Wireless expense management is one of the fastest growing areas in the communications industry today. Wireless expense management is most useful for organizations who subscribe to at least 200 or more phones on a monthly basis, and who are not proactively managing these expenses.
Wireless expense management is the current focus of most Information Technology and Telecommunication departments, who have been tasked with driving costs and inefficiencies out of the enterprise.
Simply put, communication spend is one the top 5 expenses within the organization and wireless expense is one the greatest communication expenditures. Add to this, the mobile fact expenditure continues to rise even after pricing reviews, and then it becomes clear any organization not monitoring usage and internal management processes will struggle to make any significant savings.
Resource Management
Utilising has recognised and experienced wireless expense management company will allow management to re-focus time on the core activities and let a management company do the heavy lifting of database management, data collection, user management, analysis and reporting. Use your time more effectively to implement best practices for policy management and focus on mitigating risk for your organization.
Internal and fragmented mobile management often has lead to poor visibility of subscriber use, poor inventory management, continuous change in subscribers, subscriber usage and behaviour going unchecked, almost as an area either too small to bother looking into, or too complicated and onerous a task for most enterprises to consider.
The challenge of device management regardless of how large a company is, largely falls on the shoulders of the IT department, which often doesn't have the resources or expertise to provide efficient support for mobile devices, especially around mobile billing which is largely an administrative task of updating databases, verifying billing, and usage monitoring.
One of biggest benefits of outsourced wireless expense management is that experience for the customer is literally "turn key". New policies and processes to the customer are proven existing solutions for the management company coming with pre sales, implementation, and post sales support which has been proven to deliver.
Device Management
Mobile phones it increase our capacity to work more effectively, communicate quickly and enjoy the freedom of responding quickly to personal and professional demands. In some organizations, especially core public service, they are often life-saving as emergency calls quickly alert necessary assistance.
Mobile phones started as a simple calling device detached from a cable phone line and became the most convenient and reliable tool of day-to-day communications. Now they are more akin to mini but powerful computers carrying key organisational data remotely where it can be best utilised, and forming a key component of many workforce automation solutions.
While no one can dispute the value of mobile devices to an organization, have you ever considered what the return on investment is for under utilised devices? Organizations with larger mobile deployments are likely to find many devices with this use profile. (Subscribers_in_this_scenario_should_be_reviewed_for_either_a) a better corporate plan to fit their requirements or b) justification for the use of a mobile device.
In previous years devices have been issued on a whim, only to find after a few months is far too low to actually warrant from its use as a business device. How many organizations deploy laptops to people who spend 1 day away per month from the office,... not many!
Cost Management
This can only be done with a good understanding of what drives your usage costs. Some theories go something like this, 80% of the costs are generated from 20% of the subscribers, and therefore simple reporting on high usage should help reduce overall costs.
This thinking is fatally flawed as these top spenders are usually executives who do travel extensively and therefore most if not all of their use is justified and business related. Sounder strategy focuses on addressing the users who spend 20-40 per month, and usually go unnoticed in the reporting. It is my experience that up to 45% of their use tends to be personal related as opposed to business.
The challenging economic climate has led many organizations to tighten their belts and seek new and creative ways to reduce costs.
The short term gains of switching to an employee liable setup, which may include reduced costs and a reduction in employee complaints over the device chosen, may well be offset by the potential liability that is created. Also the processes adopted for reclaiming the business calls can then become onerous, as well as the loss of the organizations ability to sense check those claims. Add to this IT security issues and I would not recommend this as sound mobile policy for any enterprise to adopt.
Enterprises tend to lose a lot of money because users obtain features that aren can't of benefit to the company, or because of invoice errors on the carrier side (corporate discounts not being applied, for example). But there are many enterprise organizations that don't realize the money that is being left on the table, and in fact given to the carriers. While there are many ways wireless expense management services save customers money, most of these audits discover savings based on the following three factors;
1 Billing Error and Over load
2 Asset wastage and contractual determinations
3 Personal and non-company related activity
Enterprises are turning to wireless expense management providers to make sure policies are upheld, costs are kept under control, and users get the support they need to work efficiently.
Conclusions
Wireless expense Management is a reasonably new industry. Wireless Expense Management is one of the most dynamic sectors in the communications industry today for a simple and obvious reason; Companies want to reduce the total cost of ownership of their mobile fleets.
Successful Wireless Expense Management is very complex and can be very costly if you do not have the in-house expertise it takes to manage it well.
A comprehensive approach to Wireless Expense Management provided by independent experts is able to eliminate all mobile cost related problems, and more.
Simon is an experienced consultant who has worked in most facets of mobile telecommunications from handset manufacturer, transport layer switching, data switching, and airtime allowance, where he spent just under 10 years as a sales manager and Head of business unit for O2.
Providing airtime services to large corporate clients has given Simon an amazing insight to both what networks need to achieve, and the complexities of managing mobile accross hundreds of corporate organizations.
Simons other resources on wireless expense management, mobile management, and business process outsourcing can be found on his web site [http://www.mobilesmanaged.com].
Simon now works at ttmobiles, this company has provided advice and solutions for mobile management for corporate clients for over 10 years. The business issues they address, their unique solutions, and all contact details can be found at http://www.ttmobiles.com.
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