Welcome to our final part in the blog series “The Broken Promise of Telecom Expense Management:  As discussed, many find that old platforms do not work as promised, management shakeups at providers create uncertainty and financial challenges hold some TEM companies back.  This chaos demands a re-evaluation of the initially transactional goals of TEM. This 3-part blog series has served to enlighten enterprise leaders to understand the challenges of TEM, prepare their organizations for TEM transformation and describe the steps to unlock TEM potential. You may be asking “so what do I do about it?” We wouldn’t point out a problem without the solution!  Read on to learn how to transform your organizations TEM.

Prepare Your Organization for Transformation

It’s time to rethink your TEM function. Enterprises should take advantage of managed services beyond telecom to include network, mobile, unified communications, data center, IaaS and other usage-based IT services. Leaders must move beyond mere “expense management” and consider a full suite of services that include procurement and sourcing management, invoice management, order and inventory management, audit and dispute management, carrier and contract management, business intelligence and overall strategic value, also known as Technology Lifecycle Service Management. Only by embracing the concept of Technology Lifecycle Service Management will enterprises be taking the first step in preparing for transformation. If that is the first step, then here’s what they must do next.

Evaluate Goals and Objectives

Enterprises must re-evaluate their goals and objectives for Technology Lifecycle Service Management and expand them to address cost, performance, utilization and analytics for overall service management. They must move beyond low-bar expectations such as “pay bills on time” or “keep the network up” and instead set goals that advance their technology capabilities.

Get Buy-In from the Top

In enterprises that don’t have a strong Technology Lifecycle Service Management program in place, TEM reports and results become less relevant to executive leadership and end up getting lost or ignored as they move up the corporate hierarchy. TEM becomes an excessively tactical exercise with little strategic relevance. It is critical to obtain buy-in from executive leadership to ensure that strategic cost savings continue to be real, achievable and re-invested in the most productive ways possible.

Identify Ownership

This one is simple: TEM is a tech issue, especially if an organization is going to embrace Technology Lifecycle Service Management. As such, it should be owned primarily by IT and overseen by the CIO. Only then can the insights and outcomes of TEM be leveraged to better support the company’s technology infrastructure.

Rethink Your Model

Map out a fundamentally different model — platform plus people, processes and expertise. You must build a methodology around Technology Lifecycle Service Management and that will require investments. The enterprise must see the big picture in order to develop a transformational Technology Lifecycle Service Management program.

Commit Yourself to Transparency

Change can be painful, and transparency among IT and finance doesn’t always come easy. TEM can improve that situation by examining what is and what is not working.  Whether you’re working with a partner or on your own, management must share access to people, systems and information as they try to get clarity on the big picture.

Unlock the Potential

Once you have prepared for change, it’s time to assess your current TEM environment: platform, people, processes and information. You’ll need to:

  • Discover your current and potential state of TEM by reviewing bills and analyzing your entire telecom environment for redundancies and deficiencies.
  • Assess your architecture, technology, people and processes. This includes sourcing, ordering and provisioning, inventory, invoices, contracts, usage, and dispute and reporting processes, as well as the people who are responsible for these processes.
  • Plan a strategy for change, establishing the total cost of any changes that must be made in architecture, processes and policy.
  • Solve, Implement and Manage solutions to generate the reports you need to take advantage of the transparency and value Technology Lifecycle Service Management can provide.

Results

By dedicating your enterprise to unlocking the full power of TEM through Technology Lifecycle Service Management, you can leverage the solution you have while improving internal visibility, processes and results. By actively managing your enterprise’s telecom, network, mobile, unified communications, data center, IaaS and other usage-based IT services, you could reduce annual costs by 20% or more.