When discussing the benefits of IntelligentComms’ services with prospective clients over the years, we’ve been asked all sorts of different questions. So, to help you decide if we can provide benefits for your business, we decided to give you some of those answers right here as a start-point!

Can you still help us if we don’t have any budget for ongoing management?

IntelligentComms TEM is self-funding and does not require budget to be allocated.  Our service can be underwritten to the extent that our fees will not exceed the savings we generate for you.  As such, there is no net cost to the business.

We understand that very few companies allocate budget for this type of work as they are not are actively spending money on annual telecoms expense management contracts. But a business which spends £500,000 a year on telecoms will, on average, spend around five man days per month simply checking and reporting on different bill types from multiple providers.

IntelligentComms can cost-justify the use of our TEM Managed Service by demonstrating the return on investment that it brings. This is achieved through identifying areas such as surplus services, over-charging, tariffs not  being correctly applied and lines not being ceased - as well as through the streamlining of business processes such as cost centre breakdown, business charge-backs, trend analysis, saving analysis, bill checking and the like. 

Where is the benefit of using IntelligentComms?  We do this internally already!

We understand that a lot of organisations do carry out this type of work internally, but in many cases this is because there has never been a viable telecoms expense management from an external company with our level of expertise and industry knowledge.

From experience, we’ve found that organisations which do this internally save around 5% to 15% at best on average – whereas typical savings on our corporate client projects range from 10% to 40%.  Our service also takes up practically none of your time, allowing you to use your internal resources more effectively whilst we manage the project.

Why would we need your services if we already manage and monitor all costs internally?

As we have explained above, this work can take up an enormous amount of internal resource. By outsourcing the task you are able not only to realign these internal resources to work on more essential projects, but also to yield faster and more accurate results.

How is your offering different from the regular analysis our providers give us already? 

Our Management service is totally independent, and this is something which individual network providers can never be. The IntelligentComms service also allows you to analyse your entire estate in one place.  It allows you to compare multiple providers against each other, both fixed line and mobile – and more than one of each! This enables you to consolidate service bills from multiple providers into a single management report.

Why would we need a Management service when we benchmark our services every year via procurement? 

A benchmark can never be accurate without a complete and accurate telecoms asset register and associated usage profile.  A core part of the value we bring to our clients is creating and maintaining an asset register and usage profile.  Procurement departments do not have access to this level of detail, so by default their benchmark approach will always be made on a best efforts basis and is unlikely to be 100% accurate.

Tem is our core competence and benchmarking is just one component of our service.  We provide benchmarks on a scheduled basis, as agreed with our clients, or on a proactive basis, eg based on shifts taking place in the market.  We have the most up-to-date and accurate knowledge of current market conditions and are in an ideal position to provide the most accurate benchmark data available.  However, our Management service is not just a one-off benchmarking service.  It provides continuous, ongoing telecoms estate management allowing you to ensure that you only pay for services you have correctly received.  It can be used to enhance your existing internal procurement processes. IntelligentComms can help to generate time savings within your procurement team, and can also enable a more precise analysis of all annual procurement and benchmarking activities.

What more can you do if we’ve recently moved providers to get more competitive rates?

If you have just moved providers then this is one of the best possible times to commence an ongoing telecoms expense management service. IntelligentComms can help you to make sure that the new tariffs have been applied correctly and on time, as well as allowing you to request rebates for those which have not been. You can also find out whether services have been transferred correctly and make sure that all billing has been properly centralised. 

Our Management service will also allow you to measure costs against your previous contracted rates, so you can prove that savings, broken down by department if required, are being achieved throughout the business.

Is this a good time to talk to you if we are about to merge with another business?

If a merger is taking place then this is the ideal time to get a complete picture of your entire telecoms situation - so you can be sure that location-based services are changed, ceased or moved as required. It’s also a good time to carry out a Benchmarking exercise, based on your new business profile, as you may be able to benefit from economies of scale which were not possible before. 

Visibility of costs is always high on the agenda within any merger or acquisition process, so make sure that you save internal resource time, reduce cost and ensure higher levels of accuracy by implementing a telecoms management service as soon as possible.

What can you do that our existing outsourced consultancy firm can’t?

As a rule, we’ve found that most outsourced consultancy firms will roll telecoms up into a range of other ICT or non-related business areas.  They then claim to achieve a total saving across all of these business areas, usually around the 10% mark.  But this could easily not involve any reduction in your telecoms expenditure at all.

But we can drill down specifically into your telecommunications spend which creates much better value and more savings for your business.  It’s also worth bearing in mind that some outsourcing firms have commission agreements with selected network providers and could be taking a cut from any deals they negotiate, which of course means that they cannot possibly give you the truly impartial advice which we are able to.

What’s the point of talking to you?  We know that we’re already on the best deal!

Our Management service has been in development for more than eight years and we have access to accurate details on all the market-leading providers, their rules, their tariffs, their billing platforms and so on.  More than a quarter of the organisations we talk to genuinely think that they have the best deal from their incumbent supplier, but it’s simply not possible to determine that, just by using the tools and market knowledge which they have access to.

Our consultants have many years of experience, which makes them very familiar with each providers’ breaking and negotiation points -  and so enables them to negotiate exceptional contractual terms for our clients.  We know what level of spend an organisation should be achieving as at any one time we will be running multiple projects within the corporate marketplace.  So even if you are on the best contract which you have been able to negotiate directly, there could still be other options which we can we can advise on, that could reduce your spend even further.

Is there anything you can do to help if we recently signed a new contract with a provider?

Of course!  We can check to see whether the new contract is correct, and to see whether the new tariffs have been applied correctly in line with your contract.  We’ll also be able to tell you whether you are receiving the cost savings which you were promised.  It’s much better to use an independent specialist to make sure that your figures are accurate, rather than just taking your network provider’s word for it!

Is it too late to talk to you if we’re just about to sign a new contract?

Not at all.  Even if you have just carried out some analysis internally and have completed a procurement exercise, it’s still hard to run an accurate ‘what if’ analysis.  Especially as you may have had to work with estimated spend levels from the shortlisted providers.

IntelligentComms in an independent advisor and we can check what is most suitable for you, based on both service and cost.  Our Veropath system understands tariffs from all providers, as well as their rounding and billing rules, allowing us to compare the projected spend levels and the accuracy of each contract on an equal basis.  We can also include direct market bids to ensure that we achieve a true benchmark.

Can you still save us money if we don’t want to move providers?

Absolutely.  In fact, more than half our clients do not change provider, but still achieve significant savings by staying exactly where they are!  When contracts are renegotiated there is usually around a 10% reduction, but when the market is shifting more than this, it’s often the case that further savings could have been achieved.

By comparing existing offerings from your providers with projected offerings, we can also analyse these against the marketplace, enabling us to identify further savings throughout the existing contract.  On top of that, our service is a great way of ensuring that your future and historic spend with any given provider is at it should be, and meets your current business requirements.

How would we have time to take this on as well, when we have many other projects on the go?

The beauty of our services is that they take up hardly any of your own internal resources.  We are self-sufficient and can work to help you achieve savings independently, leaving you to focus on other critical ICT responsibilities.

We hope that these FAQs will help you to see how we could assist your organisation by reducing cost and adding value. If you have any questions or queries which are not covered here, we’d be very happy to talk these through with you and to give you any further information which may assist you in understanding more about telecoms expense management.