How telecoms cost transparency aids your business

It’s a safe bet that most executives don’t realise how reliant they really are on their telecoms network. Your company’s TEM department provides the arteries and veins of the network in which the business is able to communicate and earn profits for the organization.

The network TEM team is expected to cover Moves, Adds, Changes and Disconnections (MACD) for everything plus manage contracts plus manage, plus manage suppliers, for the WAN and LAN, mobile data, and voice services….sigh.

These costs can really add up, not to mention the changes occurring to your telecoms service, the complaints will come thick and fast. Oh and by the way, let’s not forget the cost transparency programs or M&A activity driven by the Chairmen or CFO’s of the organization who send request for spend and contract information due by tomorrow which is expected to be accurate.

If you’re not currently relying on a system to help your team perform in an optimized manner good luck trying to keep track of it all. TEM is about having greater transparency and control of your spend, suppliers, and contract compliance built around an optimized logical workflow designed around your organization.

Read on to discover five key advantages to telecoms cost transparency, and how they can actually help your business.

1. Sourcing Management

It can be difficult to convince your business to migrate over to a new telecoms contract or a different network provider – particularly if you are acting on behalf of a large or growing company. Rest assured, it is possible to manage these changes with minimal disruption to your company’s day-to-day activities, simply by managing an effective sourcing process built around your business’s workflow processes.

During the telecom sourcing stage it is vital that you proactively seek to capture and meet the internal requirements of the business or customer request which includes, requesting and comparing competitive quotes, satisfying diversity obligations, and Service Level performance targets – procuring the right supplier is the most important step you can take towards improving cost transparency, and providing a service which meets and delivers against the requirements set forth by your business. Leveraging a TEM solution allows commercial sourcing professionals, engineering, and service delivery teams to perform their jobs in a sustyinc and logical way.

2. Contract Management

Hammering out a new contract can be tedious and complicated, but in the telecoms industry it comes down to a few key important areas: managing your pipeline expiration and contract commitments, Service Level Agreements (SLA) and outage management. Stay focused on these key points and you will get the contract that you need.

• Pipeline expiration management – Make sure you decide on a set timetable for the service expiration dates which allows you as much time as you need to renegotiate, migrate to the latest IT technologies planned by your organizations CIOs CTOs or re-advertise the contract. Monitor your spend commitments. How difficult is it to report back to your CFO that you owe a suppler several thousands or millions of dollars because we forgot there was a spend commitment in the contract!
• SLAs – Per industry standards, its best practice to set up a contingency plan so that your business is not vulnerable to sudden outages between contracts. Be as detailed as possible while negotiating your SLAs: focus on exactly what services are being provided and how that relates to your internal performance obligations to your business or end customers; over which area; and to what sort of deadlines? Make sure you know exactly what you expect from your supplier as it is very difficult to amend these contracts after they have been signed. Once you’ve finished all of your hard work don’t just throw the contract in a drawer, have a plan for how you will monitor your SLA’s and keep track of suppler performance.
• Supplier Performance and Outage Management – How many times have you seen a supplier outage report where 70% of the outages are No Trouble Found (NTF)? Standardize how outages are categorized and what SLA credits are due! No one goes into a business relationship on the basis there will be performance or delivery issues but let’s face it, outages and delivery issues happen for many different reasons, so it is important to have a back-up plan from the get go. Find out as much as you can about the back end of your supplier’s business and ask for examples on how they dealt with outages in the past.

Bottom line anyone in the telecom industry knows as we all say, “it’s a small word,” pickup the phone to your mate and ask what their experience is like with a particular supplier. Consider everything before jumping in deep with lengthy spend commitment obligations.

3. Invoice Validation

Even the smallest invoicing error can cost money. Delayed payments can have a knock on effect on your company’s bottom line and reputation among clients and suppliers, but many of these mistakes can be caught through proper invoice validation.

Consider centralising your invoice payments by working closely with your Accounts Payable department, and allocating resources to book your telecom expenses. Centralization and a system that allows you to reconcile and validate your invoices cuts down on paperwork and the manpower and makes it easier to identify inefficiencies in the payment system. Once this has been setup, take some time to identify and remove unused circuits, cross connects and local loops. You will start saving money almost immediately.

4. Supplier Management

It is always important to identify and eradicate telecom process inefficiencies where possible. If you are expected to demonstrate cost transparency to your superiors, you should expect the same attention to detail from your suppliers.

Managing your relationship with your supplier doesn’t mean that you have to keep a close eye on their every action at all times. Demand transparency from the outset, and schedule a regular analysis of their service charges, KPIs and product pricing to ensure that you are still getting the best possible deal, and prevent vendor overcharging.
Know your market, and don’t be afraid to take pitches from new suppliers even if your contact is in full swing – this will help you to better understand which suppliers are performing well and which are under-performing.

5. Improve the telecoms life cycle

For seasoned professionals, the telecoms life cycle holds few surprises. It will always begin with requests for proposals (RFPs), then vendor negotiation, consulting services for integration and finally the auditing stage.
By streamlining this process you can improve the efficiency of the entire cycle, saving your business both money and time.

Every business has different needs, but there are a few ways in which anyone can improve the key stages in the telecoms life cycle:

• RFPs – Once an RFP is out there it can’t be taken back, so take your time over the initial document and make sure that it is comprehensive and succinct. Put together a ‘dream team’ of decision makers in key departments such as IT, finance and legal so that your RFP is airtight and beneficial to everyone. Your RFP template and ‘dream team’ can be called upon the next time a new contract is up for tender.
• Vendor negotiation – Vendor negotiation is an important part of any business, and it begins from the moment you decide to put out an RFP. Successful negotiation comes with experience, but you can standardise the procedure by letting potential suppliers know what to expect. Set out a clear timetable for receiving proposals, meeting vendors and making a decision. This timescale can be used again and again, each time you are negotiating a new deal.
• Consulting services for integration – Optimising internal efficiency is a good exercise for any business to undertake, and the negotiation (or renegotiation) of a new vendor contract is the perfect time to put this into action – there is no point in wasting energy on an internal WAN system, for instance, if an external option is included in your vendor’s package. An efficient, well designed internal system which complements your vendor’s offering will lead to a fluid and responsive telecoms life cycle.
• Auditing – The key to successful auditing is planning. Set up an annual (or quarterly, depending on the terms of your contract) audit for each supplier, and use an external auditor if possible. They will be less biased towards the service received and cost incurred, and they will be able to provide you with a clear breakdown of the supplier’s performance.