Celebrating 25 years of business, Valicom shares with Tie National, LLC five popular reasons for outsourcing TEM
Telecom Expense Management (TEM), as an industry, was born as a business process outsourcing (BPO) solution. However, with the recent creation of low-cost, easy to deploy TEM software tools, many firms have chosen to bring their TEM program in-house. And while this can feel like a quick and cheap fix, over time the processes related to maintaining exact inventory and invoice processes within the TEM software tool can become a cumbersome task. Tasks that internal staff often just don’t have the time or expertise for.
Additionally, the expansion of devices, complexity, and risk in modern telecom environments has led many managers to reconsider this decision and move back to an outsourced model.
So why do some firms choose to outsource, and not keep TEM in-house?
What Valicom found when talking with clients or other TEM vendors, is that there seems to be a pretty universal set of reasons firms choose to outsource one or two telecom tasks, or their entire telecom life cycle management process.
Below are the 5 insights they discovered.
1. You could save significant staff costs.
Not just on the recruitment and hiring front. Skilled people with strong application-based credentials don’t come cheap and have long-term costs. Why spend time and money training somebody to support a core business application, only to see them get snapped up by another employer, taking their expensively acquired skills with them? Or send them to costly training to keep their skills current? And with the risks involved, are you confident they are up to speed on the latest technology, devices, regulations and privacy issues?
2. An outsourced TEM auditing team frees your resources.
Maintaining a trained, dedicated staff to manage voice, wireless and data is expensive. Depending on the size of your business, you might need several people to manage inventory, process and audit invoices, manage MACDs, procure new devices and services, negotiate contracts and chase vendor credits. Why not liberate your in-house staff from these tasks so they can focus on projects that add value to the business and not spend their precious time firefighting? Pay them to do what they do well, and rely on a trusted TEM partner to manage your telecom, often at a greatly reduced cost.
3. Save money with the right outsourcing strategy
A good TEM partner will work with you to find the pressure points that make sense for you to outsource. This is why Tie National, LLC (TIE) offers flexible delivery options. Full outsourcing may not be right for your business, so work with your TEMpartner to find what you can do in-house if anything, and what makes sense to outsource. For some firms it will be a few tasks, others will choose to outsource the entire telecom life cycle management process. The point is to make it as customized as possible, avoiding the “one size fits all” problem.
4. Your business will be more flexible in its use and consumption of telecom services.
Having a team of dedicated telecom professionals managing your environment ensures that you get the best advice, the finest solutions, and the most attractive pricing. By being proactive in selecting services, and fierce in negotiating contracts, a pro TEM team can make sure not only lower costs, but more flexible terms and conditions when dealing with vendors. They can also add tactics like data and minute pooling, among other wireless and network optimization strategies, to better match fixed and mobile services directly to usage. That means savings, as you only pay for what you really need.
5. Peace of mind.
Why let worries about issues such as inventory management or cost overruns keep you awake at night when they can be managed by a third party who has all the necessary expertise and technology to meet your needs? By choosing the right partner to offer telecom expense management services, you are prioritizing those needs and not allowing them to become distractions for your in-house team. Rest assured that professionals are managing your environment, and leave the driving to us.
The soft costs of an internal TEM program can quickly outweigh the costs of an outsourced telecom expense management solution. Free up internal resources by leaning on dedicated and experienced telecom experts. An outsourced telecom solution will aid you in reaching higher levels of optimization in both your telecom spend and day-to day business operational costs.
Let’s discuss the benefits of a custom outsourced TEM solution; contact us at (630) 518-9600.
About Valicom
Valicom is a Madison, WI based telecom expense management firm founded in 1991 as a certified, 100% woman-owned
business (WBE). Valicom offers a full suite of telecom cost control services including telecom audits, wireless optimization,
RFP services, telecom contract negotiation, telecom invoice processing and payment. Services are delivered via Clearview,
a web-based telecom expense, invoice and inventory management software. Clearview can be used either as a
subscription software-as-a-service (SaaS) or as part of a comprehensive telecom audit outsourcing project. For more
information, please visit www.valicomcorp.com.
