Taking Charge of Telecom Charges:
How a Large Utility Saved 23% of Its Telecom Expenses

A large Utility Corporation provides power to customers in 10 states. It has a complex state-of-the-art telecom infrastructure for complete monitoring of utilities and internal communications throughout its service area with extensive use of cutting-edge technology. The Company has a history of outstanding, reliable customer service, and requires perfectly operating telecommunications between all offices at all times to maintain its record of customer satisfaction.

Challenge

The Utility needed an independent telecommunications management provider that could manage its complete communications order/procurement management, inventory management, and invoice processing with cost allocation and auditing among multiple states.

The management goal was to streamline the operations and reduce the costs of telecommunication services. Management also wanted to find a company that could provide a reliable platform for centralized order management of all types of telecommunication services including Mobile, Pagers, Calling Cards, Conferencing, Voice lines, Data circuits, etc., while maintaining Sarbanes-Oxley spend allocation compliance.

Results

Substantial Cost Reductions with No Network Downtime - Amtel's award-winning TIMS platform, along with our professional services, helped the Company realize substantial reduction in telecom expenses. Problem areas were identified and cost reduction procedures were implemented, with impressive results. Communication between office networks remained unaffected, while TIMS implementation was performed.

Telecom Infrastructure Optimization - The professionals at Amtel conducted a detailed analysis of the Company's entire telecom services infrastructure.

Procurement and Invoice Management Lead to Greater Productivity - Automated, centralized procurement management with hierarchical approvals, and invoice processing using TIMS, freed up the Company's staff to work in areas of greater productivity.

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance - The Company is also able to comply with the spend allocation requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley.

Billing Credits Recovered through Trunk Studies - Amtel performed in-depth trunk studies to determine which circuits were no longer in use, but were still being charged to the Company, and worked with carriers to recover billing credits.

Mobile Costs Reduced and Managed - Mobile Order Management with corporate policy implementation using TIMS helped in controlling costs of mobile services.

Contract Management and Compliance Deliver Savings - Amtel's professionals renegotiated contracts that were nearing expiration to get the best ROI. Amtel also discovered that the Company was paying five (5) times the negotiated rate for their toll-free service due to negligence during the carrier's order entry process. Amtel was able to recover the costs from the carrier.

Amtel's telecommunications management system continues to generate significant long-term savings for this Utility Company.