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Our Telecoms Expense Management FAQ's provides a broad illustration of the services we offer...

Assessment and Benchmarking

We really don't have any spare ICT budget at the moment, so how can you help us?

We understand that many organisations don't necessarily allocate budget for this type of service in the same way they would for others areas of ICT provision. The good news though is that our process is completely self-financing and guarantees a return on your investment, or we give you your money back. But our service not only pays for itself of course, it also frees up additional ICT budget which you can use elsewhere.

We do this already internally so where is the benefit of using you?

Many firms do complete this type of work internally, primarily because there has never been a suitable external option for telecoms expense management from a company with expert industry knowledge.

From our experience though we have discovered that companies who do this internally generally save around 10% to 20% at best, whereas our market average ranges from 20% to 50% on corporate client projects. The service also takes little or none of your time, which allows you to realign internal resources to more important tasks whilst we complete the project.

We already use an outsourced consultancy firm, what can you do that they don't?

Generally, outsourcing firms roll up telecoms into a number of ICT or other non-related business areas. They then guarantee an overall saving to the business across all of these areas, usually in the region of 10%, but this may mean no reduction to your telecoms spend at all. On the other hand, we can drill down into the telecoms area specifically and so create much better value for your business. What's more, some outsourcing firms have agreements with network providers and will often, although not always, be taking a cut from any negotiated deal - which means they can never give you the same level of truly impartial advice that we can.

We have a managed service contract in place already, so how can you help us?

If part or all of your telecoms provision is wrapped up into an overall managed service agreement it can be very hard for you to benchmark elements of the service against the competition. Our independent analysis can help you to determine if your managed service provider is charging well outside market rates for particular elements within the contract, making you well placed to negotiate revised rates. Even if you are tied in to a long term contract, it's worth noting that termination charges may sometimes be far less than the financial savings which could be made if you were to change providers.

We're already on the best deal so what's the point of talking to you?

At least a quarter of firms we speak to believe that they are on the best possible deal from their supplier, but you can only make that determination with the tools and market knowledge that you have access to. The analysis system has been in development for over six years now and contains accurate details on all the market leading providers, their tariffs, their rules, their billing platforms and more.

On top of this, our consultants have years of experience in negotiating excellent contractual terms for our clients which makes them very familiar with each providers' breaking and negotiation points. Finally, we know what level of spend a client should be achieving as we are running multiple projects at any one time within the corporate market. So, even if you are on the best deal that you have been able to negotiate directly, there may still be options which we can offer that will save you even more.

We recently signed a new contract with a provider, so there's nothing you can do is there?

Yes there is. Let us help you to check that it's correct, that tariffs have been applied in line with your contract and that you're receiving the cost savings you were promised. Rather than just taking the provider's word for it, use an independent specialist to ensure the figures are accurate instead.

We're just about to sign a new contract, is it too late to talk to you?

Even if you have just been through a procurement exercise and have carried out some analysis internally, it's very hard to complete an accurate 'what if' analysis - and you may well have had to accept the shortlisted providers' estimations of spend levels.

As an independent advisor we can check which is the most suitable, based on both cost and service. Our system understands all providers' tariffs and their rounding and billing rules, so we can compare the accuracy and projected spend levels of each contract on a like-for-like basis. And if there's time we can also include some direct market bids ourselves to ensure a true benchmark is achieved.

We really don't want to change providers, can you still save us money?

More than 50% of our clients do not move provider, they stay exactly where they are and still achieve significant savings. Usually when provider contracts are renegotiated, around a 10% reduction is achieved, when in reality the market is shifting more than this and further savings could have been made.

By comparing current and projected offerings from your providers, we can also assess this against the marketplace to deliver further savings across the existing contract. In addition, our assessment services are an excellent way of ensuring that your historic and future spend with that provider is accurate, and in line with your business requirements.

We have too many other projects on the go, how would we have time to take this on as well?

Don't worry. Our services take so little of your internal resources that we can work self-sufficiently to help you achieve savings, whilst you focus on critical ICT projects.

Long-Term Management

We don't have any budget for ongoing management, can you still help us?

We understand that very few companies are actively spending money on annual telecoms expense management contracts and as a result, no budget is allocated. However, we can prove that the use of an ongoing TEM tool can be justified by the return on investment that it brings, through identifying areas such as over-charging, surplus services, non-ceased lines and tariffs not applied - as well as streamlining business processes such as bill checking, cost centre breakdown, business charge-backs, trend analysis, saving analysis and so on.

On average a business which spends £500,000 per annum on telecoms will waste up to five man days per month simply checking and reporting on bills which are split across multiple providers and billing types.

We manage and monitor all costs internally so why would we need your services?

As outlined above, this takes up enormous amounts of internal time and resource. Outsourcing this task to us not only allows you to re-align your internal resources to work on more valuable tasks, it also yields faster and more accurate results that will not be questioned by a provider.

We receive regular analysis from our providers already, what's different about your offering?

Our Management Service is completely independent, something which individual providers can never be. It also enables you to cross-analyse multiple providers, whether fixed line or mobile or more than one of each, to consolidate multiple provider and service bills into a single piece of management information.

We benchmark our services every year via procurement so why would we need a Management service as well?

By using our Management service to aid your internal procurement process, we can generate time savings internally within your procurement department and also enable more accurate analysis of all annual benchmarking and procurement services.

We've recently moved providers to get more competitive rates, what more can you do?

This is one of the best times to roll-out an ongoing TEM service. We can help you to ensure that the new tariffs have been applied properly and on time, as well as enabling you to receive rebates for those that have not been. You can also determine whether all services have been transferred correctly and that all billing is properly centralised.

In addition, our Management service will allow you to measure costs vs. your previous contract rates, to prove the level of savings being achieved throughout the business, broken down by department if required.

We are about to merge with another business, is this a good time to talk to you or not?

This is an ideal time to get full visibility of all your telecoms services, so you can ensure that location based services are moved, ceased or changed accordingly. Benchmarking can also be completed based on your new business profile, enabling you to benefit from economies of scale. Within any merger or acquisition process, visibility of costs is always high on the agenda, so by implementing a telecoms management service you can save internal resource time, reduce cost and ensure higher levels of accuracy.

We hope that these answers will give you an idea of how we could add value for your business. Of course, if you have any questions which are not answered here, we'd be more than happy to talk these through with you and to provide any additional information that we can.