It has been a difficult year for many companies and the prospects do not seem to be much better. On the bright side, there are a few ways a business can fight the economic downturn without cutting back on staff, products, or services. Most of the expenses are out of your control … like the cost of raw materials, taxes, and other overheads. On the contrary, there is an expense on which you can be “Lord and Master”.
… And that expense is ???
Telecommunications expenses. The Aberdeen group found telecommunications to be one of the top three expenses for most small and medium-sized businesses. It makes sense. Businesses cannot be competitive without intricate landline systems, cell phones, and wireless data devices, so one business freely encourages their use. However, everything has a price. As a business grows, it slowly adds equipment, devices, and services. That often produces a hodgepodge of systems and providers. That results in a huge amount of unnecessary expense due to cost overlap, redundancy, and simply poor supervision due to the complexity of it all.
Control of telecommunications expenses
Unless you have an employee who has the knowledge and skills to examine every facet of your telecommunications use and spending, and also has a lot of free time on their hands, you should consider having a professional Telecommunications Expense Management (TEM ) get the job done. for you. The beauty of hiring a TEM company is that it doesn’t really cost anything. Well, technically it does, but most big-name companies like that charge a percentage of the savings they discover, so you end up saving more than you spend. That money goes towards your bottom line, which makes your CEO and / or shareholders very happy.
How does it work?
It is a fairly complex procedure that involves many approaches. Each facet of TEM relies on the others to some extent, so when listing them here, you should realize that they are not listed in any particular order. It will also become more apparent how they interact with each other as you read.
Asset Management:
Proper management of telecommunications expenses requires an accurate and real-time inventory of the equipment, where it is located and / or who has it. You can’t control costs on an amorphous list of assets, so precise control over inventory is essential.
Electronic acquisitions:
All equipment and service leases and purchases must go through this single centralized portal. Not only does it allow you to keep that vital inventory, but it also allows only approved acquisitions. Approval could depend on the department making the request, or the hierarchy of the employee within the company, or on a case-by-case basis. E-Procurement also takes care of all returns, exchanges and repairs. That eliminates the possibility of an employee losing or damaging their cell phone, for example, and simply walk over to the local provider and get another one without deactivating the first one. Surely you don’t want to pay for two devices while receiving the benefits of just one, right?
Expense optimization:
Just as the name implies, it analyzes every dollar you spend and determines if there is a better deal. TEM companies are generally vendor neutral and can search all vendors to find the most cost-effective equipment and services for you. They know the ins and outs of each vendor and vendor, and they can locate group discounts, unannounced sales, and they can just haggle and haggle.
Invoice validation:
This is my favorite. It has been found that between 7% and 12% of all invoices from telecom providers contain errors, and the majority of those errors are in favor of the providers. To make matters worse, about 85% of those bills are paid without blinking. Avoiding those surcharges could save a great deal of capital needed for your business.
The bottom line:
Well that’s the Reader’s Digest version of Telecom Expense Management. If you are interested in more details, you should contact a reputable telecom expense management company. Depending on the size of your business, TEM could save you hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month.