Successfully managing your enterprise telecommunications estate on a regional or global scale is not only challenging but downright impossible without the right tools, knowledge, and business process frameworks.
While most global organisations have a grasp of their telecommunications estate at a technical level, the majority of them have very little control over the financial aspects of this mission critical resource.
Looking at the financial characteristics of managing an enterprise telecommunications estate, they all share similar management challenges:
Enterprise telecommunications are a complex mix of fixed lines, data circuits, and mobile technologies.
These technologies are dispersed around the globe in different ratios.
The total telecommunications services and products deployed within an enterprise can number in the tens or hundreds of thousands.
Procurement of particular telecom services are often sourced from many different service providers in each country without much thought being put into a centralised more optimised sourcing strategy.
Telecommunications invoices are typically processed and paid with little ability to audit for billing inconsistencies or billing errors.
Telecommunications spend analytics to identify and curb usage fraud, employee abuse, or billing anomalies is either non-existent or very limited in scope.
These combined challenges represent significant financial risk to the organization. Common spend leakages in the order of 10% to 35% are typical for those organisations that do not have the right telecommunications spend framework in place.
What can be done to overcome these challenges?
First and foremost, every organisation must recognise the financial risks associated with runaway telecommunications expenditures if they don’t take proactive action to mitigate their spend management challenges.
Second, the organisation much adopt a full telecommunication spend management lifecycle solution that incorporates niche technology with industry best practices. With this solution in place, the organisation gains complete spend visibility to identify and plug spend leakages.
Third, specialised spend management professionals who understands the technical and commercial nuances of the telecommunications industry must be hired or trained to successfully and optimally drive this very important programme within the organisation.
Lastly, a full telecommunication’s spend programme as a strategic and operational imperative must be supported throughout all levels of the organisation in order for it to be successful into the long term.
Most organisation sees telecommunications expenditures as a mission critical cost of doing business to tie their organisation together as well as to communicate with their suppliers and customers. At the most basic level, this idea is true. However, optimally managing this critical expense requires a much more strategic and operational approach that can only be realised when the organisation supports a full Telecom Expense Management (TEM) programme.
Ultimately, those who have successfully implemented a global TEM spend management programme will always have a competitive edge over their closest competitors and it’s shown by how much less they are spending for a similar telecommunications estate to drive their global business.
Written by
Peter Hum
Managing Director - StrateValue Pte Ltd
ATIS Executive Council Member