According to AOTMP - an information services company focused on establishing and maintaining telecom, mobility, and IT management environments, organizations spend $1.5 trillion dollars a year, globally, on fixed and mobile telecom services. Far more than they should.
To support a business’s goals to review their technology services, including communications spend, we are offering a five-part series exploring best practices based on transparency and modernization for evaluating your communications spend and practical ways to reduce costs. When implemented across the board, organizations can regain visibility and control for all of their telecom assets across the enterprise, enabling them instead to direct their efforts towards driving business transformation and growth initiatives.
Best Practice #5: Partner with a Trusted Advisor
If the previous four best practices seem a bit daunting given one’s resources, the good news is that there are options for streamlining these, through the assistance of value-added resellers (VARs), agents and other channel partners. These firms add an immense amount of value to any business’ telecom strategy by being the front line in carrying out these strategies for expense reduction.
Channel partners can bring a range of telecom expense management (TEM) options to the table. This software automates much of the auditing and reconciling processes discussed here—and the channel partners themselves can fill in any gaps, perform analysis, and make recommendations for optimizing organizational telecom spend. They can also make recommendations when it comes to enterprise mobility management (EMM) software platforms, which similarly give automated visibility into mobile usage and spending.
When it comes to modernizing infrastructure, consolidating POTS lines and migrating services to IP and the cloud, experienced channel partners are provider-agnostic, meaning that they can help businesses explore all possible providers and solutions for their specific use cases. Providers pay the channel partners directly, so there is no cost to the business for tapping into their expertise. Look for a trusted advisor that wants to sit down to discuss your business objectives—not just technology choices. The right partner will understand that technology is merely an enabler for growth and strategic goals, such as better customer service or more effective collaboration with business partners. Armed with a solid understanding of a businesses’ specific and unique requirements, a dedicated partner will customize a solution (or a few options) to fit the primary levers of functionality, cost, and ease-of-use. It takes the research, homework, and complexity out of sourcing new technology. Most channel partners will also manage the installation and perform a VoIP-readiness test to support optimal performance for the new services. Even better, they can generally mitigate any billing and operational issues that may arise, across multiple providers. The channel partner will be your primary contact and first line of communication for your entire footprint.
Getting a handle on telecom expenses has become a necessary practice for businesses of all sizes, operating across all industry/business domains. Multi-location businesses are proliferating, the borderless office has become a reality and employees increasingly rely on their mobile devices for work. All of these new business realities have created a telecom landscape that can be a hodge-podge of legacy, cloud, fixed and mobile contracts for both voice and data applications—with organizations having little visibility into what is being used and what can be eliminated or optimized. With our five best practices, businesses can gain a handle on this telecom expense sprawl—and reclaim resources for carrying out strategic growth objectives instead.
Independent telecom agents present solutions at no cost to you. In addition, they can assist with the procurement of your technology, as well as ongoing care and issue resolution with the selected provider.
To learn more about the benefits of working with an agnostic trusted advisor watch the following video. 
About Simplicity
Simplicity VoIP, based in Richmond, VA, provides hosted PBX, VoIP and business telephone solutions nationally to small, medium, and enterprise-level businesses for a comprehensive unified communications experience. It’s Class 5 geo-redundant VoIP platform is offered in addition to fax-to-email, phones and equipment, and managed services. Named as Richmond’s 11th fastest growing company by Richmond BizSense in 2018, Simplicity VoIP’s key to success is its on-site service, installation and training supported 24/7/365 by a world-class client services team.
