A regularly performed telecom audit offer unquestionable value. It offers businesses an opportunity to optimize the telecom inventory, improve security, and generate significant cost-savings.
But, while their usefulness is well established, the processes involved in performing a telecom audit is far more convoluted, not least thanks to these five frequently-encountered challenges.
1. Lack of Visibility
Within the business world, the term “visibility” has been transformed. Defined as the ability to accurately and completely view the processes, transactions, and other activities operating within an enterprise, it’s a term often overused. But not being able to visualize your assets is a big auditing problem.
At an enterprise level, the telecoms environment is incredibly vast, intricate, and complex. Keeping track of fixed telecoms and IT infrastructure, mobile devices, and, increasingly, employee-owned equipment via BYOD solutions is hard work. And in industries such as retail, where the opening and closing of branches at speed is common, the difficulty is amplified.
Without knowing where, what, and how many assets you own, it’s impossible to audit them, but without auditing them, it’s impossible to know where, what, and how many you have. This vicious cycle is one which organizations can easily find themselves sucked into, and once in, it's a struggle to escape.
2. Time-consuming
While lack of visibility is a problem, even those organizations that have authoritative sources of data readily available – such as location lists, network plans, contracts, and customer service records (CSRs) – will still find the task of performing an audit particularly onerous.
With multiple assets, in multiple locations, and in multiple countries spread across the globe, the task of auditing is certainly not a small one. And trawling through these sources of data – while infinitely quicker than manually counting each asset – remains hugely time-consuming.
The sooner you can begin auditing your invoices against a decent inventory, the sooner you can identify expensive billing mistakes and stop paying overcharges. So, any method of reducing this timeframe makes sense from an economic perspective, even if 100% accuracy is not immediately attainable.
3. Shortage of Software or Expertise
To re-utilize pre-purchased software, and, in theory, save time and money, many large organizations will keep their telecom inventory management records manually on Excel spreadsheets or internal databases. But, the responsibility for record-keeping is split among various departments or regions, and training is minimal.
The problem with this method is that spreadsheets aren’t designed to store historical data, so, in an attempt to keep things manageable and updated, untrained employees will often overwrite key pieces of information.
This leads to errors or over-charges, and, while these are usually small, they can add up to vast sums. And this cost-saving exercise can quickly cost more than a paid alternative.
4. Sheer Massiveness of the Task
The fact of the matter is an enterprise-level telecom audit can be a truly mammoth task. One person attempting to complete the audit alone would likely get sick of trying and resign, or it would take so long to complete that by the time it was finished it would no longer be accurate.
Many organizations understand this, and so recruit the services of multiple employees, often from different regions, to cut down on the legwork and get the audit completed faster.
The drawback to this system is that without thorough planning and a set format, process, and clear guidelines of territories for a telecom audit, when the information is finally collated, errors are likely to creep in.
5. Results Utilization
Undergoing asset refresh? A change of technology or upgrade? Or maybe a change or consolidation of suppliers? Perhaps even a merger or acquisition scenario where you will make important decisions based on the state of your telecom estate? There are many reasons for performing a telecom audit, but once you’ve completed it, what to do with the results is another task altogether.
Some organizations believe that as soon as the telecom audit is complete, that’s the end of the line. But it really couldn’t be further from the truth. Not only will the results of the telecom audit need to be utilized in the next step of your project, but they must also be distributed among all departments, specifically in areas such as telecom contract management, planning, forecasting, telecom billing management, budgeting, and network optimization.
And failing to do this is failing to get the true value from the audit results.
Choose Cass For a Best-in-class Telecom Audit
Performed effectively, a telecom audit is transformational. But navigating the many processes involved without the necessary expertise and supervision isn't easy. Organizations that bite the bullet without effective preparation can find themselves without any tangible data, despite the time and money required to perform them.
Topics: TEM
