Which Mobile Management Model is Best for My Organization ?
As mobile services become an integral part of productivity enhancement, organizations are increasingly embracing them for their employees. And as the number of devices increases, so does their cost and the complexity. These organizations, grappling with the issue of the structure most suited to manage their mobile services network, have different models to consider:
I. Individual Liable Model
Definition
Individuals buy their own services, decide which features to put on their phones, and when to use the phones. The company adds a fixed amount to the employee’s pay check as a reimbursement towards mobile spend.
Benefits
- Low accounting and IT overhead
- Users manage their own devices
- Low hardware replacement costs
Drawbacks
- Hard to enforce compliance for individually owned devices in terms of security & corporate usage
- Not being able to use corporate purchasing power for plans and devices
- No pooling optimization of calling plans, leading to higher costs
- Since employees own the phone, if they leave the organization, they can possibly take away all the clients
- Organization cannot enforce usage policies
- Employees might not use phone for corporate purposes, saving minutes for personal use, thus defeating the aim of providing the mobile phone
- Legitimate users with higher mobile bills would still need to submit their invoices as travel and entertainment expense reports. (Cost of processing an expense report as per industry average is $42.)
II. Corporate Liable Centralized Model
The organization provides the device and the calling plans. The devices and calling plans have a corporate discount. All the phones and the numbers are owned by the organization. The consolidated billing is managed centrally.
Benefits:
- Corporate discounts for plans & devices.
- Mitigates risks: Wireless devices and their records belong to the company.
- Asset Management: Enterprises can track wireless units as centralized procurement devices for bill payment.
- Organization can enforce security & usage policies.
Drawbacks
- Device replacement cost is very high with newer Smartphones
- Employees resist the corporate mandated device
- Misuse mobile usage for personal purposes
III. Mixed Model: Corporate Liable with BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)
Definition
In the mixed model, Corporate Liable with BYOD: The organization provides the device and the calling plans for select mission critical employees, rest employees are allowed to bring their devices for corporate usage. Company may or may not reimburse the BYOD users for their spend but manages security for those devices since they have corporate data on them. The corporate devices and calling plans have a corporate discount and the organization owns those phones. Billing is consolidated for corporate devices and managed centrally, and the company is able to take a full deduction of mobile expenses for tax purposes.
Benefits
- Flexibility to deploy Corporate devices & Individual owned devices
- Corporate discounts for corporate plans and devices
- Pooling optimization of calling plans leading to lower cost
- Mitigates risks, since security is controlled on all mobile devices
- Centralized tracking and management of corporate mobile devices procurement and bill paying, Optional stipend payments for BYOD users
- Organization can enforce security and usage policies
Advances in technology have produced solutions that substantially reduce the cost of managing mobile services, generate procedural efficiencies, and deliver an overall positive ROI.
- Mobile Security Management The integrated mobile security management system enables security on the mobile device to protect corporate data. It allows to implement password policies, certificates, vpn, antiviris launch, email server settings, remote lock, remote wipe etc. It can detect & quarantine compromised devices in the network, locate lost devices and send real time alerts to network administrator for international roaming.
- Order/Procurement Management The system tracks company-wide changes in the mobile environment. It facilitates new activations with the most suitable rate plans. It provides a procurement process with hierarchical approvals. It centralizes disconnects due to departing employees. It handles equipment returns and reports port overs from one carrier to another. Companies get complete visibility and control from order placement through installation to validation.
- Invoice Processing, Auditing, & Cost Allocations The platform process and valildate invoices, fully automating invoice management and charge backs across groups and/or locations for corporate liable devices. The solution audits invoices against contracts and inventory. Companies can then set allocation rules for cost centers based on a variety of factors including percentage share, revenue, or spend.
- Contract Management The system provides tools for managing and ensuring compliance with multiple carrier contracts. It tracks monthly spend to correlate commitment levels. The organization also automatically gets renewal notification for the contracts near the end of their term.
- Optimization The software programs allow for the optimization of a pool of minutes to best manage the cost of the services, allowing organizations to build scenarios and compare costs.
- Policy & Reporting The solution provides an extensive array of reports that can be configured to the needs of the individual enterprise. For example, the CFO/CIO would need the overall financial details, whereas the location manager may want to see just his department’s spend. All these reports lead to enhanced operational efficiencies. Reporting can be done for chargeback accounting, location breakup charges, employee cellular equipment types, plan types, pooling optimization services and more.
Organizations can streamline their mobile services environment and reduce operational expenses when they chose the right mobile management model suiting to their needs.
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Pankaj Gupta (PJ) is the founder of Amtel (www.amtelnet.com) which specializes in cost management of mobile resources and improving productivity at enterprise-level organizations.
