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.
Apologies for the extended absence
I've been busy with the day job in creating weekly research on the Telecom Expense Management industry, as well as a couple of extra reports on the side. To see what I write for my day job, go to the AberdeenGroup website and take a look.
On the plane to Vegas…
I was on a US Airways flight and saw a great ad for GotVmail.com. One of the things that I liked about the product is that it also included call accounting in its list of features while aggregating a bunch of services that would normally be a pain to acquire on an individual basis. Any business phone service that can provide Virtual PBX with extensions, voicemail and fax distribution, and itemized call detail is definitely providing some useful options for individual telecom expense management. If only there were companies that could provide all this on a corporate level... Sure, we have unified communications, call accounting, telecom expense management, and all sorts of other technical solutions for sorting our communications, but it's still not all available as one consolidated bundle. Yet.
So, how do you install a Telecom Expense Management solution?
I've been involved in telecom expense solutions as a vendor and as an end user and every single time, I've run into the same mindset. Every time I've seen a company do this so far, they start by looking at vendor solutions and getting some analyst's opinion of how much money could be saved. And I can assure you that neither of these is the right way to go.
