If your personal mobile or landline provider routinely added 10%-40% to your monthly bill we don’t think it would be long before you asked for a rebate. Surprisingly, very few businesses have acted to make telecoms cost savings, despite the fact that for many, telecoms comes second or third to staff costs in terms of total spend.

Telecoms Expense Management is a term used to define a process to check and verify voice, data and mobile comms bills; create an asset register to ensure that all circuits and services are being utilised; and to provide a price control mechanism to aid procurement.

Telecom costs typically equate to 3.6% of a typical company’s entire P&L spend which would explain why "telecommunications expenditure remains near the top of every CIO’s expense list" (Gartner) and why "Telecommunications cost management has become one of the hottest sectors in today’s business process automation marketplace." (Aberdeen Group)

More than 50% of large enterprises don’t know what they are spending on telecom related services across the company. "In fact, this area is so wrought with inefficiency that most people don’t know how much they spend on telecom services, never mind how they can best manage those budgets." (Aberdeen Group)

Whilst it is a proven fact that network providers do overcharge because they make errors in their billing, it is critical that an organisation has a way to first check their telecoms inventory in terms of what they currently possess and then more strategically, in terms of what the business requires as time goes by first so they have a basis upon which to negotiate reliably. This is where a Telecoms Expense Management service provider using Software as a Service (SaaS) can help. This allows remote access to powerful data warehousing plus number-crunching tools capable of retrieving data from all your service providers; and then comparing millions of lines of billing data against your contracted tariff in a matter of seconds. Numerous reports are then made available to determine actual usage and cost. This activity alone can identify 10% overbilling and frequently much greater, irrespective of the supplier and all without involvement from internal resource allowing your internal telecoms, purchasing and accounting staff to spend time on other projects.

Telecoms Expense Management is therefore a vitally important service that will maintain an asset register in addition to providing bill management. Furthermore it offers a tremendous advantage in telecoms procurement by ensuring services are purchased at the best market rates.

It is also good to realise that unlike most telecoms systems Telecoms Expense Management does not require a capital investment. These systems are typically charged for out of the cost reductions realised and therefore offer a no risk opportunity to gain control over your organisation's telecoms expense.