The Fragmentation of Telecom Expense Management
One of the biggest challenges of covering the Telecom Expense Management space is that there is such a high level of fragmentation and vagueness of categorization in the marketplace. In looking at a "Telecom Lifecycle Management" solution, the typical end user has no clue whether this refers to ordering a phone number, handling a cell phone, handling the procurement of a switch, or even handling access points for a wireless network that handles voice calls.Vendors try to differentiate by simply adding more and more services, but often just add confusion. So that I'm clear in the future in writing this blog, I'm going to suggest a few definitions that I'm going to use to maintain internal consistency.Telecom Cost Management - The management of the direct costs of telecom. This would be done by auditing the inventory, managing invoices, and disputing incorrect costs.Telecom Expense Management - The management of both wired and wireless telecom expenses that an enterprise faces. This includes all the items in Telecom Cost Management and would include tools to assist in vendor selection, contract negotiations, asset procurement, service orders, dispute resolution, business intelligence dashboards for expense visibility, and expense allocation.Wireless Expense Management - The management of wireless telecom expenses that an enterprise faces. This is similar to Telecom Expense Management, but applies only to the administration of wireless telecom expenses.Mobile Device Management - The administration of mobile devices, including the ability to provide Over The Air (OTA) policy updates, software updates, firmware updates, data updates, and remote kills.Call Accounting - A complete list of calls made by the enterprise showing the time, date, extension, and cost of each call. This can be done directly from the PBX on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. All of these solutions work with various aspects of the telecom spend lifecycle and all of them are needed to maximize savings in the total cost of ownership for telecommunications. I believe that there will both be significant growth and consolidation in these fields as enterprise finance and IT departments both discover which of these capabilities they hold internally and which are "black boxes" that need visibility.
