The challenges presented by COVID-19 leave many business leaders and CIOs scratching their heads as they face tough decisions to reduce costs. Fears of downsizing are plaguing the industry right now, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Leadership can capitalize on utilizing a neutral 3rd party to effectively manage their telecom spend, saving up to millions of dollars in overhead costs*. Many businesses are forced to make sacrifices during this time, but by focusing on Digital Optimization™, you can save valuable human resources while focusing on cost optimization measures via telecom expense management. Don’t face these tough decisions alone; at ITC2, we’re here for you!
What Are the Unique Challenges of Telecom Expense Management with an Expanding Remote Workforce?
“A hefty portion of most businesses’ budgets include IT and Telecom costs,” said Russ Burd, a telecom expense management expert. “Cost optimization is often an ongoing focus for many organizations, especially during challenging times. With telecom expense management, we facilitate a reduction in telecom spend across your enterprise, so you can get back to business.”
According to Craig Riegelhaupt at Tangoe, an IDC survey reported that businesses face significant challenges with “rising costs, increasingly mobile workforces, and rapidly advancing technologies.” As a result, forecasting for the future, validating invoice accuracy, managing service inventory, and charging back to departments becomes particularly difficult to manage alone. Working around an existing IT ecosystem in a large, global enterprise presents unique challenges, especially as different departments deploy more IT, outside of the typical office structure. With COVID-19, many businesses were forced to run operations from home, expanding the remote workforce on a broader scale than ever before. IT systems must be prepared to integrate with new technology in ways never imagined before. Telecom expense management presents as a proactive approach to these rising challenges, so even in a crisis, your business can be a model of continuity. ITC2 has been able to reduce telecom spend through telecom expense management by over 50% for businesses*.
What Are the Components of Telecom Expense Management?
If telecom expense management were as simple as looking at your bills, everyone would do it! Your business may have a preexisting software vendor for telecom expense management in place, yet you’re still experiencing loss in hidden fees or higher rates. With an effective managed services consultant, you maximize cost savings while finding more optimal, efficient, and effective ways to budget for services.
At ITC2, we stay updated on industry trends, allowing us to secure the most competitive quotes while acting as an extension of your procurement teams to manage RFPs, RFIs, and RFQs. After receiving consultation on the contract, we bridge the service provider’s team with the staff to ensure success in the service delivery process while reporting on inventory, finances, and ticket escalation management. Audit reviews ensure fairness and compliance in the telecom billing practice. We’re here for your staff in an ongoing and supportive manner to help you with all of your needs in telecom expense management.
Among many components, some key pillars of our telecom expense management process include:
- Goal Setting for Telecom & Wireless Services: ITC2 looks at existing telecom and wireless services with a focus on the client’s future business plans and technological needs for existing and/or new inventory. We prepare for planning and budgeting through a thorough examination of invoicing, orders, and expenses.
- Telecom Benchmarking: Customized benchmarking for telecom services provides the information necessary to optimize costs in your telecom spend. With benchmarking, you are better informed on SLAs through aggregated data about costs. By comparing current telecom spend and updated, best-in-market pricing, ITC2’s telecom benchmarking will inform your budget, negotiation, and Digital Optimization™ goals.
- Telecom Audit: By methodically auditing your telecom billing, ITC2 can ensure that telecom services are correctly aligned, in use, regulated, reconciled, and matched to your enterprise’s needs. Auditing informs future sourcing and implementation needs in order to accurately identify and make adjustments to your telecom plan.
Telecom auditing and benchmarking are only two of the essential components of the process ITC2 employs to inform data-based decisions to provide instant cost reduction for your business. CIO magazine identifies four common domains where telecom savings can be achieved: renegotiated service provider contracts, actual and forecasted usage, compliance monitoring for billing errors, and monthly management by usage demands. For immediate results, focusing on contract renegotiation in terms of actual and forecasted usage provides instant ROI. Through ITC2’s telecom expense management process, auditing and benchmarking are just a couple of components in a comprehensive review of your telecom spend for the full lifecycle of the technology. Our unique process enables us to target the areas where telecom savings can easily be achieved immediately.
Do I Really Need Someone Else to Negotiate for Me?
When looking to reduce costs, you’ll want an agnostic 3rd party who will work without cost to the client. Creating a comprehensive, long-term expense management plan is challenging, time-consuming, and resource-intensive. Negotiation is just one of many steps. In order to streamline operations, optimize costs, allocate resources, and recoup lost profits, ITC2 will work for you! Valuable leadership and procurement teams can get back to business. You won’t have to suffer the headache of obtaining and negotiating RFQs from multiple vendors; let ITC2 do that for you!
How Often Should a Professional Conduct a Telecom Spend Analysis?
Terms of contracts vary, and a telecom spend analysis can pinpoint the opportunities for savings through renegotiation under your current providers as well as changes through alternative providers. In essence, an effective telecom expense management plan is ongoing, and ITC2, as a supplier-neutral 3rd party, can help you every step of the way. By managing service providers throughout the full technology lifecycle, clients can get back to their most important business, their customers. In helping clients increase capacity through Digital Optimization™ while optimizing costs, we support you 100% of the way. ITC2 supports the technology management’s cyclic nature of initial pricing, contract consulting, service delivery, invoice audit, and review with ongoing support.
Want to know more about how ITC2 can manage your business’s Technology Lifecycle?
“Telecom Expense Management can be really overwhelming for a large enterprise with many moving parts and day-to-day concerns,” said Les Peterson, CEO, ITC2. “By utilizing ITC2’s telecom expense management services throughout the full lifecycle of technology, business leaders are empowered to take on more collaborative, customer-focused projects, while we take care of the technology. We’ll help you by increasing capacity while optimizing costs.”
How ITC2 Can Help
At ITC2, we connect our customers to the world with cost optimization through telecom expense management. Our trusted advisors in the telecommunications industry provide a thorough analysis of telecom spend and support in an ongoing manner throughout the whole T-Lifecycle. ITC2 will supplement and enhance your procurement teams with over 300 years of thought leadership and industry experience at no cost to the client**. Do you want to see how ITC2 helped negotiate telecom spend, producing millions of dollars of savings? Check out our case study on our website. Let us streamline your telecom expense management process today.
ITC2 is a Gartner recognized Minority Business Enterprise Supplier with a 94% customer satisfaction rating from Dunn & Bradstreet, a requirement to do business with Federal, State, County, and City Governments.
For more information, call (404) 507-2105, visit ITC2.net, follow us on Facebook (@DigitalOptimizationSolutions), LinkedIn (@ITC2), and Twitter (@ITCtwo).
*Amount saved depends on business-specific factors, such as business size, current telecom contracts, and future network goals.
**ITC2 is supplier-neutral and works with master agents to expand options for the client’s business.
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