Telecom Expense Management; a necessary requirement in the quest to achieve strategic cost reduction. Regardless of the size of the company, all businesses are always looking for ways to understand, validate, control and reduce business expenses. Companies that recognize the need for telecom expense control can choose between the following methods:
Manual Auditing
This approach usually involves an individual performing research and basic auditing tasks on thee own with a learn-as-you-go approach.
Software Auditing
In-house employees use specialized software to optimize usage and billing. Historically this has included software provided by vendors that have an impact on the company’s Information Technology (IT) infrastructure. Some software providers will also offer a Web interface to a hosted model.
Enterprise
Analytical tools automatically reconcile detailed billing, inventory and payment processing. These type of systems usually require significant care and feeding and due to the complexity require dedicated staff.
Outsourced or Managed services
Many options are available to companies to manage specific TEM life-cycle activities and cost allocation.
The size of the company can sometimes dictate the TEM tool selected. There are many software directories available on-line to observe the many options to consider. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is the latest technology available to provide TEM tools and expense analysis without the high-cost of complex software that requires significant dedicated focus and support, significantly reduced cost and no impact on existing IT infrastructure.
The iconic, most notable example of the SaaS technology is SalesForce.com. This tool has enabled companies in all industries to utilize powerful Sales tools to manage their sales and lead generation activities at a fraction of the price to develop their own, or to purchase costly software that needs to be modified to suite specific business.