Sourcing is the process that company’s use to research and select vendors. This process includes understanding the specific attention your telecom environment needs, creating an RFP that will help you best understand what each vendor has to offer, analysis of the bids that come from these RFPs, and negotiating the best deal with the carrier you choose. Having a telecom expense management (TEM) team to help you will allow for a quick and easy process, avoiding confusion.
How TEM can help you during each step:
Understanding your telecom environment
There are many pieces to your telecom environment including controlling asset costs, analyzing invoices to catch unwanted errors, and making sure you are taking appropriate security measures. Many companies don’t know how much they are spending on their telecom expenses annually, let alone how to control those costs. That’s where a telecom expense management team comes in. Your telecom environment will no longer be an unknown but rather transparent.
Creating your RFP
Being knowledgeable about different telecom vendors will allow you to make the best decision for your company’s unique telecom environment. RFP stands for “request for proposal”. It’s a document with questions that telecom carriers will answer to help you better understand what they have to offer. A telecom expense management company will help you develop a RFP that will align with what your businesses telecom environment needs.
Understanding the Results
When carriers send your company a response with what we call a “bid”, a telecom expense management team will analyze the bid to make sure the results match up with your telecom environment. Sometimes the information relayed in these bids can be technical and hard to understand. A TEM provider will clear up any confusion and help make the best decisions for your company.
Negotiation
Finally, after the documentation is analyzed, negotiation is vital. The negotiation will determine how much you are paying to the telecom carrier you’ve chosen. With a TEM team on your side, you will have access to benchmarked pricing. This means that you will have an idea of what other companies are paying these vendors and you can use this information to negotiate yourself or have your TEM provider negotiate for you.
The sourcing process can be frustrating and time-consuming if you do not have access to the right information. Telecom expense management teams are easy to communicate with and will make your life a lot easier when choosing a telecom carrier. Choosing the right telecom carrier will save you a lot of money in the long run. Therefore, the sourcing process is more than worth it.