AM Exclusive Technicity Newsletter | Page 2

UNCOVER FUNDS FOR YOUR GROWING SECURITY BUDGET NEEDS WITH BETTER TELECOM EXPENSE MANAGEMENT BY: ANDERS MIKKELSEN, PRESIDENT, BERLIN PACIFIC, WWW.BERLINPACIFIC.COM F or many IT leaders who want to bring more resources to bear on protecting their business, finding resources can be a struggle since feeding the existing infrastructure gobbles up the lion’s share of the budget, not to mention their best team members’ time and attention. While companies have sophisticated network management systems, many don’t have comparable systems for managing telecom expenses. People usually focus on the technical success of their vendors first, and then on the cost. Unmanaged expenses are often much higher than tightly managed ones, and loosely managed expenses are somewhere in between. Everyone can probably recall someone who spends money without managing it and the disastrous results that ensue. For IT leaders, minimized expenses means more money to invest in projects that better protect your company from increasing cybersecurity threats. One area that is ripe for reducing expenses is telecom. Increasing the effectiveness of telecom expense management can permanently slash landline telecom and wireless telecom budgets by as much 50 percent. What Does Good Telecom Expense Management Look Like? Most companies are currently employing the minimum set of interventions to keep their telecom expenses down. This involves comparing each vendor bill with their previous bills, looking for variances, investigating the variances, and determining if the vendor needs to fix something or not. Firms also periodically renegotiate their rates. While this minimal system of management is very convenient, it leads to organizations often paying twice as much as they need to. Good telecom expense management holds vendors to specific performance standards. Here are two key standards you should require from your vendors: • visibility into the granular details of the telecom spend must be provided, down to the individual services and their usage • documentation showing how every service relates to actual current business needs The organizational decision makers must be regularly provided with lists or proposals showing all services that are: • billed incorrectly; • unused or unneeded; • underutilized and can be consolidated or otherwise rightsized; and • above market price and off contract or otherwise open to negotiation or repricing. (This implies access to current market prices.) Everything on these lists is an opportunity to save money. Deep discovery can often lead to savings of up to 50 percent. Here are some examples of common situations where overspending occurs: 1. It is often assumed that all lines were shut down at an old location or moved to a new location. When assumptions are verified, it is sometimes discovered that the lines are still open at a location the firm moved out of, each incident costing the firm thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. Bills rarely tell customers where their lines are located, so this happens surprisingly often. 2. One firm had a large number of phone lines that were needed for fax machines. However, the fax machines had been replaced by a fax server. While most of the phone lines were eliminated, many were kept, and the firm was paying for these unused lines. To uncover items such as the above, there must be a process to gain access to data that can be reviewed to verify that everything is billed correctly and at current market rates, that the services are needed, and that they cannot be somehow rightsized. The organization must have a process for using this information to make decisions and to work with vendors to implement these decisions. This includes the need for consistent follow up to verify vendors make all the desired changes. Finding savings in telecom expenses is time consuming, and someone will need to be tasked with the job for it to be done effectively. Due to IT teams already being pressed for time, it will likely make the most sense for your organization to outsource this responsibility to someone with expertise in this area. Many experts in telecom—just by looking at vendor records and without having worked for your business— can tell a lot about how services are really being used to help your business and can determine which services should be changed to minimize costs and maintain or increase service levels. By giving such experts a database that provides visibility to costs, they can create easy-to- understand proposals allowing decision makers to rapidly understand how services can be better aligned with business needs for the foreseeable future. A good telecom expense manager will guarantee their time is well spent by not requiring payment until savings are realized—allowing your staff to spend a minimal amount of time while simultaneously adding needed money back to your IT budget, without any risk. To schedule a free, no-pressure audit of your telecom bill by a telecom expert, visit: AMEXCLUSIVE.COM/TELECOM-SAVINGS.