Virginia’s challenges in managing wireless expenses are not unique. The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey was also paying for cell phones held by terminated employees. A list of active pagers included 181 employees who had left the school. It was also paying for unnecessary services like cell phone picture messaging, and text messaging.

Many organizations struggle with managing wireless services because they have inadequate internal controls and little to no oversight over this area. Wireless services have grown rapidly over the past few years, but most organizations have not been able to add staff to manage these new expenses. It is often a manual process, and many organizations do not have the tools to track personal usage by employees.

Do you have automated software to identify situations where you are paying for terminated employees’ wireless expenses? Do you have resources to verify your findings before you terminate an executive’s service? If you don’t, it’s something you need to address.

When individuals have no visibility into their telecom use, they fail to see the impact of their behavior and there is no incentive to moderate use or reduce spending. In fact, we have seen situations where the managers of wireless expenses had large expenses because they were completely unaware of what they were spending and the calling plans were inappropriate for the managers’ needs.

Creating a link between visibility and accountability requires a good Telecom Expense Management (TEM) solution with granular reporting that a good call accounting will provide. It must:

• Capture all fixed and mobile activity
• Link call detail to the individuals who incurred the expenses
• Accurately allocate charges making adjustments for department transfers and turnover in personnel
• Identify outliers with exception reports that flag expenses which are inconsistent with peers who perform the same job, role, or function
• Provide accessible web reporting to all employees with their call activity and charges

The more employees know about their expenses and consumption, the more likely they will reduce these items. The right TEM solution will help, but you need to go further by capturing data that call accounting systems provide which allow you to allocate charges to individuals. With the current economic conditions, corporations and government are demanding more accountability.

RIM executives claim that it would not make a difference if they located servers in the U.A.E.  because Blackberry devices encrypt all data once, it leaves the device and they do not have any keys to decrypt the data. This is good for corporate IT departments because only users can access their data.  The next time an employee asks to use their smartphone on the corporate network take a moment to think about the corporate data, customer information, and other sensitive documents that you need to protect.

Securing data on smartphones is different from conventional IT security, which has more layers of technology and control. With mobile devices, organizations need to focus on protecting intellectual property. Managers must think about data and information that attackers could target. The biggest threats come from professional attackers who are no longer seeking attention-grabbing site defacements or data destruction. Now, they aim at a business to steal secrets.

While many corporations have begun to adopt a policy of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) to work, this approach may expose your secrets to hackers. It is wise to adopt a contrarian approach. Instead of following the U.A.E., India, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon, this is a good time to require your employees to use a Blackberry! TEM programs can help in these efforts to secure your data with portals to enforce mobile policy, selection of smartphones, technology to track assets and reporting to identify suspicious voice and data use on devices.

Savings from TEM programs starts with bill validation. The savings can be quite significant ranging from 2% to 35% depending on your contracts, Move, Add, Change and Disconnect (MACD) activity, and the measures that were in place to manage telecom expenses. There are also savings from cost avoidance, which can range from 2% to 25%. With this category, instead of recovering refunds for billing errors, there are savings from proactive measures that seek to reduce future spending. These savings can eliminate unused services and optimize wireless services with pooled and individual plans based on the usage of each employee. In addition, many organizations find improved visibility and better accountability drives less wasteful consumption of telecom services. Finally, there are savings from automating manual labor intensive processes including invoice processing, asset management and MACD activity, expense validation, reporting and working with telecom service providers.

TEM helps companies become more proactive. This is important because simply focusing on ways to cut expenses is not enough for most Executives. Executives are now seeking to look more strategically at spending patterns and trends. They want to eliminate budget surprises and they need to see spending trends for telecom before expenses are out of control. They need to know what is going on NOW. They also want answers to questions that only Telecom Expense Management (TEM) programs can provide. “How did it happen?” “Why did this happen?” “How can I rein in telecom service costs and manage telecom assets?”

In a recent interview John Killian, chief financial officer of Verizon Communications said, “We will probably need to change the design of our pricing where it will not be totally unlimited, flat rate.” While Verizon’s wireless network has not experienced network problems that have hurt AT&T, Killian stated that the company anticipates “explosions in data traffic” over wireless networks as new phones on 4G networks incorporate data- heavy applications, such as video downloads. Killian also said that Verizon believes that smartphone users, which currently make up about 17 percent of the carrier’s user base, will make up 70 percent to 80 percent of its base “over time.”

Verizon Wireless appears to be getting ready to introduce its new data price plans to coincide with the upcoming launch of its LTE network. It is also interesting to note that the timing of this development is close to new rumors reported by Business Week and Barclays that Verizon Wireless will be getting the Apple iPhone in January. This is significant because the average iPhone user consumes 10 times more bandwidth compared to other smartphone users.

If Verizon follows the approach of AT&T, the changes will only impact new contracts. Most users currently do not consume enough data to merit the cost of unlimited data plans. Verizon reports that its smartphone users typically use between 600 MB and 800 MB of data per month, which is similar data usage for what AT&T reported when it established tiered data pricing.

The average consumption that carriers report for their users may not match your employees’ consumption. Wireless Expense Management programs can provide important baseline information to look at current spending and consumption for employees. In cases where employees are on unlimited data plans determining the actual consumption for data may be difficult because many carriers do not readily report this information on bills. The next step is to review the types of devices that employees use. Blackberries are much more efficient in terms of the amount of data and bandwidth that they consume. In addition, organizations need to consider plans to deploy mobile applications to their employees in the future.

The most important advice that we can provide is to use data from your employees to make an informed decision. Do not rely on averages reported by the carriers. Wireless carriers are betting that they can make more money by switching subscribers to tiered data plans. The worst case would be one in which you pay extra for unlimited plans now when you don’t need them and you end up with a tiered data plan in the future when you do need an unlimited data plan. The key to avoiding this is to get all the facts. Inaction is likely to cost you now and in the future because tiered data plans appear to be coming.

Recently, there were three news reports that highlight the need for organizations to focus on network security. There were wide spread reports of people that were able to see other people’s information when they were caught in the rush of online ordering of the new iPhone. A few weeks earlier a group hackers got the e-mail addresses of more than 100,000 Apple iPad owners and the ID numbers the iPads use to communicate over the network. In addition, Google’s Street View cars – used to develop Google Maps collected personal information sent over Wi-Fi networks.

The Federal Communications Commission has now states “the FCC’s mission is to ensure that broadband networks are safe and secure, and we’re committed to working with all stakeholders to prevent problems like this in the future.”

With more employees connecting personal wireless devices to corporate networks for e-mail, this is a good to determine what you are doing to manage the security on these devices. Each of these devices presents opportunities for hackers to access your network. As employees access corporate e-mail and other data, it is important to develop plans to secure this data. As you think about these issues, cost considerations are sure to rise. A good way to manage these expenses is through Wireless Expense Management or WEM programs.

Effective TEM programs reconcile assets with invoices and help identify services and items with no usage that can be removed from billing. These programs must start by collecting all telecom service providers’ invoices and Customer Service Records (CSRs). In the US, each service order and change placed with a telecom provider requires an update by the carrier to the Customer Records Information System (CRIS). The CRIS system information must be entered into a separate system that manages billing.

CSRs do not capture wireless devices and mobile services. For mobile devices, phone numbers, billing and the names of the employees using them should be reconciled with personnel records. After implementing a TEM system for one large company we found that nearly 500 monthly cell phone bills were still being paid for employees who were no longer worked for the company. This finding saved the company approximately $600,000 per year.

After the inventory is complete, it should be analyzed for further savings. Effective TEM programs can help identify equipment or services that are not associated with an employee, department, project or corporate location that can be discontinued. In one case the refunds were $400,500 for a client that had clear documentation of a request to disconnect services for a branch location that had been closed. In other cases where clients have no record of submitting a disconnect request to the service provider there will still be future savings after submitting a disconnect request and avoiding the cost in the future.

Telecom assets require vigilant monitoring. All moves, adds, changes and disconnects (MACDs) of service or equipment should immediately be recorded to keep the inventory up-to-date and reduce expenses.

It is possible that the FCC will impose on Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint, and other service providers rules that are similar to those in Europe, where carriers must send text messages to subscribers who approaching plan limits. Managers of telecom and wireless expenses should not wait for the FCC to act. One way to avoid these penalties is to ensure that employees are on the right plans. Grouping employees together and buying a large pool of minutes is usually more cost effective than a plan, which charges a fee per minute for each employee. It will enable organizations to avoid shock from situations where one employee exceeds their individual allotment of minutes. In addition, pools enable organizations to reduce the number of minutes forfeited each month with individual buckets. In rare cases large volume users should be in an unlimited plan rather than being included in a pool with other employees. This “pool busters” will have a lower cost-per-minute for calls using an unlimited plan.

In many corporations and organizations, employees never see their bills because their employer pays them. It is important to provide employees with visibility into these expenses. At Telesoft, we have even found that managers of wireless expenses have been surprised when they are able to view these charges. Learn more about how our programs can help you to avoid sticker shock and improve accountability for expenses.

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.

Boosting Employee Productivity

A common use of call accounting is to minimize productivity losses through visibility into calling patterns and non-business calling activity of employees. Call Accounting also offers a unique view into how the business and individual employees are performing. Reports present an audit trail to track all client interactions and can be helpful for businesses and government agencies that interact with the public. Call Accounting provides valuable information to improve performance at customer or public outreach centers and sales team interactions.

Every phone call that you make or receive is an opportunity to win (or lose) a customer or constituent. How employees handle calls can determine the success or failure of your operation. Call Accounting provides critical information regarding:

• Caller success rates: Are callers getting through or do they receive busy signals?
• How many callers hang up because it takes too long for someone to answer?
• How long are employees on the phone when they do answer a call? Is that call time too long or too short?
• Are callers stuck in a directory of call options or are they abandoned to voicemail instead of speaking to person?
• How often are your employees transferring callers to other departments instead of dealing with the issue themselves?
• How do customer contact centers and employees compare?

Busy signals may indicate that call centers and offices do not have enough lines. Abandoned calls from people that hang up could indicate that there are not enough employees answering calls or that they are taking too much time with callers. Call Accounting is a valuable tool to answer these questions. By reducing hold times and abandoned calls, you can improve customer satisfaction.

Often the answers require a combination of different employees with different knowledge. Managers of corporate IT services or telecommunications can determine if a trunking issue is preventing calls from getting through. Frontline managers that are familiar with employees’ jobs can help assess individual employee performance issues. Telecom and IT managers should strive to work with managers in business units. The experience will help prove the value of their services to other business units, and the experience will help them advance their career.