| It is no secret that telecommunications represents a | | | | types of things will you be able to do to better |
| major expense for a company of any size. How do | | | | manage your telecom operations? The following is a |
| you manage your Telecommunication Expenses? | | | | sample list of some of these things: |
| You've might had heard the term Telecommunications | | | | - An accurate inventory of every network element in |
| Expense Management (TEM) tossed about before. | | | | your company |
| But just what is it? | | | | - Assess the impact of the network on the company's |
| Telecommunications Expense Management (TEM) is | | | | bottom line |
| the methodology by which organizations can best | | | | - Pay your bills on time |
| manage one of their most critical strategic assets: the | | | | - Validate the accuracy of your invoices |
| telecom. TEM encompasses the technology, | | | | - Allocate costs back to the appropriate organization |
| processes, policy, and people needed. On the | | | | - Dispute invoice charges with the carrier |
| technology side, there needs to be a software | | | | - Predict future network costs |
| platform to help inventory your Telecom assets (e.g., | | | | - Build your telecom budget |
| circuits, services, equipment, locations, invoices, | | | | - Optimize your existing network infrastructure |
| accounts), enforce business processes (e.g., ordering, | | | | - Negotiate better contracts with your providers |
| approving, problem resolution), and manage access to | | | | - Analyze your Call Detail Reporting (CDR) from your |
| critical Telecommunications infrastructure information. | | | | invoices and your telephone switches |
| The people are the experts in networking and telecom | | | | - Centralize all your telecom data into one single |
| that follow the methodologies and use the software to | | | | repository for doing data reporting, analysis, and |
| deploy, manage, and decommission the telecom | | | | business intelligence. |
| network. | | | | All of these facets of Telecom Expense Management |
| TEM brings together silos of technology, data, and | | | | are related. They depend upon each other so each |
| people into one centralized and collaborative | | | | one can function properly. It is a comprehensive |
| ecosystem where all the participants are interlinked | | | | approach to controlling what is one of the greatest |
| and ultimately different systems can talk together: | | | | expenditures in many businesses. Inventory control |
| ordering talks to inventory, inventory talks to billing, | | | | depends upon procurement. Procurement relies on |
| ticketing talks to inventory, network management talks | | | | Optimization's recommendations, and so on. |
| to inventory, network management talks to contract | | | | With the economy being as sluggish as it is, it pays to |
| SLAs, etc. TEM also brings a standardized set of best | | | | have a professional Telecom Expense Management |
| practice repeatable processes to the organization | | | | team come in and put that part of your business in |
| using it. All order and invoice processing should happen | | | | order. Remember, they will probably save more |
| the same way across the entire organization after | | | | money for you than the fees they charge, so there is |
| TEM is deployed. | | | | really no reason not to give them a call. Find a |
| Things You Can Do With TEM | | | | reputable Telecom Expense Management company |
| Once you have all the technology, processes, policy, | | | | and see what they can do for you. |
| and people in place in your telecom organization, what | | | | |