It is still worth it!
Despite the changes in organizations and processes and the cost, TCC firmly believes that most organizations will benefit from deploying a TEMS system. The two major benefits from a well managed TEMS system are:
Knowledge
Once all telecom expenses are identified and tracked, once all orders are centralized in one place, once all services and equipment items are identified and inventoried, once all expenses are consistently handled, once all vendor information is available from internal systems versus reliance on the vendors, comes Knowledge. Utilization of this knowledge will allow for
More efficient purchasing and inventory management
Service analysis and implementation: what will be impacted and what can be saved by migrating to VoIP for example
Contract compliance, and
Vendor management.
Process Improvement and Communications
In most organizations today, the flow of information between Accounts Payable, Telcom Management, local ordering and provisioning groups, human resources, and contract management groups is limited at best. By deploying a well designed TEMS system and embracing the processing changes it requires, the flow of information is near real-time, accurate, and complete. When each organization performs its role, then all organizations benefit from the system.
- It creates as many new tasks as it eliminates
- Table driven systems require constant maintenance - Audit results are rarely definitive, instead they are anomalies which require research - Audit flags must be cleared, parameters adjusted - Allocations and charge backs need to be adjusted as the organization changes. Annual budgeting process may require a complete refresh of information.
- It impacts many functional areas and processes: All must be willing to change
- Accounts payable - Order generation and processing group(s) - Planning and budgeting for charge-backs and allocations - Human resources data for wireless device tracking and management - Contract management
- The return on Investment may be significantly less than anticipated
- Initial loading of data will generate a majority of the savings. A good external auditing group may generate the same savings without an investment in a TEMS system - Head-count redutions may not materialize. In fact, additional resources may be necessary, and those resources may need to be better trained and more expensive
- Deciding when to outsource versus when to run it in-house can be difficult
- Which tasks are candidates for outsourcing based upon your staffing and levels of expertise - Which tasks need to be kept in-house because of their critical nature?