What is TEM -Telecom Expense Management?

Inefficiency, Unnecessary Costs, No Accountability

Telecommunications are now so integral to the enterprise business that it can be hard to tell where the technology ends and the business begins. When technology platforms are this fundamental, their management must become part of the business model.

In a large enterprise, telecommunications resources can be a major part of the technology budget, with costs breaking down into hundreds of line items. Without a structured system that includes asset and expense management, the possibility of inefficiency and unnecessary costs–with no accountability– is high.

The Telecom Expense Management Solution

Telecom Expense Management (TEM), which is both a methodology and a software platform, allows organizations to manage expenses tied to the critical strategic assets of their telecom network. The technology and services involved include:

• Mobile Services
• Pagers
• Voice Lines
• Data Circuits
• MPLS
• T1/PRIs
• Calling Cards
• Conferencing (Audio, Video and Web)
• Internet Broadband
• VoIP

Increasingly, TEM is offered as Software as a Service (SaaS), where vendors are able to target net savings for clients. To do this, TEM supports practices such as:

• Invoice processing, payment, and auditing
• Procurement (provisioning and escalation)
• Inventory validation and asset management
• Mobile usage policy (implementation and management)
• Integration of mobile and landline systems
• Management of multi-currency, multi-vendor system
• Contract management and compliance
• Reporting with business intelligence and role-based flow

Telecom expense management encompasses the technology, processes, policy, and people required to manage and use a business telecommunications system.

Telecom Expense Management Goals and Deliverables

The goals of TEM are to streamline management, validate assets, and provide data on costs and billing. The results are efficiency, accountability, and cost savings.

What goals can your organization expect to target when using a TEM system? Consider:

• Cost Reductions: Indentify and eliminate unnecessary lines and devices with inventory validation. Maintain data on contracts and re-negotiate to get the best ROI. Quickly categorize and process expenses to the correct department and individuals.
• Manage Mobile Services: Get a foundation to manage disparate mobile devices and expenses. Aggregate billing and usage data to eliminate redundant systems and costs.
• Compliance: Ensure systems comply with IRS requirements and acts like Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPPA.
• Efficient Management: Automate usage, audits, billing processes and data management so key personnel can focus on core business functions. Accurate provisioning, asset discovery, automatic bill payment, measurement of SLAs, technology conversions and more are facilitated by TEM.

Telecom Management and Strategy

Telecom expense management handles the details, but it also helps with the big picture of a company’s telecommunications strategy. You can identify weaknesses and optimize your infrastructure with the data provided. It also highlights the true costs of operating your network and facilitates a detailed discussion of ROI.

With telecom expense management, you will centralize your data into a single solution to organize reporting, analysis, and overall business intelligence.

If your business is coping with the frantic pace of change in telecom technology—and the impossibility of manually keeping everything integrated and accurate—one of the first things you’ll notice with TEM is the ROI on the solution itself.