Contributed by Denise Chapman, Veramark Director of Marketing
Wireless expense management is the proactive management of an organization’s wireless services, optimizing plans and policies to meet business requirements at the lowest possible cost.
Challenges to Wireless Expense Management
There are many challenges faced by those responsible for wireless expense management:
- Do we need all of these devices, services, and features? What are the business drivers?
- What is our corporate wireless policy?
- Should we purchase devices and plans, allow employees to purchase and then reimburse them, or provide an allowance?
- How do we gain visibility into the wireless expenses hitting our budgets?
- How do we integrate our wireless and wire line services?
- Are there wireless solutions than can replace our wire line services?
- How should we address our end-user questions and concerns, such as “Why can’t I get a new device?” or “I don’t get good coverage with our preferred vendor.”
- What can we do to bring down international costs?
Key Management Components
Getting a firm grip on wireless expenses involves more than just implementing software. There are organizational and cultural changes to manage. In-depth process assessments may be required. To solve the wireless expense management puzzle, enterprises must address 4 key components:
- Establish corporate policy
- Manage suppliers
- Manage invoices
- Optimize services
Rating Your Organization
To be “best-in-class” in overall wireless expense management, you need to manage and integrate all 4 of these components. How are you doing? Start by evaluating your organization's capabilities. For the wireless policy component, we evaluate our clients' progress by ranking them on a 1 to 5 scale for 9 different "best-in-class" attributes. Rate your organization and see how you're doing:
| Best-in-Class Attribute | Score |
| Has established a Corporate Wireless Policy. Policy document distributed to all impacted employees and posted on intranet site for reference. | |
| Policies defined for eligibility for voice and data services. Clearly defines process for requesting services, including the approval process. | |
| Defines appropriate business usage and inappropriate usage, such as excessive downloads, texting, use of third-party applications, etc. | |
| Defines approved vendors and rational for preferred vendors. Includes requirements and process for requesting service from the non-preferred service provider. | |
| Defines the approved voice and data plans, including direction for international users. Includes requirements and process for requirements of non-approved voice plans. Enabling overall management of usage. | |
| Associates approved plans & equipment by user group if appropriate (sales, merchandising, management, executive, etc.) | |
| Defines approved equipment, and process for requesting non-approved devices. | |
| Policy document is updated routinely to incorporate new services and business applications. | |
| Policy document is linked to the usage of centralized ordering forms and or web portals. |
Wireless technology is one of the fastest growing sectors of the communications industry, and has become an indispensible part of the telecom network for most organizations. Its cost, complexity, and rapid growth make wireless management both difficult and imperative.
Veramark Technologies is a leading provider of Telecom Expense Management and Call Accounting Solutions.
