Costs” visit the the Valicom telecom expense management white paper library.
Telecom management software and reporting
We are concluding our series discussing how telecom management software streamlines telecom management tasks.
Last but not least, any telecom expense management software worth its weight in kilobytes should offer lots of reporting. As they say, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure”. And the beauty of all your telecom and wireless data being integrated in one system is that it allows you to look at it from many different angles. Look at inventory cross-referenced by user, cost center or account. See trending data by cost center, location, or inventory type. Request information about various timeframes. Most softwares come standard with a wide variety reports and the firm can usually design very specific custom reports, based on parameters you provide.
And note that different users can have access to different reports. There is also a Dashboard feature that allows each user to select the information most useful to them, and have it accessible in a variety of visual formats. By clicking the image, it allows a deep dive into the report behind the graph. Often clients that have outsourced most of the actual day-to-day telecom management tasks to a vendor partner like Valicom still utilize reports and dashboards to keep tabs on operations.
Want to learn more about telecom expense management software-as-a-solution? Check out Clearview…
Valicom To Speak at Wisconsin Technology Association
Telecom Expense Management Presentation
Bills and Contracts and Assets – Oh My!
Thursday, April 18: 2 – 4 PM. Wisconsin Technology Association Meeting
Are you swimming in invoices from increased cellular services? Has BYOD or other telecom services forced you to review your telecom contracts? Are you wondering how many devices you have in your company? If you answered “Yes” to any of these, then you should attend this month’s educational session.
Please join Valicom, a twenty-two year veteran of telecom expense management, as they explain the different Telecom Expense Management (TEM) strategies to help you manage all your telecom bills, both wireline and wireless. They will review industry trends and how cellular services are forcing changes to contracts. Finally they will provide best practices to keep you on top of your cellular and wireline assets.
Meeting held at McCormick & Schmick’s Restaurant, Mayfair Mall – 2550 N. Mayfair Rd Wauwatosa, WI. If interested in attending, visit WTA-WI.org or contact us for details.
Software and telecom invoice issue management
We are continuing our series discussing how telecom management software streamlines telecom management tasks.
Now that we’ve discussed telecom invoice auditing, processing and payment, along with order and change management, we should probably discuss issue tracking.
At this point, all your invoice and inventory data is already in a telecom management software platform. If the system is designed to help you remember to check your next invoice to verify the change you recorded was actually implemented by your vendor. All this is handled via the software’s “Issues” area.
This is one of the few times in the workplace that is perfectly acceptable, and even encouraged, to talk to yourself. At least without triggering someone in HR to send you for a psych evaluation. Leave notes, record conversations with vendors, add details about why or how something was changed, and tag the issue with an Open and a Close date. This works even better when you have multiple users accessing the system. With a tidy breadcrumb trail to follow, any other user should be able to determine what happened, when it happened, and who did it.
The Issues area also gives you visibility into what you need to watch for on upcoming invoices, again streamlining the telecom invoice auditing process. It also illustrates what we always say about a good telecom management program – it’s all about visibility. “Because when you see, you save”
Want to learn more about telecom expense management software-as-a-solution? Check out Clearview…
Tracking telecom inventory changes
We are continuing our series discussing how telecom management software streamlines telecom management tasks.
Now some of you may have thought, while we discussed telecom invoice auditing, processing and payment in our last post, “Hey – What about changes?“ Good question.
Telecom management software has to have a robust tracking mechanism for changes as buildings open and close, personnel get hired or fired, and devices get retired and replaced. Otherwise, any telecom inventory management program you may have in place will get derailed pretty fast. Telecom inventory is not something static, but rather a fluid environment that is ever changing as the image below well illustrates.
The Evolution of Wireless - Something Worth Tracking
A good telecom inventory and expense management software has various places that changes can be recorded, from ordering new handsets, to canceling lines or data plans. This ensures you have an accurate historical record for everything you own, allowing proper record-keeping and reporting. This is critical whether you want an accurate telecom inventory right now, or a way to track changes over time. The data should be simple to enter, update, and query. Software doesn’t do you any good if it isn’t designed to make things easier….
Want to learn more about telecom expense management software-as-a-solution? Check out Clearview – because, “When you see, you save.”
Training for BYOD – 10 Good Tips
Will Kelly over at Tech Republic posted a good article on training needed to introduce staff to a BYOD program.
Takeaway: Training is a critical part of any BYOD initiative, introducing users to security and policy guidelines and allowing IT and management to set expectations.
User training is integral to the success of any Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiative. The training needs to educate users on your BYOD policies, device access, device security, and any other particulars for using personal devices inside your enterprise. Here are 10 key aspects of BYOD training.
1: Define what BYOD means for the organization
2: Cover the process of onboarding BYOD devices
3: Explain expense reimbursements and/or stipends
4: Define BYOD device security policies
5: Review data ownership policies
6: Define what MDM is (and what MDM isn’t)
7: Teach how to use mobile office suites on corporate documents
8: Define the responsibilities of BYOD device users
9: Teach how to access corporate resources from BYOD devices
10: Teach about technical support and escalation paths
Telecom Management Software Vs Inventory Management
We are continuing our series discussing how telecom management software streamlines telecom management tasks.
In our series on how telecom expense management software can make your telecom management job easier, we’re starting with the Big Kahuna. Inventory. And it’s a doozy….
What’s the first thing your Mother taught you? “Always put away your toys when you’re done playing with them.” Good advice. The trouble is, you don’t HAVE the toys. If you are a typical telecom manager, your assets are scattered all over the company. POTS (plain old telephone service) lines running into buildings, smartphones in salespeople’s pockets, old pagers stuffed in drawers… We could go on, but you get the idea. This isn’t a bunch of blocks that you can stack in a pile and count.
So one of the key challenges of telecom expense management has always been “How do I know what to pay for if I don’t even know what I have?”
This is where telecom expense management software comes in. Imagine a neat drop-down menu that says “Inventory”. From there you have an intuitive interface allowing you to see all the data on your inventory items. What is it, where is it, who has it, what vendor is it from, what features does it have, and what does it cost. The magic of integration! In fact, the most powerful aspect of a good telecom expense management tool is its ability to deliver the Big Picture. Here is this bit of data, tied to this detail over here and those six things over there. Click, click, click and you can see the whole telecom landscape in one place.
Which sure makes keeping track of your stuff easier!
Next we’ll discuss the joys of cost allocation….
Want to learn more about telecom expense management software-as-a-solution? Check out Clearview – because, “When you see, you save.”
Telecom management – Getting Sassy with SaaS
To kick off our series on how telecom expense management software can make wrangling your telecom and wireless environment easier, we should start with terms. The best softwares out there today are web-based, or software-as-a-service (SaaS). We discussed this in a previous post about using stone age tools for stone age results.
So first things first, what the heck is SaaS… It’s just an acronym for “software as a service”, which is a fancy way to say “software that you log into via the internet, versus having to download and install it on a computer or server.” In other words, software when and where you need it. These days, its often thought of as “being in the cloud.”
Why do you care? Go ask your IT guy why. Quite simply, if it isn’t on your machine, it isn’t your problem. Security, updates, upgrades, patches, enhancements, anything and everything that software geeks like to do to software are all handled remotely, and it is transparent to you. No added expenses, no downtime, no worries.
Add to that the fact that you can just buy a subscription to the tool, versus buying it outright. That keep the price down, which keeps your CFO happy. A happy CFO and a happy IT guy. Workplace bliss! You’re welcome.
Next we’re going to talk about HOW SaaS can make your life easier…. stay tuned.
Want to learn more now about telecom expense management software-as-a-solution? Check out Clearview – because, “When you see, you save.”