Having a subpar telecom expense management platform will leave your organization at a cost disadvantage.
In the current enterprise marketplace, things are moving faster than ever and with more data than ever. Enterprise expense management leaders must be quicker and more accurate than ever out of the gate to give themselves the best chance to get the big decisions right the first time, without having to circle back and redo work. Otherwise, the time/money costs can be too great.
Because there is less wiggle room for errors, a top priority for enterprise expense management leaders is to focus on data management. Modern-day best practices around enterprise expense management, A.K.A., telecom expense management (TEM) must start with comprehensive, clean, and actionable data which requires a robust platform that keeps up with the pace of change.
Let’s examine four big reasons why having a powerful TEM platform that can provide for all these key requirements is a must for achieving the level of data hygiene needed to succeed within the enterprise expense management world.
4 Reasons Why TEM Managers Need a Strong TEM Platform
1. Data Accuracy: You can’t properly manage what you can’t measure
This statement captures a very old management sentiment. It’s obvious but so true and therefore worth repeating. It’s also something that really resonates nowadays; it’s not enough to have reasonably accurate or ‘directionally accurate’ data anymore. (Half-baked or dated TEM platforms and spreadsheets will not do in today’s world.)
It’s more critical than ever that the data be comprehensive, highly granular, and very clean, especially for sound TEM management.
A few important areas that demonstrate the importance of excellent/accurate data
A. Inventory
We will never stop punctuating this bedrock TEM area’s importance for executing a strong and sustainable TEM program. This is often not given its proper due diligence in many organizations, but you do not want this to be the case for you and your inventory and organization.
B. Audit Analyses
Good old-fashioned TEM audits will always be present within TEM programs. It’s imperative to start with great data and then layer in strong audit processes, and highly skilled subject matter experts. If you have ‘bad data’, TEM process efforts and team talent will be rendered ineffective, so it’s a TEM imperative so to speak, to begin with excellent, clean data.
C. Optimization Analyses
This type of review is very similar to the importance of audits, perhaps more important. This is because this type of review looks to see what is possible in terms of operations and costs for your communications network relative to the current market.
This is opposed to only identifying if billing is accurate or not. It’s important because you may have secured a ‘bad deal’ to begin with, or the services/pricing may simply be dated, which means that accuracy may still equal “bad” in terms of high costs, i.e., higher costs than you should be fairly paying regardless of what a contract says.
Strong optimization analyses position your organization for proactive management and savings opportunities and the importance of this service cannot be overstated. And comprehensive, highly granular, and very clean data is key to this area of TEM management.
D. Benchmark Analyses
The idea here is like the type of proactive analyses and management noted for optimization analyses. A strong TEM partner can provide professional consultative services to review all carriers and services proactively. They will do so to determine where changes make sense both operationally and from a savings perspective.
This professional benchmarking support is fantastic but, again, it’s imperative that they begin with comprehensive and clean data so that all benchmark comparisons and analyses are accurate and facilitate strong go-forward decisions.
2. Data Visibility: You must have easily digestible reporting to communicate effectively with teammates/colleagues
The TEM industry is complex. Great TEM teams find ways to make the complex simpler and more understandable. A strong TEM platform will do this for you in terms of reporting capabilities.
A powerful TEM platform can house large amounts of highly granular data and possesses a high degree of configurability, which – in this case – will translate to a seemingly endless variety of reporting options to suit your organization’s preferences.
It starts with clean and comprehensive data. And translating the data into easily digestible dashboards and reports is important to your expense management team. This sets them up for success in making their next business decisions
3. Data Automation: You must have highly automated systems/processes in today’s high-paced enterprise marketplace
Automation, automation, automation. The word cannot be overstated in today’s world of overwhelm, worker shortages, and ceaseless financial pressures. It’s important in most technology sectors these days, and this is certainly true for the TEM industry.
The good news is that current technology is permitting continual evolution in this regard. A modern and robust TEM platform will empower your team and organization.
A strong TEM platform will facilitate automation throughout your entire TEM program (e.g., system variance audits on the front end of invoice processing or automated emails for alerts or receipt of reports).
4. Data Management: You must prevent ‘data overload’ in the seemingly endless blizzard of information and data parsing found within the TEM world
A powerful TEM platform will possess robust configuration capabilities that can be tailored to your unique organizational needs. As carriers, services, and data presentations change, your ability to adjust to these changes is essential.
The competent TEM platform that you want to support your team will be able to react and adjust as needed to house and provide reporting for sound ongoing TEM operations
Conclusion
A modern TEM platform that can perform in the ways outlined above is what you want in your enterprise organization. When interviewing potential TEM partners, you will want to inquire into all these areas and then compare the technological capabilities of the TEM platforms for the firms you are considering. (Again, we recommend between 3 to 5.)
If you’d like to consider Tellennium in your TEM vendor comparisons, contact us to schedule a brief demo of our solution.
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