Enterprises across Europe are feeling the pinch. Faced with rising energy prices and inflation, leadership teams are exploring every opportunity to optimize operating costs and eliminate unnecessary expenses. The question is, where do you begin?
Global enterprises rely on vast telecommunications networks of fixed-line, mobile, and IT services that span countless countries, vendors, and locations. Because of this complexity, most enterprises overspend by 30% or more on their telecom services. And this makes it a prime target for cost optimization.
Here are 5 ways to reduce telecom expenses in your enterprise.
Reduce Your Telecom Expenses with These 5 Tips
1. Cost-Benefit Analysis
Before making any changes to your telecom estate, it’s important to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages. And to do that, you need to perform a cost-benefit analysis of your services.
A cost-benefit analysis will show you whether a specific change will add value. Will it:
- Reduce telecom expenses?
- Deliver a positive return on investment (ROI)?
- Meet defined service level agreements (SLAs)?
If the answer to any one of these questions is ‘yes’, then it’s worth making the change. If not, you need to look elsewhere for cost-saving opportunities. Remember, even the smallest change to a physical asset or service contract can have a huge impact on your telecom estate.
2. Identify and Eliminate Unnecessary Costs
Whether it’s repeated overcharges or paying for services you no longer use, there are plenty of opportunities to reduce expenses in your telecoms estate. The trick is finding them, and the best way to do that is with a telecom expense audit.
A telecom expense audit gives you full visibility of your estate. It involves checking every line of every invoice to identify and eliminate:
- Incorrect charges
- Misallocated costs
- Obsolete or unnecessary inventory and services
The individual charges might only make up a fraction of your overall bill. But combined, they can represent a significant reduction in your telecom expenses. In telecom expense management, the marginal gains are often where the biggest savings lie.
3. Consolidate Your Bills
When you have a constant flow of invoices coming in from multiple service providers, it can be difficult to see what you’re paying for. Take the complexity out of the equation by consolidating your bills.
For example, if you use multiple services from a single vendor, you can significantly reduce your telecom expenses by combining them into a single monthly invoice. Not only does that give you greater visibility into your overall costs, but it also reduces the amount of time teams spend processing invoices.
4. Optimize Device Spend
Equipping your employees with the latest hardware can set you back millions in capital outlay. 89% of European businesses offer or plan to offer hybrid working, so enterprises are looking for alternative ways to keep their employees connected.
For many, the solution is device-as-a-service (DaaS).
Rather than paying high costs for devices as you purchase them, you can spread out the costs and add them to your monthly managed service fees. This allows you to get the latest tech into the hands of your employees and spread the costs in a more manageable way.
5. Understand Baseline Costs
Enterprise telecom goes beyond fixed-line infrastructure and mobile assets. VoIP/SIP services, SD-WAN, and IoT connectivity add another layer of complexity. This is more apparent today, as hybrid working increases reliance on bring-your-own-device (BYOD) programs.
To keep expenses under control, you need complete visibility of your baseline IT costs. You also need to identify any shadow IT expenses.
Once you have a clear view of your baseline IT costs, you can determine which areas of your estate contribute most to your expenses. You can then look at business priorities and dependencies to determine where you can achieve the biggest savings, without harming your operations.
You Don’t Have to Go it Alone
Few enterprises have the time or expertise to continuously monitor their estates for discrepancies or renegotiate service contracts with every vendor. So, they partner with a telecom expense management (TEM) provider to take care of the heavy lifting.
Many US enterprises rely on dedicated telecom expense management providers to reduce telecom costs. And while the rest of the world has been slower to realize the benefits, it’s gaining traction in Europe.
The best providers offer fully managed, end-to-end, global support for your entire telecom estate. They work as an extension of your team to give you greater visibility and control over your estate, ensuring you only pay for what you use.
Topics: TEM, Expense Audit
