It's estimated that businesses currently waste an average of 30% of their IT spend across their telecom and wireless solutions. To overcome this, today's enterprises need more effective ways of minimizing their inefficient spending, especially post-pandemic. The latest Amalgam Insights Wireless Expense Management Report, CIO’s Guide for Managing Wireless Expenses in 2021, reveals why.
During the pandemic, many businesses rapidly adopted solutions that enabled remote working. Now, they are starting to make the transition back to a “new normal”, with a mix of both office-based and remote end-users. Considering 83% of workers prefer this hybrid model of working, businesses must ensure they’re getting the most value from the technology that enables it.
Amalgam Insights explores key trends and recommendations for managing enterprise mobility in the future. In this blog, we’ve compiled our four key takeaways from the report to help you understand the key considerations for wireless expense management.
1. Internal Teams Need More Support for Effective Management
Enterprise mobility has become more complex, and maintaining control of the total cost of ownership of a fleet of devices now depends on a myriad of factors. Many organizations find that wireless expense management is not a core internal capability. Internal teams don’t have the time and resources to implement extra, potentially cost-saving measures. Or they might not have the visibility and knowledge to find them.
Where once teams just had to only manage the basics of your telecom environment, their methods are now inefficient without support, governance, security, and recycling controls that span the entire lifecycle of your devices.
This is because enterprises with a large fleet of devices will require more control as the new era of hybrid work becomes the norm. In the United States and Europe alone, there are nearly a billion cell phones between both consumer and enterprise markets, over half of which are used in the workplace either as corporate-owned or Bring Your Own Device (BYOD).
Enterprises must have measures that provide visibility of what they’re spending on these devices and methods to implement cost controls across their large telecom environments.
2. Enterprises are Spending More on IT Than Expected
The Amalgam Insights report found that In 2020, Gartner predicted that organizations would cease IT spending in the face of a global pandemic. Computing, apps, and mobile devices would not offset enterprise IT investments. But since then, public cloud and enterprise mobility solutions have proven to be important enablers of remote work.
Devices and networks that provide remote access to data are now at the forefront of enterprise hybrid working. Additionally, the backend computing and analytics software that supports them are more important than ever for control and visibility. Overall spend on enterprise software increased by 11% between 2019 and 2020, while spending on IT services increased by 3%.
And this rate of spending is only likely to continue. Amalgam Insights predicts that postponed upgrades during COVID-19, as well as the emergence of 5G, will encourage enterprises to keep up with the rate of innovation. But as spending grows, businesses must better manage these growing wireless expenses to remain strategic.
3. It's Difficult to Differentiate Between Vendors
The current wireless expense management market is filled with vendors who offer similar services. Many enterprises are looking for factors like reporting and analytics to enable visibility, inventory optimization, and expert support. It’s easy to become confused when every vendor delivers this and more. That’s why in 2021 and beyond, it's important to distinguish the key differentiators that will help you get the most value from managing your wireless expenses.
Nearly all of today’s top partners can provide basic measures of success, such as customer retention, visibility, accuracy, geographic coverage capabilities, and long-term support. Businesses need to dig deep into these claims. Can the vendor back up these measures with quantitative metrics and data? If the answer is no, then the vendor should be avoided.
When it comes to unique differentiators, Amalgam Insights has found that enterprises should look for the following capabilities if they want truly effective wireless expense management:
- Automation
- Compliance
- Security
- BYOD Management
- Unified Endpoint Management
4. Businesses Will Benefit From a Lifecycle Management Approach
Both wireless and telecom cost controls are difficult to accomplish without effective management of the full lifecycle of devices and services. This is across contracts, sourcing, invoices, device governance, and device logistics. Especially as mobile devices increasingly replace laptops, 5G replaces circuits, and wireless expenses become core IT expenses.
Enterprises should consider using a full-circle, lifecycle approach if they want to maximize visibility of their mobility spend. Many wireless expense management partners can help you achieve this, and it allows you to continuously spot savings opportunities at every stage of the telecom lifecycle. This is something that internal teams might struggle to do alone, especially across expansive, global mobility environments.
Get a Complimentary Copy of the Amalgam Insights Wireless Expense Management Report
If you'd like to get more key insights from the Amalgam Insights report, we're offering a copy that includes a vendor profile for Cass Information Systems.
Read your complimentary copy of the report today. Click here to download Analysts Insight: CIO's Guide to Managing Wireless Expenses in 2021: Cass Information System.
