Cimpl Blog

When selecting a Telecom Expense Management (TEM) vendor, the process of evaluating solutions might not seem so complicated. Everyone is essentially selling the same product, right? Let’s rewind a minute, many providers say they offer Telecom Expense Management but what they do can vary in multiple ways, provide a variety of bundles or variations and flavours to the services you can sign up for. In order to effectively decide on a vendor, you must first decide on what objectives you want to achieve. Is your focus inventory management, cost optimization or automating processes across all of your organization; or maybe it’s all of the above? While one option may cost less the day you sign, what you are looking for are long-term results. Once you know what you want to achieve, you will need to figure out if you will need a Self-Managed or a Fully-Managed solution. Some vendors will make both options available with some variances. Understanding the difference between fully-managed and self-managed is key to getting the most out of a TEM solution.

Typically, getting your hands on the reports you need in a timely manner, for a reasonable price, can be challenging. Many Telecom Expense Management (TEM) providers charge extra fees when clients request a report, due to the programming and customization involved to create a report in the backend of the software. Reports are a necessity for many businesses who need a clear-cut view of their data in a sensible way, and being subject to expensive charges is a common problem. Decision-makers who require very detailed reports in order to understand data properly can end up incurring costs and waiting around for long periods of time just to see your own data. “Only 55% of all telecom reporting generated today is considered standard, leaving a significant portion of reporting as ad-hoc.” – AOTMP, State of the Telecom Management Industry 2016.

Cimpl currently serves a public Canadian insurance company that provides its services to over 3 million customers. With nearly 10,000 employees and about 1,200 departments, managing MACDs became quite a challenge. Before implementing Cimpl, the company’s IT executives kept track and managed over 18,000 assets and services manually, through multiple different systems and Excel sheets. In using several different systems to organize their assets, the company often lost track of where specific assets were, leaving them uncertain about what assets they actually owned. Finding invoices and billing anomalies became an impossible feat. At the same time, the company had several vendors to track and pay.

A Changing Landscape

The Telecom Expense Management (TEM) industry has reached a crossroad.  Market gorillas are looking to grow, and are doing so through acquisitions and mergers. I would like to raise whether these roll-ups have served their customers as well as it has served their financial backers.

Joining the ranks of major players in the banking, energy, and retail sectors who rely on Cimpl’s services on a daily basis, we are proud to say that a large publicly traded construction company is now a part of our family.

According to Wikipedia , Telecom Expense Management is defined as merely being “the management of wireless and wireline service and asset expenses,” while Technology Expense Management is defined as “the management of technology costs such as software licenses, computer equipment, applications, etc.”

Bringing the Value of IT to Light For the uninitiated, a bill of IT is a bill of materials which clearly and transparently explains the cost of IT services and devices in a way that’s easily understood by business end-users. If key decision-makers in a business don’t understand how technology gives an edge, then that’s wasted potential. Worse yet, if competitors have recognized the potential, then they will have a serious strategic advantage. That’s why one of the critical functions of IT lies in communicating the value it brings using technology that business people can understand. And in comes the bill of IT to help with that task.

If it recently has crossed your mind  that maybe your Telecom Expense Management  vendor doesn’t seem to fulfill your needs anymore, or if you feel that maybe it’s time to change, be reassured: you’re not the only one. 47% of organizations will change providers over the course of their TEM program (AOTMP). But now, how can you know if it’s your turn to change? Have you really reached that point?

Today’s leaders are constantly under pressure to get more out of less. With uneasy economic conditions and an uncertain future, running a business draws upon unique and unexpected challenges. In order for the engine of the business to keep moving, risks must be mitigated, uncertainties must be diminished, and most importantly, costs must be kept low. 

You can never count someone out until the end of the race.  This is true of Olympic races and this is true of Usain Bolt who is the first person in history to win three consecutive gold medals in the 100 m final.  The expected challenger for Usain Bolt, the one expected to cause the most trouble for him was Justin Gatlin.  Gatlin had a storming start but was over taken in the final 20 m by the sheer speed of Usain Bolt. Gatlin received silver medal and Canada’s Andre de Grasse won bronze (Yay! For Canada!!!).

As you may all know, on June 23, 2016 a referendum was held in the United Kingdom (UK) to decide whether it should remain in the European Union (EU).  The final decision for the referendum ended with the UK exiting the EU.  The UK is ranked 4th in the world’s global spending on IT.  If the UK decided not to use their resources on IT spending, it wouldn’t necessarily cause a global recession as they only contribute 5.3% to the world’s IT spend however, it would still cause some disruption.  The United States IT Spending accounts for 32.4% of the global spending on IT.  If the US were in a predicament that forced them to spend less on or even cut out IT spending altogether, it would cause greater concerns on a global level.  Regardless of the Consequently, the British Pound is at a 30 Year low against the US Dollar. Confidence in the UK’s economy has been severely shaken.  This has created a lot of uncertainty in terms of what it means for future trade relations between the world and the UK.   Many of the treaties that were made between the UK and the EU post World War II have become obsolete and now new negotiations must be made.  Due to all the uncertainty, the UK will have to be even thriftier with how they spend their money.