Corporates wasting money
Vodacom leading the pack
“ We see large corporates often waste more money, on a per-contract basis, than smaller businesses. However, SMEs are still paying too much.”
T he biggest mistake companies make when selecting smartphone packages for their employees is choosing the wrong contract – and with over 10,000 combinations of packages in South Africa, it’ s an easy mistake to make.
Tariffic CEO Antony Seeff – whose company specialises in cellphone bill optimisation – said it is almost impossible for individuals to select the right package for themselves, meaning companies face a mammoth task when picking contracts for multiple staff members.
Seeff said Tariffic is able to save companies up to 40 % on their cellphone bills simply by ensuring that employees are on a contract which meets their needs.
Corporates wasting money
“ We see large corporates often waste more money, on a per-contract basis, than smaller businesses. However, SMEs are still paying too much,” said Seeff.
“ We find the biggest overspend for SMEs comes from employees being on the wrong packages, companies not adding bundles as necessary, and companies being charged for extra costs – such as WASP services – that should be removed immediately.”
Seeff said large companies are also plagued by dormant contracts, which often occurs when an employee leaves the company and their unused contract continues to be paid for every month.
Tariffic stated that 11 % of the corporate lines it analysed had no usage.“ Usually when an employee leaves a company or moves roles, the SIM cards land up gathering dust in a desk drawer,” said Seeff.
A policy of forcing employees to have a“ work phone” and a separate“ personal” phone is not necessarily an answer to overspending problems, said Seeff. Conversely, letting employees make personal calls or use data for personal browsing on work phones is allowed by companies – as long as it is not excessive.
Companies must keep an eye on this usage, though, as cases have been discovered where employees were sending airtime to other SIM cards using their work device. These factors combined lead to billions being wasted each year, said Seeff.
Vodacom leading the pack
Vodacom owns the business market, according to Tariffic, with the lion’ s share of corporate cellphone deals. At the end of 2016, over 80 % of all corporate contracts analysed by Tariffic were on the Vodacom network. Seeff said a contributing factor to Vodacom’ s success was“ inertia”.
“ Inertia is a powerful force in the cellular industry, with many people and companies not choosing to move networks due to perceived complexity, or a variety of other reasons.”
Vodacom was also perceived by businesses to possess 2 of the 3 S’ s – Signal and Service.“ Being able to make a call is priority – Signal. This is followed by the ability to be able to contact someone if they have a problem – Service,” said Seeff.
“ Last is Savings. Vodacom is perceived to dominate the market when it comes to Signal and Service, and even though their Savings aren’ t anywhere near as significant as the other operators, this is still reason enough to convince corporates to give Vodacom their business.” ■
“ We see large corporates often waste more money, on a per-contract basis, than smaller businesses. However, SMEs are still paying too much.”
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