Introduction
The demands of enterprise telecoms continue to evolve.
Where once managing telecom expenses remained in the realm of fixed and wireless telephony and data, today’s telecom environments are more diverse than ever. And this trend will likely continue, with one in three businesses increasing their telecom spending by 5% in the next five years.
5% increase in telecom spending in the next five years
Business Wire
This is indicative of an exciting time for technology innovation, but with change comes complexity, and it can be easy to overlook growing costs.
You need detailed, in-depth, on-demand, and easy-to-consume telecom expense reporting to stay on track with your payable processes.
Today’s Enterprise Telecom Expense Management Landscape
We’ve never been more reliant on telecoms and unified communications to stay connected. Workforces have changed their methods of working in response to the global pandemic. Remote and hybrid working models have become the norm and will persist for years to come.
In response, enterprises have experienced a significant uplift in the adoption of new software, subscriptions, and licenses that support greater flexibility.
Unified Communications as Service (UCaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions, mobile devices, and the Internet of Things (IoT) have enabled more agile work environments. Employees use these solutions to work from anywhere, how they want, and when they want. And even as some organizations return to the office, these structures will remain in place.
These newer, payable processes only add another expense management headache to the list for your internal teams. Especially as 80% of workers admit to using technology at work without explicit approval from IT departments.
80% of workers use technology without IT teams’ permission
Skyhigh Security
Thought leaders agree that enterprises must pay attention to these payable processes in the future. If you don’t, you’ll lose visibility of the IT and services that are being used in your organization – with costly consequences.
To begin, your enterprise must have comprehensive telecom expense management (TEM) capabilities in place.
What is Telecom Expense Reporting?
Telecom expense reporting is a vital component of effective telecom expense management. It is the process of consolidating your telecom billing information from multiple sources into a single repository and compiling the data into relevant reports.
By doing this, your enterprise will reduce complexity and obtain a centralized view of data. And the reporting functionality improves relevancy. This underpins your understanding of exactly how and where you’re spending your telecoms budget.
The most significant benefit of telecom expense reporting is the standardization of data. No matter what format, geographic location, service, or vendor your expense data is sourced from – it’s combined and streamlined into a single portal. That includes fixed, wireless, mobile, SaaS, UCaaS, or IoT data.
This portal lets you access the reports you need in the format you want. It provides a consistent experience regardless of a user’s job function or location. And you have the flexibility to view or schedule reporting, all in one place.
The Types of Telecom Expense Reporting
Portal Reporting
Portal reporting, such as through a cloud-based platform, collates key expenses into one interface. This is intuitive to use and is designed to allow quick access to relevant information.
Portal-based reporting enables greater relevancy, focused reporting, and makes it easier to understand data. Most importantly, you can configure it to job roles. If you need to assign role-based permission for certain reports, such as for sensitive data, it’s all managed through the portal.
Key Benefits:
Role-based Access Controls
Assign reporting ownership by end-user and implement permission-based access to reports
Push Reporting
Automate reporting to see real-time, accurate data when you need to i.e., once a month
Relevancy
Cloud-based portal makes it easy to access the data you need, exactly when you need it
Learn more about ExpenseSmart® from Cass, the cloud-based portal that includes everything to maintain your telecom expenses.
API Reporting
API reporting, or data warehousing, captures detailed analytics data sets, making them highly available to end users. These on-demand data sets can be integrated with your own choice of analytics tool and integrated with your portal-based reporting.
With this functionality, end-users can carry out advanced calculations and create highly customized analytics and visualizations. Pre-defined data sets mean no configuration or development is required to import the data. This enables fast and secure access to data, regardless of its source.
Some enterprises might struggle to manage this reporting in-house. A telecom expense management company can help you set up, maintain, and monitor reporting processes – and manage them for you.
Key Benefits:
Custom Reporting
End-users can create custom reports
Detailed Data Set
You can choose your data sources and consolidate them in a report
Fast Access
It’s straightforward to access the data you need
SLA, XLA, or KPI Reporting
You can use reporting to understand whether you’re achieving your expense management goals. This holds your telecom expense management provider, or internal team, accountable for achieving key performance indicators (KPIs), service level agreements (SLAs), or experience level agreements (XLAs).
Minimizing costs and finding savings is beneficial, but is your enterprise keeping track of the changes you’re making? And who is being held responsible for these changes?
In a competitive telecom expense management market, you need to make sure you’re getting valuable results. Reporting provides visibility of savings performance. And if you choose to work with a TEM provider, it increases transparency for their performance.
Key Benefits:
Accountability
Your TEM provider or internal team must hit SLA, XLA, and KPI goals
Value
You can choose your data sources and consolidate them in a report
Visibility
Your enterprise stays on track of expense management decisions
Telecom Expense Reporting Software or Service?
To implement telecom expense reporting for your enterprise, you can either find a software solution or seek the help of an experienced telecom expense management company. But which should you choose?
Reporting is only as effective as the people and data behind it. Effective reporting will use a combination of automation, business intelligence tools, and real-life experts who can help you extract the most value from your data.
It’s not advisable to rely on software alone to minimize costs. It can be expensive to implement and maintain, time-consuming to manage, and limited in its available functionality. You also require internal knowledge and resources to manage it effectively. This could require additional training or changes to your team that are costly long-term.
When you choose a telecom expense management company that provides a fully managed service, not just software, you benefit from expert personnel with years of experience. They can offer 24/7 dedicated support, alongside a comprehensive software solution, to give your enterprise the best of both worlds.
A telecom expense management partner can provide:
- Years of experience managing telecom expense reporting
- Global capabilities
- In-depth, line-by-line auditing and reporting
- A centralized, cloud-based portal for reporting
Find out why Cass is #1 in customer satisfaction for telecom expense management. Discover more.
Case Study: The Transformative Effect of Telecom Expense Reporting
The Problem
A leading manufacturing conglomerate struggled to manage telecom finances on a global scale. Poor quality reporting and end-user services led to a lack of visibility of their telecom inventory and spend. This also led to significant late fees.
The organization also used two separate systems for their telecom expense management environment, across fixed-line and mobile services. This further reduced the quality of reporting processes.
The Solution
Cass implemented new financial management, reporting, and inventory management processes in just 53 days.
Our team of experts audited their environment line-by-line and set up reporting functionality to improve visibility. Cass was able to recommend $10.3 million in savings, with $5.1 million in savings accepted by the business.
Read our case study for a manufacturing client and discover how they reduced costs with telecom expense reporting. Or talk to us today.
