The telecoms environment in every leading business has changed dramatically over the past five years, with the pace of digital transformation bringing new challenges to manage. Bring your own device (BYOD), growing usage of cutting edge technologies like 5G and SD-WAN, and rapid migration to the cloud have all changed the game.
Old ways of managing network and telecom costs are no longer enough to keep up as companies accelerate adoption of new technologies. The result, for many companies, is poor telecoms performance and unnecessarily high costs. Here are eight signs of a poorly optimised telecoms environment.
- Lack of control over costs
Poor cost control is the single biggest symptom of an unhealthy telecoms environment. If your telecoms costs are rising faster than inflation and quicker than the growth of your company, it’s a sign that something is wrong. It’s also a danger sign if you’re spending more on telecoms than other companies similar to yours. It could indicate high levels of wasted spend or abuse of company resources.
- Poor insight into current and future trends
In a well-optimised telecoms environment, the management team should be able to make reliable budgets and forecasts. They should have smarter reporting information that allows them to understand and predict trends across different vendors, service providers and cost centres. If it’s difficult to understand and predict costs, that’s an indication that systems and controls could be tightened.
- Reliance on manual processes
All too many companies are still using manual processes such as spreadsheets to track, allocate and control telecoms spending as well as to process invoices. This is a waste of time for your whole team—from end-users who need to submit expense claims to the IT, procurement and finance teams that oversee provisioning and budgeting. This is the source of many of the other issues we document in this blog posts. Cutting edge systems can automate processes to simplify your operations and save time for everyone in the business.
- Poor end-user satisfaction
Something else that should set alarm bells off is a high level of end-user frustration with the IT or finance department. Common complaints include long provisioning times for new services or devices; cumbersome and time-consuming expense claims processes; and poor access to the data and services employees need to be productive.
- Compliance and audit gaps
In a poorly optimised telecoms environment, companies face a range of financial, security and compliance risks. These include losing control over the device inventory and which users have access to company information; an inability to accurately report and disclose expenses; a lack of a comprehensive audit trail of all telecom-related activities; and a limited ability to enforce telecom spending and usage policies.
- Inaccurate billing, reimbursements and allocations
In an environment without cutting edge systems and processes, human error tends to creep into internal cost recoveries and journals. These errors are often only picked up during reconciliations or audits, creating extra work for teams responsible for tracking expenses and charging them to the correct cost centres.
- Inadequate contract and vendor management
If it’s challenge to negotiate and manage relationships with multiple telecom vendors, it’s a sign that the telecoms environment is spiralling out of control. If you have services or features that are underutilised or not used at all, or difficulties managing service level agreements and verifying bills, it’s a sign that you can improve telecoms management.
- Inability to track assets
If you struggle to keep track of telecom assets such as devices and SIM cards, it’s a sign that you need to strengthen processes and systems. Loss of control over smartphones and contracts is a security and financial risk.
How to cure an unhealthy telecoms environment
Telecom expense management (TEM) is a set of cutting edge processes and tools your organisation can use to gain control over telecom spending and performance. It provides you with smarter insights into your telecoms environment and enables you to simplify operations via automation.
An ideal solution will enable you to manage your whole IT and telecoms environment, including enterprise mobile services, BYOD or company-owned devices and services, cloud cost and usage, and fixed-line voice and data services.
Looking for a knowledgeable TEM partner that can guide you towards smarter telecom spending? 1Nebula has helped leading companies in most industries to optimise costs as they accelerate digital transformation. Get in touch to learn more about our TEM, DevOps and FinOps expertise.