HOW TO

How to Choose and Implement Telecom Expense Management Software

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
October 9, 2020
HOW TO
How to Choose and Implement Telecom Expense Management Software
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
October 9, 2020
HOW TO
How to Choose and Implement Telecom Expense Management Software
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
October 9, 2020
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CEO at Aspirity
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Every business strives to reduce its costs and automate mundane tasks to focus on essential functionalities and innovations. Process optimization has become a crucial part of every business, from a startup to a large conglomerate. It's all due to the demand for cost-effectiveness, high productivity, and continuous innovation. Instead of wasting valuable resources on handling invoices, providing audits, provisioning, and managing budgets, companies nowadays can channel their efforts towards the product and stay at the top of the competition.

One of the great ways of keeping your processes optimized is telecom expense management (TEM). What is a telecom expense management system? It is an implementation of processes to optimize and automate communication services. Ask yourself the following questions:
  • Is the process of manually handling the expenses of telecommunication becoming tedious and taking too much time? Is there a possibility of them being recorded incorrectly?
  • Are you struggling to monitor and manage the usage of mobile data and internet among your employees?
  • Does the process of handling the invoices and bills cost you more and more?
  • Do you get lost in the multitude of rate plans and device procurement options?
Answering these questions will help you realize the need for a telecom expense management vendor. Average telecom expense management system savings lie around 7,7%, which is a significant cut that you can use to improve your product.

What are the main aspects of telecom expense management and how to conduct the implementation of these processes to ease the transition?

The Key Features of TEM software

Invoice processing

Choose telecom expense management software that will automate the payment of invoices, approval for payment as well as integrate third-party financial systems. It will inspect the contract rates and records to manage the data usage permissions to discover and eliminate discrepancies.

Technology expense management

As you grow and expand, your technology costs will increase, which will lead to a bigger number of bills and invoices to handle and track. TEM software will make these processes simpler and clearer as well as secure your data storage.
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Telecom cost management

A good TEM software will help you figure out the source of ever-rising telecommunication expenses. The algorithm is built to quickly analyze the information, sort it out, and detect the problematic areas. This way, you can tackle the issue right away before it grows exponentially bigger.

Billing consultant

Human mistakes in handling bills are inevitable; however, a fitting software will provide precision and accuracy in order to avoid as many errors as possible.

Set of services

Your TEM provider should be ready to handle your invoices digitally, conduct the audit, efficiently distribute your expenses within the organization, optimize business processes, manage inventory, and report possible discrepancies. On top of that, your TEM software is supposed to unify all these records in one single system — a centralized platform containing all the assets and services.

It is crucially important to realize which services you need because some vendors will offer you extra functions that you do not require. For example, they might offer you helpdesk service or procurement consultancy for a small price. Yet, if you don't immediately need it, refuse these options in order to avoid potential overcharges.

Lifecycle approach

Well-established Telecom Expense Management software vendors implement a lifecycle approach where they track the lifecycle of assets. This ensures absolute transparency in your inventory and expenses across all locations, as well as regular audits. Continuous invoice auditing, as well as portfolio optimization, will drastically reduce your overall costs in a matter of weeks.

Employee information

Telecom expense management (TEM) services software will give you a platform for the optimization and actualization of the HR data. This way you will have a neat and clear overview of employees, their responsibilities, and status all in one place.

How to Implement Telecom Expense Management Solution

How do you go about implementing new technology into your work environment? Below we'll explain the most vital steps in the integration of TEM software, and how to ensure it goes smoothly.

Choose a suitable approach

There are three types of TEM vendors:
  • 1
    Service only
    TEM vendors provide you with their software, however, you take care of daily processes. On the one hand, you will have full control of the decision-making, process implementations, and cost reductions. On the other hand, to manage telecommunications yourself, you need to have quite extensive knowledge about it and the software.
  • 2
    Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)
    This option shifts a load of daily management to the vendor. This way, the TEM provider will handle order process, invoice processing, inventory management, audit, and more. BPO will help you concentrate on the product, and innovations, however, will deprive you of full control.
  • 3
    Hybrid
    If you go for the hybrid option, you will take advantage of both types. You can outsource the tasks you are ready to lose control over and keep the ones you would like to handle yourself.

Will I Be Supported?

Among the telecom expense management service provider proposals, select the one with initial training and continuous customer support. The goal of the training is to develop a basic understanding of TEM and the software functionalities. After the preparation is done, and the software has been successfully implemented, some questions or mistakes might occur, so it is very important to have a great support system.

Onboarding

Next to getting yourself trained, take care of the training of your employees. Depending on their position at the company and the level of involvement, your employees will receive different onboarding guidelines. Talk to your vendor and make sure they will provide all the materials you will require to get your staff knowledgeable.
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Who Can Help

The TEM system is capable of saving you a substantial amount of money as well as free up your schedule. If you think it might be something for you but are hesitant to contact vendors, get a consultation at Aspirity. It is a company that solves complex IT problems and comes up with revolutionary solutions to improve the business, operations, customer retention, and many more.
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We solve world-class front-end challenges using ReactJS and Flutter.
Aspirity consists of a team of developers that put their clients first and focus on the user-related approach. We've developed Multidesk for NGENIX which allows a simple and transparent monitoring system. The challenge was to divide one multidesk service into 3 portals with their own tables, diagrams, graphics and forms. We managed to make them convenient and simple for all users while still displaying all the data correctly on all kinds of devices. Multidesk enables continuous maintenance and management of the effectiveness of services.
Aspirity has also modernized Iskra — the federal operator of satellite communication. Due to our accomplishments, the client can control its equipment remotely. We built a system that collects data, interacts with equipment, and analyzes and optimizes important functions for their operations.

Conclusion

Selecting the right TEM software and the perfect vendor means choosing someone who will strive to achieve your company's long-term goals as well as maximize the value of communication. The telecom expense management provider should be experienced enough to understand your IT environment and drive innovation further. In case you consider implementing TEM software contact the Aspirity team, and we'll gladly consult and help you with your project.
CEO AT ASPIRITY
For more than 2,5 years, I've been working as CEO at Aspirity. I help professionals launch digital products by providing dedicated development teams.
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