Why should I pay for saving money? Wouldn’t it bring me to square one? This is probably what the average business says when asked to deploy a Telecom Expense Management (TEM) team to reduce its telecom expenses. They are right to an extent. They are however wrong in comparing TEM to yet another money-saving tactic for which you spend a fortune. TEM responds to the concern with the following:

• You pay only when you realize actual savings.
• You pay only a little as compared to the savings you make.

TEM is not just about reducing your expenses but helping you reap optimum benefits of your telecom services. The essential elements of TEM are:

• Invoice Management
• Inventory Management
• Analysis and reporting
• Usage Management
• Order Management

Let’s look at how these elements help you.

• It helps you recover the money lost because of errors in accounting and billing.
• It tracks down slamming or any other kind of wrongful billing (billing for services you don’t use).
• It releases the resources engaged in managing the telecom services for other priority work, helping you optimize your organization’s utilization.
• It tracks the misuse, overuse, and abuse of the telecom services.
• It automates invoice processing.
• It introduces measures to manage expenses efficiently, thereby saving you more money.
• It reviews the telecom contract periodically and recommends changes based on the telecom needs of the business.
• It analyzes the current telecom needs and usage and projects the future needs.
• It recommends the best telecom service/plan, in view of the current and the projected needs.

Telecom expenses are the least analyzed expenses in a business. With TEM, the expenses are not only reduced but also structured so that businesses pay only for what they use.