Aberdeen report evaluates CFOs and CIOs ability to reduce telecom spend in 2009

ORANGE, USA: As 2009 comes to a close and businesses look toward 2010, communications services and infrastructure will remain areas for increased scrutiny for savings and operational efficiencies.

This month, Aberdeen released research, underwritten by Tangoe, that reported that some large, enterprise organizations were able to successfully reduce telecom costs by 25 percent over the course of 2009.

However, the report also found that a majority of businesses experienced increases in telecom costs over the course of the year, which was particularly difficult given the continuing economic slump. Research showed that even with what they considered “best planning” for 2009, businesses were still not doing everything they could to ensure that their telecom costs remained well-managed and under control.

Entering 2010, the Aberdeen report reminds businesses that the key to reducing significant communications spend is uncovering hidden costs from multiple areas within the communications budget.

Since the landscape of telecom management has changed so dramatically over the past year, enterprises often carry unnecessary operator charges, device costs, and additional communications expenses—all of which can be significantly streamlined when the proper management plan is in place.

As the leading provider of complete communications lifecycle management solutions—for fixed and mobile—Tangoe helps businesses worldwide reign in telecom expenses, improve operational efficiencies, and establish enterprise-wide visibility and control of their voice and data communications.

Heading into 2010, Tangoe recommends the following three strategies for uncovering unnecessary telecom costs and proactively preventing them from occurring in the New Year.

1. Mobility management is essential: Mobile devices are an invaluable and rapidly expanding component of an enterprise's short- and long-term plan to optimize and/or boost worker productivity and create a cost-efficient and effective mobile workforce.

If not properly managed, mobile devices create more expense liability associated with data and device security. Businesses should tackle device complexity, complicated service charges, and decentralized device management head-on, before its mobile workforce becomes too diverse and dispersed to manage effectively and securely.

2. Proactive carrier negotiations: Many carrier contracts were negotiated before the economic crisis reached its current intensity and scale. As a result, companies may fall short of their expected carrier usage commitments due to downturns in their expected business volume.

In this situation, companies must first understand if they will meet existing carrier commitments and what the financial implications are of any shortfall. With that understanding, the organization can then take preemptive measures to mitigate financial impacts to the enterprise. Similarly, contracted rates and mid-contract negotiations may hold significant opportunities for savings. In this market, proactive negotiations often hold big potential for additional savings.

3. Be smart about managing global telecom expenses: Telecom Expense Management has become THE standard tool for gaining true visibility, understanding, and control of an organization’s fixed and mobile spend dollars in North America.

However, multinational corporations must have a global approach to cost reduction in order to maintain consistency and most efficiently reduce costs. Start by establishing a centralized global telecom invoice process and make sure there is a process for tracking any mobile expenses incurred, such as international roaming.

Increasingly, global corporations are centralizing the management of their communications and achieving dramatic savings as a result.