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Telecom Expense Management Services
Redundant lines, carrier overcharges and a myriad of other issues crop up in the course of managing a company's telecom costs. It's one area where there's always money that can be saved if you have the time and manpower to track it down. Many companies don't. Here are a few big-ticket items to keep an eye on if you want to save money, and it won't take you months to realize savings.
Not long ago, Telecom and Technology Expense Management (TEM) were concepts in the exclusive domain of large enterprises. As automation creeps further into every level of every business, it seems only natural that the platforms become more accessible to businesses of all sizes.
If you aren’t familiar with the concept, TEM represents a holistic approach to tracking and managing runaway technology expenses that plague many businesses.
It has been 17 years since Valicom distributed its first client satisfaction survey. Since then, Valicom has pulled all response feedback and applied the comments and recommendations into Valicom’s products and services...
If you are tired of the same-old process and are seeking ways to improve them – look no further than the following five steps to breathe new life into your IT expense management strategy and protect yourself from hidden fees.
With hundreds of telecom expense management software and service solutions, how can you tell which option is the best one for you? Here are six things to look for in a TEM provider to make sure you receive the best service possible with a reliable software solution.
Up until recently, large TEM vendors provided services only to companies over a certain telecom spend. Where this differentiated them competitively with the ability to manage many enterprise clients simultaneously, medium-sized businesses were turned away and smaller businesses were completely ignored.
Implementing a Telecom Expense Management (TEM) solution is guaranteed to uncover savings from billing errors, contract negotiations and potential refunds, however, there are many other avenues of ROI that are often overlooked.
Telecom expenses are some of the most difficult to manage, particularly as infrastructure becomes more complex across businesses. As a result, there are likely services and other active assets that you're paying too much for or just aren't providing the value you need.
The expectation to cut costs and track payments can put major pressure on management to perform. If managers, directors, CFO's and COO's are still using manual methods like spreadsheets, they're likely to make a critical error, throwing off budgets. Managers can expand their capabilities and do so much more with expense management solutions.
Organizations have a variety of options when deciding on a telecom expense management solution. But how do you know which solution is right for you? Here are a few tips to pick the best TEM solution.
Essentially, it is an all encompassing term that refers to the overall monitoring and handling of wireless, voice, and data assets for your company. This is a process you can do yourself, via a web-based platform like Clearview, or you can partner with a firm like Valicom to do these services for you. Whoever does it, in plain language, it means gathering all of your telecom bills and looking for overcharges through a telecom audit, searching for contract violations, finding ways to save money, and negotiating directly with vendors to get a better deal.
What strikes me is how much of this can apply directly to telecom cost control, which is our specialty. Not that it doesn’t make sense. I mean, that is what a CFO is for. They’re like your Dad telling you that you only get your allowance if you spend it on the apple instead of the candy bar. Or buying a book instead of a new video game. The finance people are the gatekeepers for the budget. And this is what they want from their IT and Telecom managers, help keeping the financial house in order. And here’s how they want you to do it…
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.
When processing large and complex telecommunications invoices, there are often account level charges such as taxes and other fees that don’t relate to individual service items. Often organizations lump these charges into a special accounting bucket for lack of a better approach.
As if the Internet, with all of its information, or non-information, and tools, widgets, etc wasn’t enough of a distraction… not to be outdone, the telecommunications industry (and more specifically, wireless telecommunications) has developed smart phones that come with full featured browsers and we can all now carry the full distractablity of the Internet in our pockets.
