Value of Employee Cell Phones
Modern businesses rely heavily on the use of mobile technology, especially smartphones. From staying in contact with clients to capturing leads and creating on-the-spot invoices, smartphones have revolutionized the way we do business.
According to Digital Strategy Consulting, 60 percent of employees use their phones for work-related activities. This company also discovered 90 percent of employees using smartphones for work-related activity state these phones have improved their behavior as business professionals. Fierce Mobile IT says that 70 percent of employees spend more than two hours each week on their phones accessing pertinent company information.
These statistics paint a clear picture of just how important cell phones are to the success of businesses. If your company has yet to invest in employee mobile phones, you should carefully consider the benefits to be gained.
Retaining Top Talent With Employee Phones
As more and more millennials enter the workforce, we are seeing a generational change in how the employees perform their work. Millennials were raised in a world surrounded by mobile technology, including the Internet, smartphones, mobile applications, tablets, and more. Smartphones are ingrained in who they are.
Not only do they know how to use mobile technology for communication purposes, but they can use it to maximize productivity both in and outside of their workplaces. Without mobile technology, they often become frustrated with an employer's daily operational processes. With that being said, providing employees with mobile phones is essential to retaining today's top talent.
Can TEM Software Help Monitor and Manage Employee Mobile Phone Costs?
As with any perk that you provide for your employees, there does come a downside. In relation to employee cell phones, this downside comes in the form of overage charges and misuse of wireless data. Fortunately, TEM software can help with these issues.
TEM software allows employers to identify cost savings in employee mobile data plans and services. It provides valuable insights relating to roaming charges, individual use of mobile lines, excessive data usage, and more. In being able to monitor each employee's use of data, employers can pinpoint which employees are abusing their service plans.
This software also enables employers to determine if they are over-paying for certain mobile plans. Take for example 20 employees are provided a service plan with each worker receiving 10 GB data cap; however, only 5 of these workers actually come close to using this much data each month. In being able to recognize this, the employer can alter the service plan for the other 15 workers to a plan with a lower data cap and that is not as expensive; this can save a considerable amount of money each month on employee mobile costs.
For workers who do consume a large amount of data each month, TEM software can identify these employees and alert employers of high data usage. The employer can make appropriate changes to the service plan, such as adding an automatic data increase feature to the workers' plans so as to avoid unexpectedly high bills.
Another way in which TEM software helps manage employee mobile costs is that it gives employers an accurate view of how to allocate wireless resources. By using advanced analytics, TEM software can identify trends taking place among employee use of wireless services per project that is conducted. In being able to see how individual projects impact employees' use of these services, the services can then be altered in the future according to the project that is being carried out; this can save thousands of dollars on mobile costs.
It's Also an Excellent Way to Go Green
TEM software doesn't just save money on employee mobile costs from a usage perspective but it also helps save by helping companies go green. There's no longer a need to pay for storage space to keep telecom expense sheets. Instead, telecom bills can now be stored digitally thanks to the software.
Receiving e-bills also enables companies to pay their bills much quicker than they are able to when receiving paper statements. Instead of having to wait several days to receive the paper bills in the mail, they can simply log into their TEM accounts and have a precise view of what their bill is going to be and make payments electronically.
Storing telecom usage reports and statements also minimizes companies' waste as well as their overall carbon footprint. Through invoice consolidation, some companies have been known to decrease their annual waste by as much as 12.67 tons of carbon.
The Takeaway
You're going to enjoy a decent return on your investment (ROI) in TEM software. Within only one to two months of using the software, you will be able to pinpoint areas in which you save money on employee mobile costs. Once you make the appropriate changes to employee mobile service plans, you can then compare before and after spends to determine what your exact ROI is. No matter the ROI that you are able to achieve, TEM software will prove itself to be a valuable investment that not only saves money but improves your daily operations.
About the Author: Nancy Peckham
Nancy began her career in telecommunications in 1983 as an account executive with Republic Telecom, a regional long distance carrier. She was named district sales manager for the Wisconsin region in 1987 when Republic Telecom was acquired by Mid American Communications. She recognized a need for independent, objective telecommunications consulting which led her founding Valicom. Since its launch in 1991, Valicom has been a leader in providing telecom expense management solutions and serves enterprise and mid-market clients in a variety of industries and verticals across the U.S. Nancy earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, founded and served as president of the Telecommunications Professionals of Wisconsin (TPW) from 1989-1992, and was executive vice president on the board of directors of the Society of Telecommunications Consultants (STC). Nancy is also a founding member and executive council chair of the Independent Telecommunications Expense Management Association (i-TEM).