Telecom Expense Management
Take control of the enterprise phone bill
TEM systems can help pinpoint unnecessary expenses and adjust provisioning policies.
by Brian Rafferty
Telecom expense management (TEM) vendors estimate up to 15 percent of the telecom expenses incurred are the result of billing errors, such as duplicate charges and charges for services that have been canceled. Some companies recognize the impact of these erroneous expenses and have staff to reconcile billing errors and other discrepancies. Other companies attempt to reduce their costs by switching carriers or bundling services.
The enterprise telecom bill contains a large amount of information, making reviewing and verifying every expense item for each employee difficult. Hours of staff time can be spent checking and reconciling telecom bills, allocating charges and monitoring for new and cancelled services. Billing errors and inaccurate inventory audits are a problem, as well as the difficulties caused by complex provisioning policies and intricate carrier contracts. Many companies have no solution to verify that their phone expenditures are accurate.
Companies can reduce the cost of their telecom by conducting a strategic review of their telecom management process and focusing on employee needs and carrier contracts. Administrators should begin by determining which employees have access to and use a company’s telecom tools. Then an effective provisioning policy can be designed to reduce expenses without affecting essential services. Conducting periodic provisioning reviews to determine changes in employee requirements is also important.
An analysis of employee telecom usage is necessary when negotiating with carriers to find the best telecom contract. By understanding which services are necessary for which employees, carrier contracts that exclude needless or redundant services can be negotiated. In combination with industry benchmarking and a review of previous program costs, this information can help managers select a service provider that offers the right capabilities at the right price.
Reducing a company’s telecom expenses and streamlining its telecom operational review is possible by breaking the bill down into individual expense items. While this can help solve the problem of paying for unnecessary services, enterprises often find they do not have the staff needed to conduct a thorough analysis of the telecom bill each month. Some companies may prefer to employ a staff to manually break down the enterprise telecom bill; however, a company with a thousand employees, for example, can save time and manpower by employing a telecom expense management (TEM) system. A TEM system automatically breaks down the bill for easy analysis. In addition to identifying billing errors, TEM systems make determining exactly where expenses are coming from, how frequently services are being used and by which departments easier.
Brian Rafferty is head of professional services, Quickcomm, New York.
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