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Monthly Archives: April 2010
The curse of smart devices
Ever heard the phrase, “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should?” Technology changes so fast in telecommunications world, and ever since the introduction of smart devices that could browse the Internet, read and send emails, edit spreadsheets and so on, people have been tending towards using these devices for more and more functions.
But, how often does a user consider whether or not a smart device is really the best tool for the job. Just the other day, I was at a friend’s for dinner. At one point I noticed him impatiently typing away on his smart device’s tiny little keyboard. Tturns out he was responding to an important email, and by the time he was done, it had taken him close to 10 minutes to finish.
I couldn’t help but notice the laptop computer sitting 15 feet away in the same room. The laptop was even turned on. I asked him if he could have accessed the email on his laptop, and he laughed as he immediately recognized what I was seeing.
Had he used the laptop – it probably would have taken only a couple of minutes to send the same email. But, as with so many of us, he is so used to receiving emails on his smart device, that he no longer thinks twice about whether there is a better way available to respond.
As smart devices continue to become more and more integrated into our daily existence, we all need to constantly evaluate the functionality that we’re being sold. Similar to what I said at the beginning of this post – just because you can type a 5 paragraph email on your smart phone, doesn’t mean that you should.
The point here is that wireless telecommunications technology is going to continue to advance and as it does, the carriers are going to constantly bombard us with the latest features and latest abilities of the most current smart phones. As one of the oldest and most experienced telecommunications expense management companies in the US, Valicom has a unique ability to draw on a breadth of experience that ecplipses the dawn of smart phones and smart devices.
Valicom’s various solutions can provide you with critical insight and advice on the types of devices that should be considered for your staff, and will enable you to make more informed decisions about how you allocate new technologies. Learn more about our wireless cost management services.
Bringing a personal touch to telecommunications
The telecommunications industry is known for being made up of enormous, bloated companies who can’t help but, to treat their customers as just another number on a balance sheet. Especially if your organization is average in size – which puts you in the same category of just about every organization in the US.
Valicom provides a barrier between you and the big telecommunications companies. Through a relationship with Valicom, you can enjoy a dedicated telecom audit project team and project manager who will learn all of the smallest details about your organization and how it operates.
And those automated call systems you have to navigate for 20 minutes before you actually get to talk to a person? You’ll never have to put up with that either. At Valicom, everyone is just a phone call away – and you’ll never have to answer questions asked by a computer.
This personal approach is important to managing your telecommunications expenses – not just because it’s a great way to treat others, but also because it promotes an environment of productivity, trust and constant improvement that is difficult to achieve working directly with the carriers.
Be warned though, you won’t find this personal touch at every Telecom Expense Management (TEM). But I absolutely guarantee you’ll find it at Valicom.
SaaS Telecom Expense Management (TEM) is here, are you ready?
Subscription-based Telecom Expense Management software is here and ready to be leveraged by your business to reduce business costs and specifically, telecom expenses.
If you are not familiar with this technology model, please take some time to understand how significant this change is. Imagine if you can leverage the knowledge and experience of 20 years of Telecom expense analysis, cutting-edge automation and the rapid realization of 30% budget reduction all without impacting your existing Information Technology infrastructure. Would this be of interest to you and your company? Clearview is the SaaS tool you cannot be without.
Valicom has listened to the voices of business that no longer want to have to purchase more software to add to the complexity of their IT infrastructure.
Telephone expense management is one of the low-hanging fruit of opportunities that cannot be ignored. Utilizing an automated tool for auditing and analysis will provide the visibility and validation required to properly manage this function. Cellular telecommunications will only continue to be more difficult to interpret and understand. Why not engage the experts at Valicom to jump-start your learning?
Smart device culture – is it your culture
By all accounts, the smart devices currently available from the large telecommunications carriers have brought incredible amounts of flexibility and power to the on-the-go worker. But in a much sneakier way, they have brought a new culture to organizations. And before you invest large amounts of money in providing smart devices to your staff, it’s important to evaluate whether or not the culture that comes with these devices will help or hinder your employees.
Because these smart devices are designed to keep you constantly connected, it can be very difficult to integrate them into your organization without also allowing new expectations to emerge regarding employee availability and response time. Of course, for many organizations, increasing an employee’s connectivity may be down right required to continue doing business.
But, if your organization doesn’t have a pertinent need for this kind of on-demand employee connectivity, you may actually find that adding smart devices to your employees’ toolset primarily just increases costs, and even brings employee morale down – due to now having to carry work around in their pocket no matter what time of the day or night it is.
This can be difficult for those who manage telecommunications expenses to make device decisions to understand the ramifications of those devices on various employees’ unique job functions. As with most new technologies, each apparent advantage that you gain through the technology brings with it potential disadvantages.
I remember reading an article back when digital cameras first were becoming popular. The author bemoaned the at-odds relationship of the fact that even though it was far easier to take and manage pictures, he now felt overly compelled to capture too much, and found himself enjoying vacations less as a result. He finally decided to just leave the camera at home.
Similarly, a smart device might provide much more constant connectivity to a graphic designer, but it also might cause twice as much interruption as a direct result of that connectivity, thus reducing overall the effectiveness of an employee in such a creative role.
As with any new and flashy technologies, it is always important to take a balanced view when determining if the technology is truly aligned with your goals.
A unique aspect to partnering with Valicom to manage your telecommunications expenses, is that Valicom will provide insight and advice regarding not just cost reduction, but also how you utilize the telecom technologies that are available to you. Valicom is about more than just expense management, and truly brings the advantage of broad experience to your technology decision making process.
Valicom, the SMART choice!
Which came first, GSM or CDMA?
Since it seems that most people believe that Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) is the original cellular technology, having been introduced in the 1980’s years before CDMA’s (Code Division Multiple Access…2G and 3G) introduction in the early 1990’s, I thought I would provide some interesting details to how CDMA came to be.
While GSM is in fact older from a commercial standpoint – CDMA technology is actually older overall, and was first developed at the beginning of World War II. The original application was as a method for remotely controlling torpedoes. At that time though, it was never implemented due to a lack of feasibility in the current technological climate.
As transmission technology improved, it wasn’t long before the US military began using CDMA to send and receive secure messages during the cold war. Because CDMA uses spread-spectrum technology – which is the process of dividing messages into tiny fragments and sending them over several different frequencies – CDMA is inherently secure.
Each fragment is tagged with a code that only the sender and receiver know, and thus the overall message can’t be reassembled by someone in the middle intercepting the fragmented data.
In the mid-1980′s, the US government declassified CDMA technology, and a few years later it began to be tested for commercial use.
So the answer is: CDMA.
For additional valuable information just like this, turn the the experts at Valicom for proper Telecom Expense Management with the ability to reduce business costs.
The importance of quality telecom cost benchmarking
As Mark Twain once said, “It’s what you know that just ain’t so.” This quote couldn’t apply better to the importance of benchmarking as part of the process of securing the most competitive rates throughout your telecommunications spend.
Without solid benchmarks, you won’t have a reliable way of knowing whether the rates you just agreed to for the next 3 years are good, so-so, or even really bad. But you might wonder how you would get that information. What incentive do the vendors have to provide that kind of data? The answer is none.
Valicom on the other hand, negotiates dozens of contracts every year for organizations of every size. As a result of engaging Valicom in a Telecom Expense Management (TEM) solution, you gain access to highly competitive information related to the rates that comparable organizations are getting from the same vendors you are about to go out to RFP with.
So, not only will you have experts in your corner coaching you through each stage of the contract negotiation – but you also get to enjoy the ability to make truly informed decisions, as you are now empowered with the information to do so.
Valicom’s TEM solutions provide the expertise and data to enable your organization to achieve the best results from your telecommunications contract negotiation process.
The need for Telecommunication Expense Management (TEM) explained using Newtonian physics
Many organizations have never considered a TEM solution, in spite of being in business for decades and spending millions on telecommunications. For whatever reasons, telecommunications expenses are often pushed to the back of the room when it comes to the attention received from internal review processes.
Newton’s third law of motion is stated as follows: “Every action has a reaction equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.”
If we consider telecommunications expenses to be the action, then Telecommunications Expense Management is the reaction. It is only natural that as the telecommunications companies invoice an organization each month, often incorrectly, that there should be a consequence – a reaction.
Now consider Newton’s first law of motion: “An object at rest tends to stay at rest, or if it is in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by a sum of physical forces.”
The analogy here should be fairly obvious: The telecommunication companies will continue to overcharge and billing errors that result in higher expenses will continue indefinitely until acted upon by a separate process. And that process is TEM.
Valicom has spent years “reacting” to telecommunications expenses, and it’s proven processes and technologies are a realiable stopping force for unwarranted costs and billing errors.
Sign up for your free Clearview software demo today!
New broadband offerings could change everything
Between the US Government’s National Broadband Plan, and Google’s upcoming ultra high-speed broadband test, incredible changes in how we share information, work and live may be just around the corner.
Among the goals listed for the National Broadband Plan, are providing every American with affordable access to broadband service, and at least 100 million homes should have speeds of 100 megabits per second download and 50 megabits per second upload.
Google is taking it a step further and plans to test residential fiber that would provide 1 gigabit per second download and upload. At that speed, you could download an entire HD movie in less than 5 minutes.
Based on the energy behind these initiatives, I think it’s safe to say that there will be some pretty impressive improvements over the next few years to America’s existing broadband networks.
In the near future, it will become increasingly important for businesses to plan around these new offerings. As these new broadband speeds begin to be implemented and become commonly available, the potential for new IT strategies and business models is huge.
Having a solid understanding of your existing data networks will enable you to more effectively plan for this tremendous opportunity to rethink your infrastructure. A proven Telecom Expense Management solution is a sure fire way to get there – and Valicom is just the company to provide that solution. With 20 years of experience helping companies understand and optimize their data networks, Valicom can give you the edge when it comes to preparing for the next generation of data networking.