Results do matter! The days when corporate wireless services are just a standard cost of doing business, a nice employee benefit, or tucked neatly into some other aspect of the corporate budget are long since gone. In these days of austerity, when every dollar spent needs to be spent well and can be demonstrated as such are combined with expensive ever advancing technological tools and sophisticated communications devices, Wireless Expense Management results do matter.
For your convenience I will identify 3 quantifiable results that matter.
1. Accurate Wireless Device Inventory/Asset Management
Wireless Device Order /Provisioning Management
Centralized corporate control is fundamental to an optimized and accurate wireless device inventory. Centralized corporate control is initiated when only a corporate recommended/approved device is permitted into your company inventory. Using an automated approval process each device order itself is either approved or denied by management. An automated ordering portal integrated with a life cycle Wireless Expense Management (WEM) solution is preferred and the most cost-effective means of maintaining an accurate wireless inventory. Permitting only necessary corporate wireless device users and their device selections into an accurate inventory is the first step to a result that matters.
Wireless Support/Help Desk Management
Once a device is approved/permitted into the inventory, it is now necessary to be able to map and track the subsequent history of the device throughout its life cycle. Herein is where an automated Wireless Support/Help Desk integrated into the, aforementioned, centralized database continues providing results that matter. When a device is upgraded, retired, swapped or given to another employee, all such transactions need to be forced through the wireless support solution and wireless support representatives who substantiate the details. In so doing, your wireless Help Desk can accurately map the device to each appropriate corporate user from cradle to grave storing all such info in the centralized database a WEM software solution offers.
Simply stated, knowing who has what matters. Great savings can be experienced when only corporate approved assets are permitted only to those who really need them.
2. Automated Wireless Expense Optimization/Report Management
Cost Optimization
As carriers, device types, plans, features, and other service offerings multiply, it becomes increasingly difficult to ensure that each wireless user is on the corporate selected carrier, correct plan, with the most cost-effective features, and using only company approved accessories. A true Wireless Expense Management solution collates the wireless invoice data into a plethora of reports that provide visibility into virtually every aspects of wireless spend. The right application will should flag all carrier contract, corporate initiated business rules, and corporate policy violations. This exception alert system is a Best Practices method identifying the problem devices as it defines what the errors are. Your WEM analyst will use this data to explore reasons for the alerts and determine what recommendations need to be made to management, approved, implemented, and tracked to completion.
For example, selected reports may show a carrier's pool plan is providing too much headroom. The pool plan number of allotted minutes can now be squeezed down or optimized by continually monitoring and tweaking each device in the pool. Often eliminating from the pool those users who should be placed on individual plans, as their excessive usage has become a pool buster.
Cost Avoidance
Cost Avoidance is the aspect of optimization that reduces or eliminates the costs of unnecessary features. For instance, an end user may have unlimited SMS text messaging while he rarely texts to others. The right solution will provide reports that will alert your WEM analysts. The elimination or reduction to the appropriate text plan will help the company avoid unnecessary costs. Another possible point of optimization (out of so many) is identifying zero use devices or features (data, voice, text, etc) and eliminating them from the inventory. A few dollars here and a few dollars there will amount to a result that really matters over hundreds or thousands of devices.
3. Invoice/Financial Management
With electronic import of all carrier invoices, from the moment the electronic vendor invoices are received, a WEM solution provider will not only collate all the pertinent data for optimization and asset management but also provide automated management from receipt to payment. The right software application is a powerful tool managing the workflow, automating the cost allocation process, and calculating cost center splits, while providing contract/invoice validation. Remember this fact less human touch means greater process efficiencies and less human error.
These 3 aspects of a true wireless expense management solution provide time/labor/cost savings demonstrating results that really matter to your enterprise and its budgetary bottom-line. Savings and process efficiencies mean less corporate overhead, greater competitiveness, and a better chance for your company to weather our current economic storm.
Let me know if I can help you determine if a wireless expense management solution will offer your company results that matter.
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