As telecommunications become more complex so does the process
of managing it.
There are many facets to managing telecom services within an
organization including:
Moves, Adds Changes and Disconnects "MACD"
Collecting and reviewing invoices for accuracy
Coding and paying invoices on time
Departmental cost allocations and accounting
Inventory management
Technical design, optimization and management of networks
PBX phone system management
Mobile device management
Many of these functions are extremely time consuming and cost
companies hundreds of millions of dollars to manage. Creating a
comprehensive strategy for managing and controlling these
expenses is critical to the financial performance of any
organization.
By utilizing business process management services, companies can
save a significant amount of money and focus on more core
business functions.
Business process management companies, create fine tuned process
machines for managing these processes. As a result, process costs
drop dramatically with a substantial increase in quality. This is
all they do.
There are several models for these services:
Complete Outsourcing: This involves turning over the entire
management of your telecom spend to another company. This allows
a professional management company to essentially take ownership
of your network. They become responsible for paying vendors,
optimizing services and provide your company a single point of
contact and a single invoice.
Back Office Support: This model enables companies to maintain
full control over their network, vendor relationships and spend.
Through this model, certain time consuming processes are done by
a third party. These types of back office service include things
like consolidating all telecom information into to management
reports, auditing invoices and managing the dispute resolution
process with vendors. This pushes the bulk of the
"grunt" work to a more cost effective solution while
maintaining complete control.
There are a number of companies that provide these types of
services, some offshore and some locally. There are pro's and
con's to both. If you have never worked with an offshore company,
consider that there are challenges. There are language,
communications, network, timezone and other issues which, if not
properly managed, can erase any cost savings.
U.S. firms, can typically provide better local support, but can
be expensive due to the labor costs in the U.S.
The Ideal solution is to find a company that can provide all of
the customer support and interaction locally, but manage offshore
resources. This best of both worlds approach gives you the cost
advantages without having to deal with the offshore
challenges.
Bob Pommer
CEO
Optelcon.
