Here we go again. It seems every few months we hear about wireless vendors charging users or enterprises for services they either didn't order, didn't know about or thought they had canceled but still kept being billed. You might know this as "cramming" but in the TEM world we call this "easily avoidable".
Mobile devices offer your business ways to connect with customers, partners and employees more closely and with greater variety than ever before; and, as you would expect, this kind of vigorous liaison increases security risks – sometimes drastically if you lack a mobile device management plan that stresses compliance from your employees.
More directly, mobile devices have a general tendency to decrease your business’ wireless device security because of all the additional access points they provide when they log on to company servers or third party systems. In addition, employees, customers and partners can download any app from and app store that could contain malware that violates your security protocols or creates other security issues. Because of the exploitative nature of malicious programs, you can see how undesirable all these remote, unsupervised access points would be in a healthcare environment concerned with legally-protected patient information. Subpar wireless device security can expose you to lawsuits and professional embarrassment; in fact, any enterprise with a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy can suffer from not having such precautions as a robustly enforced mobile GRC policy in place.
The core problem facing companies caught in the tide of the mobile revolution is the reality of increased access to sensitive data or systems and the ability to download third party software that is not approved by the enterprise. With more Smartphones and Tablets in your office, it becomes simply a numbers-game of when an attack will happen – not if. Identity theft has always been a rampant problem; but never more so than in this age of mobile devices. You can erect a strict policy of password protection and personal ID numbers for your employees; to better identify when and where any problem devices took place.
An even more robust solution – which should actually be done in tandem with the security measures taken above – is investing in a wireless help desk. This is no different than outsourcing any of your other IT concerns to subject matter experts whose direct experience usually supersedes even your most technically capable in-house personnel.
More importantly; a wireless help desk saves you labor costs, despite being more capable. To have your mobile device management centralized frees up you to focus on your core business, without using valuable internal resources troubleshooting security breaches. With the current economic quagmire; merely having a mobile GRC policy in place is only be the first step on your way to the kind of full mobile device management and wireless device security that a capable wireless help desk can provide.
Thanks to the growing proliferation of tablets, smartphones and other mobile devices in critical enterprise environments, maintaining a secure environment for sensitive corporate data has become one of the most pressing challenges for an IT / telecom team to tackle. While tablets are a convenient way for employees to access corporate e-mail, corporate networks and corporate data while on the road, they also pose several security risks:
Visit MTS at the AOTMP 2012 Fixed & Mobile Telecom Management Conference at the Orlando Airport Marriott, Orlando, FL. from February 13-16, 2012. MTS will be located at booth #15 where we will highlight our award winning TEM Suite Telecom Expense Management and Wireless Mobility Management solution. We will also be sponsoring the Wednesday poolside lunch where the weather is suppose to be sunny and in the high seventies.
Lessening the cost of mobile devices and providing flexibility for employees, Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) programs have been shown to work for many enterprises. The concern with these programs is that these employee furnished devices can require additional wireless help desk support and more robust mobile security policies.
So you found an error on your telephone bill and are getting ready to contact the carrier for resolution: Now what?
Common sense tells you that once notified, the telephone company should correct the error immediately and refund all overpayments.
Unfortunately, this is an area where common sense rarely prevails.
So you found an error on your telephone bill and are getting ready to contact the carrier for resolution: Now what?
The International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) recently published an article on Telecom Expense Management Best Practices, “Taming Telecom Costs”, co-written by John Franconere from SPS and John Venditti from MTS. The article was published in the March 2011 issue of ILTA’s quarterly magazine, Peer to Peer.
A lot of talk and industry reports about wireless TEM focuses on the IT side of the house. We brought in one of our mobility experts and asked them to enlighten us on the finance departments WEM (wireless expense management) needs. What follows is Part II of an interview with Phil Caruso, Senior Consultant from MTS, as we discuss the wireless TEM requirements of the finance people; the data that they need to see, and the systems and processes they need to be successful.
A lot of talk and industry reports about wireless TEM focuses on the IT side of the house. We thought it would be interesting to discuss enterprise wireless telecom expense management from the finance side of the house, so we brought in one of our mobility experts and asked them to enlighten us on the finance departments WEM (wireless expense management) needs.
There are a variety of growing issues facing companies who try to track and control wireless spend. While it's obvious that controlling the cost per minute will save your organization money, there are other factors specific to wireless device and service management that the ideal optimization solution will address.
The organizational base of mobile users is growing and thus produces larger overall costs. However, to further complicate the issue, more features and functionality get bundled into wireless service leaving end-user organizations in a difficult situation in which the cost per wireless user is also expanding. These reasons are causing market leaders to explore Telecom Expense Management (TEM) solutions as well as wireless optimization exercises.
Wireless telecom has become the fastest growing part of overall IT expenditures. Even in an environment where overall IT spending is decreasing, wireless expenses continue to increase at double digit rates.
A one time or recurring wireless audit will force your organization to gather data surrounding wireless spend and the wireless optimization piece will provide as much as 40% savings on that spend.
According to many TEM and WEM experts, organizations implementing complete IT/telecom chargeback systems to their users experience 30 percent lower cost than do organizations where the cost of service is perceived as free. Today, most organizations find themselves somewhere along this spectrum — they do not provide all of their users complete utilization-based chargeback, nor do their users perceive the services they receive as totally free.
Recent research from shows that enterprise purchase intent for mobile devices is on a steep incline. With the increased dependence on mobile communications technology new problems arise including call tracking requirements.
According to Pat Hurley’s Telephony Online article “Managing the Mobile Enterprise Effect,” the benefits of telecom expense management (TEM) are many; especially today when mobile technology exposes companies to new security threats. Pat Hurley’s article states: “A recent survey by Pointsec Mobile Technologies found that 85,000 cell phones were left in Chicago taxis in a six-month period. Losing a plain old cell phone is one thing, but losing a smartphone synchronized with corporate e-mail and data is quite another.” Sophisticated telecom expense management software solutions can help automate processes and provide security for wired and wireless networks.
