Wireless devices and services are the fastest growing part of a company’s telecom expense. As wireless devices proliferate, many enterprises are seeking ways to reduce the rate of growth of their wireless spend, and to ensure that the services they are receiving are delivered at the lowest possible cost. This is where wireless cost savings programs come into play.
The simplest wireless cost savings program is a one time or quarterly recurring wireless optimization engagement. Most wireless optimization engagements performed by a communications lifecycle management vendor like MTS can provide as much as 40% savings on your annual wireless spend. In addition, a professional wireless optimization engagement will provide valuable insight and analytics into your organization's wireless spend and usage patterns.
A solid wireless optimization should start with a benchmark assessment of your current wireless vendors and invoices. This benchmark assessment should include:
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A comprehensive review of your current vendor contracts... both plans/rates and T's&C's.
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A benchmark comparison of your wireless plans and rates against current industry rates.
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A detailed line by line audit of your current wireless invoices to understand usage and trends.
Once this benchmark is completed, a rough optimization plan and understanding of potential savings should be discussed and documented as the optimization baseline. Now the actual optimization process can begin. This process should include vendor best practices and inside market intelligence, such as:
- Unpublished specialty pricing.
- Ability to create subscriber pools to leverage the usage trends and average high/low usage subscribers to create a desirable pool buffer.
- A review usage utilization to identify those users that may be using data for personal use and/or violating company policy.
- A detailed per-line savings proposal based on optimization findings and industry expertise.
After the optimization analysis is complete, the next step is the remediation or implementation of the recommended changes with the wireless carriers. Before any recommendation is implemented, its important that you reviewed all the optimization recommendations and that you are comfortable with them. Always make sure that your optimization vendor allows you to accept or reject an optimization recommendation before it is implemented. There may be times you don't want to implement a recommendation because it may impact your business or an ongoing project/carrier negotiation.
A solid remediation process should consist of the following steps:
- Managing the implementation of all approved optimization rate strategies and discounts.
- Monthly bill review and report to ensure the carrier has implemented the recommendations correctly and you are realizing the savings expected/forecasted by your optimization vendor.
- Implement new savings strategies continuously.
- File for any credits in the event there is an incorrect billing as a result of the remediation.
Reporting and Analytics
When selecting a wireless optimization provider, always demand that the provider deliver reports and analytics to make it clear where the cost savings came from and how the optimization will provide you the wireless cost savings... both short-term and long-term. You always want to be able to verify savings against recommendations and the optimization baseline before paying any optimization success/contingency fees.
