Telecom Expense Management
What is Telecom Expense Management?
Telecommunications today involves a wide range of services, platforms, and devices. The approach to managing all of these services and platforms is referred to as Telecom Expense Management or TEM for short. TEM includes all of the expenses for telecommunication services, including wireless, data, voice, and the software and tools used. It also provides for the cost of auditing of all of these expenses.
The primary goal of TEM is to maximize the efficiency of all communication products and services used in an organization or business and to minimize their costs. This is usually a simple task for small companies involving verifying services and charges on their monthly phone bill. Larger companies and organizations, however, typically need a formal program to optimize spending on all of the telecom services that they need and use. Auditing gets most of the attention, but billing errors, refunds, and more are involved for a TEM program to be effective.
Business Phone Systems Telecom Expense Management
Service Oriented
One of the unfortunate facts of the telecom revolution is that today’s account representatives are more sales-oriented than service-oriented. That can be problematic as the overall need for excellent telecommunications is proliferating. Today’s workers are highly mobile, and the amount of communication between them, their company, and their customers is vast.
When you consider that much of today’s workforce is telecommuting and using PDAs, e-commerce, and the Internet, you immediately understand that the demand for communication is increasing by leaps and bounds. Also, information is being exchanged continuously on various devices, making communication today incredibly complex and involving reams of data.
Unfortunately, there’s also a lack of transparency regarding services, devices, and charging models, which has led to an extensive amount of confusion for many businesses. Furthermore, telecom service companies are downsizing their support staff even as telecommunication becomes more complex. Some of the challenges this has caused include:
The Need for Telecom Expense Management
- Allocating costs effectively between different carriers, services, and invoice formats.
- A lack of proper inventory control for a business’s assets, including hardware, software, headsets, wireless devices, and so forth.
- A lack of resources to audit every telecom invoice. Considering that 7 to 12% of telecom bills have errors, this need becomes very apparent.
- There is a lack of proper understanding of the cost of telecom services and the ability to determine precisely what a business is receiving for their money.
The Need for Excellent TEM is Greater than Ever Before
Today, the need for a better way to manage and control an organization’s telecom costs is wholly apparent. Indeed, TEM is a critical business strategy for any organization to track spending, maximize telecom resources and make informed decisions about their telecom needs. The benefits of competent monitoring, control, and reporting on telecom thus can’t, and shouldn’t, be underestimated.
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