Today's enterprise telecom environments are ever-changing. Many organizations use a combination of remote, hybrid, and office-based methods of working. However, this presents challenges when it comes to managing communication expenses.
The Changing World of Managing Communication Expenses
Hybrid working is commonplace. Globally, nearly three-quarters of employees want to work from home two or more days a week. The pressure to keep employees connected, engaged, and working efficiently has led to businesses diversifying their communications environment.
Previously, businesses have relied on fixed and wireless telecom solutions to manage calls and meetings. But now, technology like instant messenger chat, video, and other cross-functional communication services dominate. As a result, IT infrastructure management has become more complex for large, global enterprises.
Every location, office, department and user/employee needs the right technology for your needs and processes. And your expense management processes for communication expenses must track each service to minimize costs.
Why Should You Manage Communication Expenses?
Communication expense management services, delivered by an experienced partner, improve the visibility of your communications costs. This lets you proactively find ways to reduce spending and wasted resources; it's also known as telecom expense management (TEM).
Expert partners provide full lifecycle support for your telecoms environment across ordering, provisioning, support, and managing costs. Their support gives you better visibility across all your services and assets, including:
- Fixed and mobile telephony
- Internet of Things (IoT)
- Public cloud license tracking
As demand for communication expense management has grown, some telecom expense management providers have broadened their capabilities to cover services that interconnect with telecoms, like devices, subscriptions, or services. This is sometimes referred to as technology expense management.
For example, Cass offer both telecom expense management services and managed mobility services (MMS) to their customers with a single service. These services consolidate vital communication expense management data into one place so you can overcome the challenge of rising costs.
Case Study: Multi-national Manufacturing Conglomerate Saves $5.1 Million
A multi-industry company with $20M in annual telecom spend and over 7,000 corporate-liable smartphones required greater control of their telecom environment.
Cass helped them unite fixed-line and mobile processes into one solution, streamlining visibility and reporting. Read the full case study.
How to Optimize Your Communication Expenses
1. Auditing
The first step to minimizing costs is a telecom expense audit. Expert telecom professionals review contracts, billing records, inventories, and tariffs by location. They review your invoices line-by-line to provide a clear and comprehensive overview of your telecom inventory.
This service demonstrates exactly where you're misallocating costs and can reduce spend. It also shows where and how you could use services differently, to streamline your business practices.
2. Benchmarking, Sourcing, and Procurement
Many communication expense management providers have the industry knowledge to get you the best rates and optimum contract terms. They can support you with initial benchmarking, sourcing, and procurement, helping minimize your costs from the beginning of the telecom lifecycle.
3. Invoice Management
Invoice management helps you consolidate all your billing information for communication expenses into one central platform. Your contracts and agreements might be equally diverse if you’re a global business with multiple locations in different countries. Language, currency, and cultural knowledge can all be barriers to bill quality and identifying or disputing cost discrepancies. An experienced provider will handle all of this for you.
4. Provisioning and Inventory Management
Every enterprise should have the resources to manage and report on all software and IT assets. Unfortunately, many lack this level of visibility and control. You can track non-physical assets such as service agreements or physical assets with better provisioning and inventory management processes.
This covers every aspect of your communication expenses – from software licenses, mobile and tablet devices, or your physical telecom network equipment.
Regain Control of Your Communication Expenses with a Telecom Expense Management Partner
Your telecom environment enables employee productivity today, so it's important to ensure you’re getting the most value from your communication expenses.
Communication expense management helps your enterprise streamline every step of your telecom expense processes and unify all your fixed, wireless, and other cross-functional communication services in one place.
To improve yours, work with a trusted telecom expense management partner. With expertise in managing expenses across the entire telecom lifecycle, the right provider helps you regain control of communication expenses. Learn how much you could save with our telecom expense management ROI calculator.
