Categories
Monthly Archives: November 2010
Tracking Systems Used By Telecom Consultants Today
This is a follow-up to my previous blog entitled “Telecom Expense Management Portfolio Expansion For Consultants” and the third in a series of blogs that outline the results of Valicom’s telecom consultant survey that was sent out to a nationwide group of independent telecom consultants in August, 2010 on this subject.
The third survey question was “What Kind of System Do You Use To Track Information Now?” Here is the response we received to this question:
Approximately 80% of the respondents said that they were using Excel or other spreadsheets and only 7% said they were using an outside TEM software platform to automate their auditing and telecom expense management processes.
Valicom’s TEM software, Clearview, is a SaaS based platform designed specifically for telecom consultants. Clearview is not only designed for automated telecom auditing and service optimization but also for full lifecycle TEM services such as accurate, comprehensive inventory management, more granular cost allocation and bill payment and standard and customizable reporting and dashboards. This unified platform enables consultants to manage both wireline (local, long distance, data network) and wireless (cellular, PDA, blackberry, smartphone, pagers) services for their clients. Valicom is disrupting the TEM industry with Clearview’s clean, easy-to-use and flexible user interface and low subscription based pricing model.
Stay tuned for my next blog that will provide you with how the telecommunications consultant respondents answered the question “How helpful would you find a software tool designed specifically for telecom consultants for auditing and TEM?”
Healthcare Sector a Top Adopter of iPad Use – Good or Bad for Telecom Costs?
The healthcare sector is among the top three industries seeing the heaviest adoption of the iPad for business use, according to data from Good Technology, a Redwood City-based provider of multiplatform enterprise mobility.
The data comes from an analysis of Good Technology’s user base, which includes more than 4,000 enterprise customers, whose iPad deployments range from one to more than 1,000 iPads.
One reason the iPad is being adopted bey telecom and IT managers in the healthcare industry is because hospitals’ current mobile devices have become a “barrier” due to their size, weight and battery life, said Nick Volosin, ISS director of technical services at Kaweah Delta Health Care District in California. The hospital is considering using the iPad in areas like pharmacy, emergency, dietary, home health, hospice, clinical engineering/bioMed and for private practice physicians and nursing supervisors.
According to feedback from the hospital’s emergency department the iPad is also a potential telecom and IT cost saver. The emergency department estimates that it could trade a COW (computer on wheels), which costs $7,500, for three iPads, costing $1,500.
Kaweah Delta Health Care District is also looking into having the iPad work with a barcode scanner for a portable device for MAK (Medication Administration Check), which helps prevent medication errors, said Volosin.
Electronic medical records applications that are specifically designed for the iPad could be another reason why adoption in the healthcare industry may see more growth. Experts predict that the iPad could even be a “game changer” for EHR adoption.
Is your IT and telecom budget ready for the flood of iPads in your healthcare facility? Do you even know what have for telecom inventory? If you don’t, it might be time to get another new tool for your hospital or clinic, Clearview – a telecom expense, inventory and invoice processing platform. And it’s web-based, so it’s just login and go. One less headache for our IT staff, who will be busy deploying all those iPads….
Check, then recheck, the long distance PIC for new service
One of the most common mistakes made while ordering new service, is to neglect to request that the long distance usage for the new service be billed to your corporate long distance service. The second common mistake, is that once requested, nothing is done to make sure the carrier actually does it.
An oversight like this can mean months of additional overcharges and hours of time to try and recover the credits. This is where a solid TEM process comes into play. Combining a dedicated telecommunications database that incorporates order tracking and implementation along with inventory management will give you the tools to easily manage these kinds of details during the process of ordering new service.
Telecommunications carriers are notorious for committing to one thing, and then doing another, or nothing at all. The best way to combat this poor attention to detail on the part of the carriers, is to maintain a tracking system that can help identify problem areas before they it’s too late and you’ve already started paying more than you should.
A system such as Valicom’s Clearview, can be used by your organization, or in concert with Valicom’s outsourced services to provide the automation and technology support necessary to make sure that something like the LD PIC for new service is requested in the first place, and is implemented correctly by the carriers.
TEM Portfolio Expansion For Telecom Consultants
This is a follow-up to my previous blog entitled “Telecom Auditing and TEM Software Tools” and the second in a series of blogs that outline the results of Valicom’s telecom consultant survey that was sent out to a nationwide group of independent telecom consultants in August, 2010 on this subject.
The second survey question was “How interested are you in expanding your portfolio to include more Telecom Expense Management (TEM) services?” Here is the response we received to this question:
Close to 50% of the respondents said that they were “very interested” and 25% said they were “somewhat interested” in providing more telecom expense management services for their clients. This indicates that the greater majority of telecom consultants would like to provide telecom expense management services such as telecom asset management, bill payment, on-going invoice audits and comprehensive client reporting if they had the technology to do so.
Clearview, Valicom’s proprietary SaaS tool, provides the platform that can address this need for telecom consultants. With functionality to provide on-going services such as accurate, comprehensive inventory management, more granular cost allocation and bill payment, automated auditing and optimization tools and standard and customizable reporting and dashboards, Clearview offers the capabilities for telecom consultants to provide these services for their clients. Valicom is disrupting the TEM industry with Clearview’s clean, easy-to-use and flexible user interface.
Stay tuned for my next blog that will provide you with how the telecommunications consultant respondents answered the question “What kind of system do you use to track information now?”
Telecom Auditing and TEM Software Tools
In August of this year, Valicom sent out a survey to a nationwide group of independent telecom consultants regarding their needs for a consultant-specific telecom auditing and telecom expense mangement tool. We received a 20% response rate and an overwhelmingly positive response regarding the overall need for a telecom-specific TEM tool. We also had the opportunity to speak at the Society of Telecom Consultants conference in Dallas in late September where I presented the results of this survey.
This is the first in a series of blogs that I plan to post that outline the “Telecom Auditing and TEM tool” survey responses along with how telecom consultants can save time and money, grow their businesses through expanded service offerings and provide further benefit for their clients through the use of TEM software.
The first survey question asked what the mix of consulting engagements were. The graph below shows the break out of engagements.
As you can see, on average, about 55% of projects were one-time audits or on-going telecom expense management engagements, those that can be automated through the use of a telecom expense management software tool.
Clearview, Valicom’s telecom expense management SaaS platform, is designed to provide tools for telecom consultants to save time and money on their one-time audit and on-going TEM processes. This subscription-based system is disrupting the telecom expense mangement industry with it’s low price point and ease-of-use.
Stay tuned for my next blog that will provide you with the responses to the question “How interested are you in expanding your portfolio to include more telecom expense management services?”