Telecom Category Management Savings

Top Telecom Category Management Savings Ideas and Tips that will save you money guaranteed!

Telecom savings the age-old quest to manage Telecom and IT category spend, suppliers, contracts, and network performance to validate you have our Telecom Category under control.

Most Telecom Category managers or TEM teams whether it be IT Sourcing, Finance or IT Network Managers or Consultants have an idea where to find savings and we’re talking the “bread and butter low hanging fruit stuff.”

Unfortunately, in some cases the larger the enterprise, the more complexity e.g. different business networks, teams, processes and hacks used to manage telecom and IT spend there’s a higher likelihood there are savings to find.

In many ways “TEM savings” a.k.a. waste management the initial telecom audit savings is nothing more than the bi-product of bad processes, lack of accountability and internal hacks used to manage a bit of a complex space.

Here are some quick tips and checks you can perform to validate your network and drive savings today!    

Inventory Management

• Inventory Overlap Validation = Disconnect old services that were upgraded but someone forgot to submit the disconnect for. As services are upgraded teams often are so focused on bringing up the new service they forget to shut off the old lines.  **Tip if you just recently deployed a network transformation program of shifted to the latest iPhone you probably have savings to be found here.
• “Services with Zero Utilization” = validating bandwidth or services with “no activity.” **Tipbe careful with this one. Just because a service has no capacity utilization or voice usage doesn’t mean the service is not in use.  Often times phone lines are associated with Toll free, alarms or stand by for overflow usage.  Data services are often redundant in nature with 1 hot and one backup in case of an outage.  Always validate your findings with the network team.  The Network team can physically log routers, call loggers etc. to identify what is or should be in place.
• Mobile Optimization = ensuring users are on the right mobile plans, features, business apps, and shut off mobile devices for employees that have left the organization. **Tip most mobile carriers today provide usage reports.  Leverage this data to sort and identify: High usage users, Zero Usage Users, and compare their plan against contracted plans to identify whether users should be move to more cost-effective plans.  Carriers are usually pretty good about allowing you to change user profiles monthly.
• Inactive Site Check = validate locations that are closed but still have live services. Usually speaking to your Real estate team you can obtain a list of offices which have closed or offices which they plan to close.  Use this list to cross check your inventory to identify services which should or can be ceased.  **Tip cross check this list with your network team to ensure there are no services still running before issuing disconnects.

Finance

• Contract Rate and Inventory Validation =  **Tip your success here is in the strength of your inventories and access to contract schedules and order forms.  Without this data you’re just paying blind.  Here’s a blog on how to create a telecom inventory.
  • Validate the amount matches the contracted rate
  • Are still on the correct carrier tariff
  • Contain services which are actually still live or can be found on your network!
  • Actually belong on your invoice. Unfortunately it does happen you just might find that you’re paying for another business’s service.
• Unapplied Credits = ** Action Reach out to your carriers and ask them to provide you with an account summary detail report.  This report will highlight potential credits owed which haven’t been applied because the carrier is waiting for you to tell them how to apply the credit and to which accounts.  Potential easy money waiting.

Contracts

• Inventory Renewals = Services which are out of contract that can be renewed to lower your current cost. As services get ordered they are usually contracted 12, 24, 36 or 60 month terms.  Once the services are out of contract, you have the opportunity to renegotiate the monthly cost to a lower amount with your service provider in exchange for a new term. **Tip your success here is in the strength of your inventories and access to contract schedules and order forms. Without this data good luck creating a pipeline renewal dashboard.  Also read before you sign, watch out for auto-renewal terms in agreements this is your kiss of death when it comes to your ability to drive lower cost or disconnect services without paying to terminate the service.

• Contract Credits =  Often times your sourcing colleagues will negotiate some pretty stellar agreements which include rebates, one time credits or special rates if specific obligations are met.  The problem is some times… they don’t do such a good job communicating this to the Finance team so they are aware and can forecast and ensure the deal term benefits are received.  **Tip pull contracts and setup meetings with your Sourcing teams to understand contract terms.  Where necessary go back and obtain credits or updated rates.

• SLA Credits = Depending on the quality of your carrier agreements you should have established carrier SLA’s associated with the performance of your carrier services.  E.g. If a service has an outage for a set period of agreed time without coming back into production you’re owed X% of your monthly cost.  Service performance data is usually captured by your network support team.  This team should be able to provide a monthly report of outages which can then be crossed checked with your contracts to identify where you’re owed SLA credits.  Usually carriers are “slick” and state in their boiler plate agreement SLA credits aren’t paid unless you claim them.  With some push you can fight to obtain your credits (especially if they still want your business hint hint).  **Action obtain the last 12 months worth of outages details and review your agreements to identify potential SLA credit payments due.

Telecom Category  Management Professionals and TEM teams that 1- identify these savings and 2 – adopt processes that ensure these checks and balances are in place monthly, quartile and annually will succeed!  Those that don’t can bet their job when your CXO is calling in the calvary (a.k.a. consultants) these are all the areas they focus on to find savings.

You can either start working on all the reasons why they found the savings and you couldn’t OR take some action and do the work.

Temforce built to identify savings and manage your Telecom Category.

Be a change agent and start the movement #ditchthehack