The Telecom Expense Management Market, estimated at $1.45 billion in 2019, may reach $1.89 billion by 2027. That represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.65%. Another study, adjusted for the impact of COVID-19, projects a CAGR of 14.5% through 2025.
Telecom Expense Management has become an essential part of the tech stack at companies of all sizes and across most industries. Two transformative trends mostly drive this:
Increased need for efficient TEM practices
Expansion of business telecom infrastructures
If you need assistance with your telecom expense management, contact the experts at Valicom to tailor a solution for your company.
Gartner's Market Guide for TEM Services
The 2020 Gartner's Market Guide for TEMS offers insight into opportunities and challenges faced by the industry. Here are four primary takeaways for what to expect in 2021 and beyond.
1.Vendor Capabilities Must Expand to Meet Client NeedsClients
Increased reliance on cloud-based services, video usage and IoT services will drive more organizations toward digital transformation. At least some of this movement will percolate out of COVID-19 related changes. Companies evaluating TEM providers will require services beyond capable software. That might include extending management across communications and cloud-based technology. More businesses are also outsourcing their telecom expense management to qualified third party vendors such as Valicom.
Smart vendors are adding comprehensive IoT or cloud management services to differentiate themselves from other providers. For example, corporate clients crave a single platform that will do the following:
Track costs, inventory and services
Integrate IaaS, PaaS, and UCaaS inputs
Store detailed data
Work with fixed and mobile devices
Include IoT applications
SaaS licensing management
2.Require a Focus on Long-term Forecasts and PerformanceTEM
In 2021 and beyond, decision-makers will carefully examine their vendor's capability to accommodate their functional requirements for the future. Questioning third-party providers is a natural part of closely managing IT spend. TEM vendors need to be flexible and have the capability to increase or decrease their service offering to match client demands.
As part of this examination, companies should request the following assets from their current or prospective TEM vendors:
Day-to-day service delivery capabilities (scope and scalability)
Platform roadmaps
Leadership and financial position of vendors
TEM providers with better service level performance are likely to steal clients away from more lax vendors. RFPs may also start to include a commitment to a specific SLA. However, longevity and reliability often go hand in hand, so established companies will tend to fare better, all other things being equal.
3.Services Should Prioritize Decision-making Assistance
Companies need TEM providers that offer visibility and transparency into their telecom infrastructure and costs. This will become a key incentive for deciding which TM vendor to go with in 2021 and beyond.
TEM vendors will need to prove they can provide:
Advanced data analytics and intelligence to enhance decision-making
Data on spending
Inventory trends
Usage tracking and identification of underutilized assets
Data availability in a centralized repository (one source of truth), making it easier for vendors to provide support.
Recently, TEM vendors are adopting automation such as robotic process automation (RPA) to facilitate vendor integration and automatic invoicing, among other benefits. Even with automation, many companies are finding it cheaper (in the long run) to shift to a fully managed contract with a trusted vendor that provides sufficient transparency.
4.TEM Providers Should Supply Local Resources
Even global TEM providers need local assets who can respond to emergencies and calls for assistance. That's particularly true for TEM organizations attempting to deal with regional dialects or currency in the course of client support. This robs clients of the opportunity to dispute charges effectively.
Enterprise and small business clients are likely to demand:
Quality assurance and service delivery review
Ability to offer fully-managed TEM
Local or regional support for global companies
Wise vendors will carefully assess their capability to meet these needs to avoid falling further behind industry leaders such as Valicom.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: NANCY PECKHAM
Nancy Peckham is the Founder and President of Valicom Corporation, a leading telecom expense management and consulting firm in Madison, Wisconsin. Nancy launched the organization as one of the very few women in technology, seeing the gap in services and the opportunity to fulfill the client’s unique needs while leveling the telecom playing field. She has spearheaded Valicom’s evolving services, including a web-based TEM platform that tracks all IT assets and processes multi-level invoice approval for bill payment. To learn more, visit www.valicomcorp.com.