From Bill Auditors to TEM
In 1996, bill auditors finally added new telecom expense management services and 6 years later, the T.E.M acronym was used to describe these new services, the industry, and the service providers. Fast-forward almost 10 years, and T.E.M providers now offer inventory management and change control, sourcing, procurement and fulfillment, invoice management, expense management (including validation and optimization), employee lifecycle management, usage chargeback, bill payment, and reporting which provides business intelligence.
TEM providers have had to adapt to client needs, specifically when it comes to wireless expense management – and they have done so. Wireless expense management is the fastest growing part of TEM, as wireless technology continues to be at the forefront of many carriers today. In Bell Canada's 2010 annual report, its wireless segment (Bell Mobility) saw a customer base increase of 82%. Bell’s 2010 annual report also shows that its wireless data revenue increased more than 41 percent, which comes after a 27 percent gain in 2009. As wireless assets become more and more prevalent in businesses and new devices are released, TEM will expand to offer the services needed to allow businesses to incorporate these new technologies with ease.
According to the pattern seen in recent years and the demand seen today, the TEM industry will continue to flourish and the market will continue to grow and allow more market participants. TEM has come to a place where it works as a part of the company infrastructure, integrated into organizations in order to improve management of their devices from every angle.
The New TEM Vision of its industry
As the industry moves forward, TEM now has a new vision which puts analytic and business intelligence at the forefront, and operates strictly on the foundation of best practices. Great TEM providers who have this vision and who are successful in implementing it are seeing a vibrant future and can only go up from here. Network expenses are right now at the top of the list on the profit and loss statement for most businesses. Seeing how telecom networks are only becoming more essential to business, this isn't going to change- and that's where great TEM providers come in.
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Read the Blog Post Part 1 - The TEM industry like never before.