We may think we are doing the best for our business, but we sometimes miss the obvious. Hiring an external telecom auditing often brings in a perspective that we haven’t paid attention to. Read the questions mentioned below and find out if the internal auditing of your telecom expenses proper.

• Do you review your expenses only when a problem is flagged? Many organizations look into the expenses only when a problem is noticed. The absence of regular auditing can bypass several problems that have not come to the notice of the organization.
• Are your reviews limited only to the areas identified as the problem areas? Even when a problem is flagged, internal auditors often don’t go into a thorough review but focus only on the problem area. This may not tell you the root cause of the problem.
• Do you not review the current contract? Often, once a telecom contract has been signed, organizations don’t look into it and often keep renewing it for the future. An analysis of the contract and a comparison with other telecom plans or vendors will tell you if it is suited for your future needs.
• Do you ignore studying the usage of the services? Internal auditors often ignore analyzing the usage of the telecom services and miss finding out if there is a misuse, abuse, or over-use. Analyzing the usage can help reduce expenses significantly.

More often than not, internal auditors are not equipped with the knowledge to audit the telecom expenses. A telecom audit by a professional telecom management team can help reduce expenses to an extent not typically possible by an internal team.

You can be proud to own something, but it can be complicated to manage it on your own.  I am referring to hosted PBX. Also known as virtual PBX, hosted PBX is the concept of letting a vendor keep and manage your PBX for you.

PBX, as you know, is the shortened term for Private Branch eXchange. When it came into being, people thought there could be nothing better than owning one’s own telephone exchange. However, with time, businesses realized that managing a PBX requires skills, resources, and time. Though the benefits of PBX were important, the complexity of its management was a deterrent. With the introduction of hosted PBX,  the complex issues became much simpler.

By hosting your PBX in the vendor’s premises and getting it taken care of by a professional telecom management team, you can focus your time and resources on your core business. Let us look at how hosting the PBX helps you.

• You don’t need to acquire any additional hardware.
• It doesn’t cost much to install hosted PBX.
• Hosted PBX supports automation.
• Operating virtual PBX is easier and less expensive than operating PBX.
• The calling costs are drastically reduced.
• Hosted PBX allows you to customize features.
• You don’t need to train your employees to use the system.
• Hosted PBX is highly scalable.
• With hosted PBX, you can create a local presence of your business in remote locations.
• Hosted PBX offers high availability, ensuring business continuity.

Keep watching this space for more information on telecommunication services and their management.

The management of a telecom network is not everyone’s cup of tea. While some organizations have the know-how, others are clueless when it comes to telecom management. Irrespective of your knowledge, it is advisable that you go for professional management of your telecom services. However, don’t hire the services of the first company you come across. Take your time in comparing different companies and look at the value they will offer.

Talking about value, there are a few things that set one company apart from others. If you have hired a company or planning to hire, look for the following things in it.

• Are you the focus of the consultants? A telecom management company’s focus should be on what your organization needs and the best ways to meet those needs. A good consultant will not focus on selling its own products as a solution. It will not broker for a third-party, forcing you to buy certain products.
• Have the consultants shown real savings in the past? A telecom management company should be able to provide previous instances where it helped businesses save money. A promise of cost-savings is not enough if it is not backed by real data.
• Is the control with you? The consulting company should make product recommendations to you, letting you aware of the pros and cons, but it should not make the final decision. It should let the control be with you, and help you make an informed decision.
• Do they charge on a contingency basis? A good telecom consulting company will charge for savings-based services on a contingency basis, taking its money only after realizing savings for you. For other services, its fees should be fixed and not depend on the time taken for it.

If the telecom company’s focus is reaping benefits for you, go for it.

You may think that since the term ‘management’ sounds good, any kind of management is supposed to good. Therefore, ‘telecom inventory management’ should also be. Yeah, you are right, but I am not recommending the management of telecom inventory just for the sake of it. It is good because it helps you reap maximum benefits of the telecom services.

Let me show you some concrete reasons why you need to manage the telecom inventory.

• You need to know the status of your inventory. You have to keep track of each and every piece of equipment because if you don’t, you may end up losing them on the sly. Inventory management ensures that the inventory is accurate at all times.
• Procurement and contract negotiation become easier with inventory management.
• Inventory management ensures that no unnecessary equipment is lying around and there is enough space for the necessary equipment.
• Proper inventory management enables proper and accurate invoice management.
• The management of your inventory makes people accountable for your telecom assets.
• With inventory management, you can track and manage the expense related to each asset.
• You can keep track of the usage of each asset in the inventory.
• Proper inventory management makes it easy for you to modify your inventory.

A well-managed inventory is the first step towards effective telecom management as it helps you align telecom plans with your needs and optimizes the telecom services.

Most organizations deploy inventory management of sorts but that does not turn out to be effective. I recommend seeking professional help and involve a telecom management company to manage your inventory for you.

People often argue over what is the best method of managing telecom expenses. Their arguments and discussions ensue because they understand the importance of the management of telecom expenses. Do you understand it too, or are you in the habit of paying bills and not looking at either the expenses or the usage? If you don’t care about the importance of looking at your telecom expenses, it’s high time you understand why you need to.

The management of telecom expenses is so important that a term, Telecom Expense Management (TEM), has been coined for the best practices. Today, I will highlight four major benefits of the management of telecom expenses.

• You may have not realized it but you may have lost a lot of money because of errors in the accounting and billing of your telecom services. Expense management helps you recover the lost money.
• Expense management of your telecom services helps you figure out the service and plan that suits your telecom needs the best.
• While managing your telecom expenses, you will unearth instance of misuse, over-use, and abuse of your business’ telecom services.
• Strategic planning becomes easier with a well-planned telecom expense management. You will be able to foresee your future telecom needs and plan accordingly.

If you would like optimum benefits of expense management, go for professional TEM. And no, it doesn’t cost a fortune! You’ll pay a portion of what you get to save. Isn’t that enticing? Check our previous posts on TEM and you’ll understand why we keep harping on it.

The two things that make organizations worried when it comes to the telecom network are expense management and optimization of the services. I have always maintained that expert knowledge is important for these, and therefore, a business should go for professional telecom management. However, if you would like to handle the management of the telecom network on your on, you need not only the requisite telecom knowledge but also a thorough understanding of your network.

How well do you know your organizations’ telecom network? Here’s a list of things you should know.

• Telecom needs: You should know what your business’ telecom needs are.
• Telecom plans: You should know if the current telecom plans meets your business’ needs.
• Inventory: You should know always be aware of the current status of the telecom inventory.
• Telecom usage: You should know how the telecom services are being used within your organization, and if there are instances of any overuse or misuse.
• Telecom network performance: You should be aware of problems in the telecom services and find out the frequency of downtimes, if any.
• Unused service: You should know if you are being billed for any service that your organization does not use.
• Billing: You should find out if there are any errors in billing and accounting.
• Plan changes: You should know if there are any changes to the charges and the plans being reflected in the bills. Vendors may make changes to your plans without checking with you.

These things will familiarize you with your telecom network and prepare you to manage it.

VoIP is a craze and a much in-vogue term in business circles. Is it really that important? How does VoIP help businesses? Is it good only for the large ones or also for the small organizations? Let me try answering these questions for you.

VoIP helps reduce your telecom expenses considerably. This is the biggest business advantage of VoIP. Most businesses are driven towards it solely for this reason. And it makes sense, doesn’t it? The less the expenses, the more a business’ profits. VoIP helps reduce operational costs as well. Since VoIP integrates data and voice networks and makes use of the infrastructure available, the deployment and operating costs are reduced.

With VoIP, businesses no longer need to maintain data and voice networks separately. VoIP integrates them and helps make the management of these services easier. Modifications become easy with the deployment of VoIP. It is easy to update and make changes to the VoIP network. VoIP makes the telecom network scalable, growing with the needs of the business. VoIP also offers the flexibility of relocating your network from one place to another with utmost comfort.

VoIP is not a fussy system, but the complexity of the technology makes business concerned about managing it. Businesses are often not sure if the VoIP network will reap all the benefits it promises. The concerns arise from the fact that organizations are not familiar with the technology. Thus, it is recommended that you use telecom consultants to deploy and manage the VoIP network for you. They will help you optimize the benefits of the network.

One of the biggest reasons professional telecom management is recommended is the lack of expertise internally in organizations. So, with the requisite knowledge, can an organization handle the management of its telecom network on its own? It sounds logical, doesn’t it?

The knowledge isn’t enough if the organization doesn’t know how to go about using it. If you are looking for effective telecom management, you need to do the following:

• You have to procure the right service. You have to compare vendors, their plans, and their tariffs to help you pick the best offer.
• You need to analyze the telecom contract well before sealing the deal. You have to make sure that you understand the fine print of the contract.
• You have to keep a track of your inventory in order to get maximum benefits. You have to organize your telecom inventory better to use it more effectively.
• You have to monitor the performance of your network. You have to ensure that the telecom services function without a hindrance. You will have to provide troubleshooting support if there is a problem. You have to ensure that downtimes are minimal.
• You have to ensure that there are no errors in billing. You have to regularly analyze invoices and bills and ensure that you don’t pay money you don’t owe to the telecom vendor.
• You have to make sure that you utilize the services effectively to meet your business’ telecom needs.
• You have to look at preparing for your future telecom needs.

If you think you can do all this internally, you don’t have to look elsewhere, but if these things are either complicated or add an overhead to your responsibilities, seek professional help.

I cannot live without my cell phone. Can you? There was a time when owning a mobile phone made you exceptional. Now, the absence of one will. Organizations no longer depend on static networks and devices. Mobility is not just in vogue but extremely necessary if you want to be in the race. The perceived complexity of managing a wireless network, however, deters organizations from going wireless.

The businesses who acquire the wireless network constantly worry about the increasing expenses and are confused about ways to manage them. What can you do to manage the expenses of a wireless network?

Start with tracking the usage of the telecom services. Even before you begin looking at the expenses, you have to know the number of devices being used, their types, the number of users, their locations, and the difference of plans, if any, among other things. Find out if there is any misuse of these services. Find out if your current usage exceeds the estimated usage significantly.

If your usage is beyond what you estimated it to be, you may not have analyzed your telecom needs properly. You have to revisit your needs and find out the source of the problem. If at all the problem is in the usage, you have to monitor it and control it to reduce your wireless expenses.

Apart from the needs and the usage, something else you need to review are your bills. Even if your bills are consistent, study them. Look at both the old and the current bills and find out if you are paying for services you never use or are being billed for a service that you canceled ages ago.

Managing the telecom network and its expenses become difficult in the absence of expertise. Hiring the services of a professional team may be a better idea if you are not equipped with the requisite knowledge.

Does management mean mere monitoring and handling? It definitely doesn’t. Management has to look at optimization of resources. Telecom management also strives to optimize your telecom network. So, what is optimization all about? What happens in telecom network optimization? Well, simply put, optimization here refers to reaping maximum benefits of the telecom services.

How, exactly, can you optimize your organization’s telecom network? You need to start with making sure you procure the best service and plan. VoIP management typically performs pre-deployment testing to see if the solution fits in your scheme of things. This is a kind of an acceptance testing that is becoming a norm when establishing a proper telecom network.

Next, you have to monitor the performance of your telecom network closely. You have to make sure that the network functions as per your needs.

Once you have established that the network has been configured based on your needs, you have to ensure that it continues to function smoothly. You have to troubleshoot problems effectively and on time.

Making sure that the network performs to its optimum and finding out ways to improve its performance forms a part of the optimization process.

Now, what do you need to optimize your business network? A good understanding of your telecom needs and infrastructure and an expert knowledge of telecom technologies are integral to telecom management. More often than not, organizations lack this sort of expertise. This is the reason why they should go for professional telecom management. A professional team will not only optimize your current network but will also prepare you for future needs.