One big mistake comes from situations where employees continue to use legacy applications after implementing a Telecom Expense Management (TEM) solution. In large organizations, TEM often involves different functional groups that fail to coordinate their activities. The people who manage sourcing activities may fail to share their contracting strategies with the team that is responsible for asset management and move, add, change, and disconnect (MACD) activity. When new contracts are negotiated, there may be delays or worse the other groups may never receive the updated contracts. This can lead to situations where service orders do not reference the most current contract or preferred providers with attractive pricing do not receive orders. It is not possible to validate invoices, if contracts are not available. TEM chargeback allocations for usage and reports are also likely to contain errors.
The problem of coordinating TEM activities arises from the fact that different functional groups have their own preferred legacy software and ways of doing things. Failure to include these groups in the process of selecting TEM solutions leads to breakdowns after implementing the new program. There is no “single version of the truth” because people are entering data into different systems and using reports from these legacy applications to manage telecom expenses.
The best approach is one in which an executive champions the program. The goal from the outset should be to select one application, which will replace the legacy software and disjointed old ways of managing telecom expenses. The software should manage the entire procure-to-pay lifecycle of expenses for fixed and mobile telecom services. It must also include tools for assets and inventory management, MACD and service orders, invoice processing, expense validation, usage allocations, reporting and business intelligence. Managing telecom expenses requires a customized tool to address the complexity of managing different carrier billing systems and network assets.
