Mobile expenses are one of your fastest growing expenses and believe me, you’re not the only organization struggling to determine the best way to manage them. One big question regarding mobile policies is whether to take a corporate or employee-liable approach? It’s a complex topic and I wouldn’t say I have all the answers, but I would say that the benefits of a corporate-liable approach outweigh those of an employee-liable policy.
Briefly, I will acknowledge that an employee-liable approach does provide more freedom, flexibility, and control to employees. If this is a big thing for your organization, then by all means, honor your culture. But from my perspective, the benefits of a corporate-liable mobility policy are deeper and have a greater impact on the health of your business.
Benefits of a corporate-liable approach include:
- Centralized management: Be more efficient by centrally controlling inventory, using only standardized devices, automating ordering, etc.
- Better business discounts and plans: See larger volume discounts and often, receive waivers for equipment replacement charges.
- Business-grade support from carriers: Leverage volume purchases to establish service level agreements.
- Lower cost through shared plans: Keep costs under control by pooling individuals on corporate contracts and having most users on “free” network calling.
- Less management time required from employees: Eliminate the time employees would spend managing their wireless plan, paying bills, and submitting expense reports while on the job.
- No expense reports to submit and process: Save your accounting team the time and headaches of reconciling individual expense reports with corporate policies to reimburse wireless expenses.
- Security and compliance control: Enable visibility and archiving of user activity, and enforce security and compliance policies by locking features, blocking websites, etc.
It goes without saying, but we’re more than happy to discuss your mobile policies with you on an individual basis. I look forward to your comments/feedback!
