According to CFO Magazine, three key reasons why industry, government, and education outsource telecom expense management services are:
- Fraudulent / Inaccurate Billing – Estimated at $143 billion a year.
- Customized Carrier Contracts – Resulting in rates not applied properely and money spent on services not in use.
- Inadequate Oversight – Most businesses do not have the tools and processes in place to verify the details of what they spend on telecom services, with whom, and how.
The fact is most organizations have a mountain of telecom invoices that are received every month to the tune of being the third largest expense. Telecom costs include local, long distance, wide area networks, wireless, Internet access, cable/satellite, and equipment. These expenses come in the form of paper invoices as well as CDs, online access, many with a minimum of 25 reports that have no correlation to what is needed for a proper evaluation. Most of the individuals that sign off for payment wear thirty other hats and do not have the time nor the tools to investigate every individual charge. Many questions arise as to how efficient an organization’s telecom management is:
- Are all of these expenses being monitored for accuracy of changes that are made?
- Are the rates that are being billed accurate with current contracts and rate tariffs?
- If you need to know the details and carrier information for a specific number, how is it obtained?
- Are there any fraudulent charges?
- What are the variances in usage?
- What are the effects of these variances on rates?
- Are all services that are being paid for in use?
- Is the organization paying for someone else’s expenses?
- How long does it take to refer back to a previous invoice or charge to investigate it?
- Are there any other designs or plans that may work more efficiently?
- Is there an experienced objective resource for ideas and change?
- How efficient is the internal approval process?
- Are there ever any late fees?
- Are there any SOX requirements?
- What is the cost of processing these expenses for payment?
- Is there an inventory of all devices and circuits readily available?
- How are trends measuring up to the budgets and forecasts?
- How long does it take to prepare a budget and how accurate is it?
There is a solution that positively impacts every question and is guaranteed to do so:
Tellennium’s Integrated Management System
How do these statistics relate to your organization?
- According to the Aberdeen Group, a leading IT marketing analysis firm, the average Fortune 500 Company processes more than 15,000 telecom-related bills per year and the average mid-market company processes approximately 3,000 a year. How many invoices do you receive? How many pages are associated with each invoice? How many charges are included on each page? Is it complex and complicated?
- Up to 85% of mid-market company telecom bills are paid in full and are not audited by the organization. What effect does this have on the organization? Is there an actual experienced team in place to audit your telecom billing?
- For bills that are validated, billing analysts most often examine just a small subset of invoices associated with the largest spending. How much is being missed in the audit process? In addition to auditing, is the team that is most familiar with the charges also researching better and more efficient communication methods?
- Billing analysts spend an estimated 20% of their time identifying the billing issue and 80% of their time validating to resolve it. Ever contacted a carrier regarding a billing issue? How pleased were you with the time and effort? Did it ever actually get resolved? How much was the total cost to bring a resolution to fruition?
Tellennium is here to help. We have the expertise, the technology, and a proven process guaranteed to make organizations more efficient and better informed. Contact us today!