Best Practices for Taming Runaway Telecom Costs

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Today's Speakers

Roger Topp Business Development Manager vCom Solutions Amelia Ball Engagement Manager vCom Solutions

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Agenda

• Best Practices in Telecom Lifecycle Management (TLM)

• Three Steps to Tame Costs

• Case Study – Heald College

• Q & A

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Best Practices in Telecom Lifecycle Management (TLM)

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What is Telecom Lifecycle Management (TLM)?

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Best Practices: Sourcing & Procurement

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SOURCING

COMMON PRACTICES

• Work with multiple carries and vendors

• Negotiate with carriers directly

BEST PRACTICES

• Perform carrier-agnostic audits

• Leverage strategic sourcing experience and aggregated buying power

PROCUREMENT

COMMON PRACTICES

• IT staff places orders with multiple carriers

• No standardized process for testing and deployment

BEST PRACTICES

• SPOC for orders

• Formalized process and tracking

Best Practices: Inventory & Service

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INVENTORY MANAGEMENT

COMMON PRACTICES

• Limited visibility into inventory

• Extract technical specifications manually from carrier invoices

BEST PRACTICES

• Tool allowing centralized tracking with searchable data

• Common-language applied across services for better visibility and optimization

SERVICE

COMMON PRACTICES

• Contact each carrier’s technical support for trouble-tickets and technical issues

• Different escalation procedures for each carrier

BEST PRACTICES

• SPOC for changes, support and escalations

• Direct access to carrier system and real-time escalation procedures

Best Practices: Invoices, Accounting & BI

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INVOICE MANAGEMENT & ACCOUNTING

COMMON PRACTICES

• Multiple invoices; manual audit

• Invoices manually coded and allocated

• Manually load to AP system

BEST PRACTICES

• Electronic, consolidated invoices with automated audit

• Automated GL coding and cost allocation

• API or Batch files

ANALYTICS & BI

COMMON PRACTICES

• Manually generated reports and trend analysis

• Rely upon the carrier to create savings

BEST PRACTICES

• Real-time reporting on usage and trending

• Clear path to ongoing cost reduction

TLM's Top 5 Expense-cutting Levers

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MID-SIZED BUSINESS TEM PROGRAM SAVINGS

10%

42%

1%

18%

29%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

Audit Optimization Late FeeReduction

ChargebackControls

ContractNegotiation

Source: AOTMP, 2009

Three Steps to Tame Costs

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Step 1: Ask the Right Questions

• How do we manage it today?

• Do we have the right technology?

• What are we paying in relation to the market?

• Where do we still rely on manual processes?

• What don’t we know?

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Step 2: Commit to Three Key Changes

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• Complete a comprehensive inventory audit and create a technology blueprint

• Change telecom costs from an invisible expense to a real business metric

– Give key managers visibility to telecom and network spend

• Consider alternative methods of managing the telecom lifecycle

Step 3: Understand the Options

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SERVICES SOFTWARE COMBINATION

• Auditors – contingency audit and expense reductions

• Consultant or IT/Professional Services firm

• Server-based TEM

• Software-as-a-Service TEM

• Reseller/ Consultant

• TEM software + paid professional services

• BPO-TEM funded by distribution

BPO Distribution Model Advantages

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• FREE or highly subsidized software

• Aggregated buying power

– Across multiple carriers

• Free or highly subsidized Professional Services

• Carrier agnostic sourcing and benchmarking

– Client-driven carrier selection

– Transparency

• Centralized customer-support and operations

Case Study – Heald College

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Case Study – The Situation

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• 2500 employees

• 15 locations (California, Oregon and Hawaii)

• No one owned or managed telecom for 145 years

• Multiple bills from multiple carriers (over 100 invoices monthly)

• Difficulty assigning telecom costs directly back to business units

• No documentation or verification for current services

• No centralized or automated view of telecom spend, inventory or

activities

• Planned growth would add to complexity of the current situation

Case Study – The Transformation

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• Inventory audit

• Standardized requirements

• Replaced 94% of Primary Rate

Interfaces (PRI’s) for phone services

• Terminated services that were no longer being utilized

• Named all inventory within vManager and assigned locations and

cost centers

• Customized AP report for invoice allocations by cost centers

• Document library for all contracts

• Added 400 wireless devices to vManager inventory

Case Study – Results

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• Reduced invoices from 100 to 10

• Overall savings of 40% on Telecom spend for current services, annual saving of 200K

• More accurate budget projections with the use of vAnalyzer tool

• Increased visibility and confidence that what is paid for is being used

• Saving time and money which allows focus on other projects to grow business

Questions & Answers

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Thank You.

www.vcomsolutions.com