Managing Mobile And Wireless Spend

Manage your Mobile and Wireless Spend
A “How To” Guide for the Enterprise
Total Control From Procurement to PaymentTM
®

Managing your Mobile and Wireless Spend: A “How To” Guide for the Enterprise
While the use of mobile and wireless devices has quickly evolved into the
third leg of an enterprises communications environment—alongside voice
and data networks—most enterprises do not optimize or effectively manage
their mobile and wireless communications. The decentralization of mobile
device purchases, combined with the extensive use of mobile and wireless
devices in today’s workforce makes taking control over this problem more of
a challenge. Not only do enterprises need to establish corporate policy and
determine the appropriate course of action, but they also need to consolidate
information on existing users, usage patterns, plans, and devices. For years,
many companies have chosen to simply ignore the problem. However, as
the use and costs of mobile and wireless devices increase and enterprises
become more reliant on their mobile data infrastructures, now is the time to
start taking charge.
It should come as no surprise that this problem has developed: The
personal nature of the technology and low price points lend themselves
to the individual-purchase model; the low purchase price of the devices
themselves and associated plans don’t meet most company’s accounting
guidelines as an asset that they want or need to manage. As a result,
carriers continue marketing their products and services to their enterprise
market as they would to teenage consumers. This becomes evident simply
by looking at the devices and functionality offered – pictures, music, games,
text messages, and so on. Consumers inherently look for different qualities
than the enterprise. Consumers tend to want:
• The latest and greatest gadget
• A plan that reduces costs at home
• A device that entertains more and takes up less room
• A plan that meets personal communications patterns
These are clearly different objectives and considerations than those of the
organization. The good news is that there are some basic practices that go
a long way towards controlling the situation. While this market-to-consumer
model works well for the carriers—many are reporting record profits—it is not
effective in fulfilling the organization’s business needs, improving the quality
of service, or minimizing expenses.
Gaining Control: Why is it important? Why now?
The usage and expenses of mobile and wireless devices are huge and still
growing. At present, more than 20% of the workforce use cell phones. In
some industries, the penetration is much greater. In addition, developments
such as fixed-mobile convergence are on the horizon, meaning that there
will soon be devices that allow movement from wireless LAN on premise to
the wireless network outside the organization’s campus, which will solidify
the use of mobile devices as a significant, if not overwhelming, portion of an
organization’s overall communications. Furthermore, the capabilities of new
devices and data applications are driving information technology through
mobile application deployment.
Once these functions become more widespread, the dependence on mobile
and wireless devices will increase exponentially—and for good reason: The
productivity and opportunity gains will be tremendous. Mobile devices have
already penetrated the day-to-day operations of workers in many industries,
revolutionizing the way in which employees stay connected to one another,
to their clients, and to enterprise data and applications.
37% of companies
practice leverage
wide-area wireless
data networks
for field service
communications,
and another 44%
plan to do so
within 18 months.
- Aberdeen Group
© 2006 Avotus Corporation

The bottom line is that mobile devices are quickly becoming a default com-
munications mode for management and customer-facing activities. It is no
longer a peripheral piece of technology that makes things easier, but rather a
critical aspect of an organizations business model and competitive edge.
The Invisible Spend
The overwhelming majority of companies have no formal limits in place to
monitor or limit usage of wireless devices, and only 1/3 of companies set
some form of limit on mobile, which is worrisome given the following statistics:
• Wireless costs have exceeded landline costs (Gartner)
• More than 70% of mobile employees make their own buying
decisions on their mobile phones / plans (Gartner)
• Two thirds of companies pay for 100% of mobile bills
(Gartner and Aberdeen)
• One quarter of all calls made on business cell phones are
non-business related – company is paying for personal calls,
data transfers, etc. (Gartner)
As a result, companies, on average, are paying 25-55% more per minute
than they should because they are unable to control wireless costs.
The Complex Management Challenge
In order to understand the importance of effectively managing mobile
and wireless, it is first useful to examine why mobile and wireless is so
much more difficult to manage than traditional telecom and data network
environments.
While voice and data are managed by specific departments, there is no
clear “owner” of the mobile communications environment, and its various
components cut across a number of departments—namely Procurement,
Telecom, IT, and Accounting. This lack of ownership stems from the initial
emergence of cell phone use in the workplace where individuals began
using cell phones as a convenience rather than a work tool. As a result, the
business processes for mobile management were never established and are
highly decentralized, making it difficult to pin down who should manage the
problem—is it Procurement? Telecom? IT?
Another challenge that emerges is that mobile & wireless devices require
both corporate control and individualized service—in terms of managing
inventory, assessing usage patterns, and optimized sourcing strategies
(on the corporate side), and selecting device features, functionality and
types of plans (on an individual level).
For a glimpse into the complexity as it would apply to a particular
organization, consider the following:
Wireless Solves one
Problem...
Companies that have
deployed mobile field
service solutions have
realized, on average,
a 27% improvement
in worker productivity,
19% in customer
satisfaction/retention,
17% in overall profitabil-
ity, and 13% in service
revenues. (Aberdeen
Group)
...and Causes Another.
On average, companies
are paying 25-55%
more per minute than
they should because
they are unable to
control wireless costs.
• How many wireless devices are sanctioned for use in your company?
• What is your monthly expense for your mobile employees?
• Do you have a published corporate wireless policy?
• Is your average per minute usage cost at market rates?
• Which employees may be creating corporate liabilities by misusing
corporate assets?
• Are your mobile users’ usage patterns optimized?
• Are you paying for unused, broken, or lost mobile assets?

Complexity of
Managing Mobile and
Wireless:
• Enforcing purchasing
policies
• Allocating costs within
the organization
• Tracking and
recovering assets
• Validating bills
• Improving customer
service
• Reducing costs of
service
• Reducing costs of
support
• Establishing baselines
for negotiating
contracts
• Auditing and complying
with security, legal,
and regulatory
requirements related
to communications
Most companies today do not have the answers to all these questions, and
if they do, chances are they don’t have much confidence in their responses.
This creates a complex management challenge: The concern over the ex-
panding mobile environment, the growing demands and involvement from IT
to manage the communications, not only at a voice level but at a data level,
while worrying about costs, compliance issues for audit regulations, and
making sure the vendors are proving the right bills and level of service. All
these factors make it a tough environment to manage.
What’s Being Done Today
A great disparity exists between how mobile and wireless should be managed,
and how it is currently being managed. Most companies today allow individual
purchase decisions. Though sometimes driven by a small corporate discount,
these plans are still optimized by the individual—not the enterprise. These
are paid for through the organization’s T&E expense line, so that the respon-
sibility lies within the organization processing the costs, leaving no overall
corporate visibility or opportunity for optimization. In addition, there’s minimal
bill validation or usage enforcement. This alludes to the fact that there is no
real management—mobile expenses are merely a function of T&E accounting
and are not being optimized throughout the organization.
The problem with T&E reports is that there is no indication of the device’s
capabilities, software levels, or sanctioned use; no voice or data plans
identified; no view of contract length; no view of usage patterns; and it is
spread across hundreds, if not thousands, of T&E reports each month. As a
result, it is impossible to quantify and understand an organization’s mobile
requirements, aggregate buying power, enforce policy and find violations.
Factors Compelling Improvement
Some of the specific factors compelling improvement include:
• Wireless costs are increasing and becoming a much larger
percentage of telecom spend and have overtaken wire line services
• Adoption of new wireless devices and services or expiration of
current contracts provides impetus to get processes and costs
under control
• Security concerns increase as more data devices penetrate the
organization, particularly around wireless e-mail and other
corporate applications
• Anecdotal awareness that a large percentage of wireless is not
centrally managed
The Solution: A step-by-step approach
Step 1: Understand your needs
The first thing an organization should do is get a handle on inventory. Without
understanding what the organization is paying for, it is very difficult to gain
control. The best approach is to address areas one at a time. It generally
makes the most sense to start with data devices, as IT probably has the most
information about these. Next comes those areas within the organization that

have heavy use, such as customer-facing sectors, followed by the mobile
workforce, such as ﬁeld sales. Data should then be gathered on the rest of
the workforce’s mobile use. Once an organization has the needed inventory,
the data should be maintained as an independent record of asset ownership.
The next step is to get a handle on the usage of these devices by moving
billing away from T&E and onto a workﬂow that allows greater visibility and
involves corporate liability. This information should be aggregated and moved
to electronic billing as a source of usage data that can help understand
current usage to plan for current and future needs. Virtually all carriers
have the option to provide billing data electronically, and tools should be
developed to analyze usage for patterns, policy adherence, and abuse.
The third element in understanding the organization’s needs is to examine
the commitments and technologies, including the carrier’s ability to:
• Cover the needed geographic regions
• Provide the required service levels
• Offer appropriate contracts, plans and deals
• Satisfy the organization’s device/equipment needs
Step 2: Consolidate and Standardize
One of the most challenging aspects that must be decided upon is establish-
ing clear ownership for the wireless environment—including budget and
policy issues—as well as establishing and enforcing a wireless management
policy, which provides the framework for gaining control of the environment.
Another factor that can help is to reduce the number of carriers to one or two,
depending on their geographic coverage, special features, and so on.
Understanding usage patterns, the way people work, how devices are being
used, and applications that need to be accessed, are factors that help in
developing device plans and packages that are suitable to a person’s role in
the organization. As far as data-capable devices, it is important to examine
software and security levels. The newest smart phones that are web-enabled
contain the same computing power as laptops and PC’s did ten years go. As
they become a greater part of the infrastructure, the software needs to be
managed.
Step 3: Develop a Sourcing Strategy
Once there is a solid understanding of the environment and decisions about
what kind of policies to enforce, the next step is to understand the different
carrier offers. The three types of offers are:
Bucket Plans – These are the standard plans that come with a monthly fee
and a certain amount of minutes and data transfer.
Pooled Plans – Similar to a bucket plan, but a heavy mobile user can
“carry along” some lighter users within the same plan to provide services for
occasional users at little or no cost.
Flat Rate Plans – Charge a per-minute charge for service and are much
simpler to manage, but the carriers generally don’t advertise.
Once the appropriate offer is selected, the next step is to eliminate obstacles
of moving to new supply channels by examining the current commitments
of contracts, early termination fees (ETF’s), and coterminous contracts, so
that a new device doesn’t entail a new contract but rather is aligned with the
expiration of the major service agreement.
“52% of enterprises
have no formal
wireless cost
management
program and
another 21% have
a program that is
less then 1 year old.”
--Aberdeen Group

Benefits of Flat-rate
Plans
• Pay as you go
• Simple low-cost fixed
rate per minute per
carrier
• Uniform rates
• Client selections are
simple
• No plans to manage,
no buckets, no pools
• Simplified chargeback
• Improved service
SLA’s, coverage
and KPIs
Carrier Advantage: The Breakage Game
Before choosing a plan, it helps to consider the business from the carrier
side. Plans are designed to make money when a user is on plan; they are
designed to make even more money when a user goes over or under use.
Bucket plans create the most opportunity for overage and underage, and
for that reason, should be avoided in most cases. While pooled plans help
mitigate underage losses, overage is still a problem. Thus, the ideal option
is generally the flat rate plan, where it is possible to improve and negotiate
service SLA’s, coverage, and other key performance indicators (KPI) against
which to measure the carriers. All carriers have flat rate plans, but they
generally don’t advertise them, so it is important to ask. However, this is not
always an option for organizations with low volume or few users.
Of course there are always exceptions. For example, if usage patterns
indicate that certain employees only use their mobile device during
non-business hours, a bucket plan with free nights and weekends might
be more cost-effective. Again, having a good understanding of usage
patterns and needs helps guide such decisions.
Step 4: Conduct and Conclude wireless contract negotiations faster
The average wireless communication negotiation takes anywhere from
two to six months, but it is recommended to move negotiation time closer
to two. Online RFP’s and reverse auction tools are the best way to go about
this, as they:
• Make the process faster and more efficient
• Level the playing field
• Spur competition between carriers

It is also important to remember that the carriers are providing a service
and should therefore help fulfill the needs of your organization. Thus, when
preparing an RFP, the organization should ask the carriers for what they
want—not what the carriers offer. If the carriers feel the business is theirs to
win or lose, they will improve service level offerings and lower their prices.
Step 5: Management and Optimization
Once the negotiations conclude, the outcome must be made a reality. The
implementation of any contractual arrangement must be managed from
start to finish: The orders must be placed to move people to new plans, new
devices must be delivered and ensured that the capabilities are functioning
properly, and billing must be verified to match what was negotiated.
Tools must be deployed to enforce policy and manage contracts; many
companies are looking into self-service portals so that individual employees
do not have to rely on others to submit their orders. Invoice management is
another important factor for receiving, verifying, and processing invoices
effectively and analyzing usage.
It is also important to review usage and market movement and take
advantage when warranted. Carriers constantly come out with new devices
and plans, allowing for changes to further optimize the wireless environment.
Thus, a competitive look back or benchmarking should be incorporated into
a review of wireless management policies and procedures that compel the
carrier to change their rates if the market dictates.
Wireless is moving towards more of a corporate liability. With that liability
comes the responsibility for support. Individuals will need help with their
devices, necessitating in-house or outsourced technical competence to
manage the different kinds of devices, operating systems used by the devices,
the different actions that an individual can take to unintentionally harm or
damage those individual devices, and the data stored on the devices.
Avotus’ Mobile and Wireless Solution
Avotus’ Mobile and Wireless Management solution works to assist you in
implementing the steps described above. Avotus works with you through
each of these steps using processes as follows:
Step 1: Understand your Needs – Gather inventory through looking at
electronic and paper bills, building inventory, conducting callout programs to
establish an independent source of inventory.
Step 2: Consolidate and Standardize – Once there is a clear understanding
of the kinds of phones and plans being used, as well as usage patterns,
Avotus helps define and deploy a wireless policy to align wireless
communications capabilities with the organization’s goals.
Step 3 and 4: Develop and Execute a Sourcing Strategy – Avotus helps
negotiate wireless contracts—whether they’re pooled plans, bucket plans,
or fixed rate plans to attain the optimum level of spend.

www.avotus.com
Step 5: Management and Optimization – Avotus has a contact center that
facilitates the process of establishing support as well as purchasing and
delivery, technical support, device return and repair, and logistics to make
sure the wireless environment operates smoothly and users are satisfied.
Avotus’ Intelligent Communications Management™ (ICM) is the foundation
for the mobile and wireless platform that helps manage the back office duties
of accepting and managing the billing, collecting and reporting on usage,
maintaining the integrity of the inventory data, and managing issues and
disputes around the telecom expense management environment—all of
which is augmented by a business intelligence capability that produces
best practice reports and allows the organization to manage and analyze
the environment in an optimal way. This includes the ability to drill down into
details, discern patterns, see the variances, and understand the trends in
order to be proactive in managing expenses and liabilities and taking control
of the organization’s mobile and wireless environment.
About Avotus
Avotus is changing the way companies source, procure, and manage their
communications services and assets. Combining technology, automation,
and domain expertise, Avotus is redefining industry best practices. Avo-
tus solutions eliminate the wasted time and hassle usually associated with
contracting for new communications services and products and renegotiating
existing or expiring agreements. Automated invoice processing, inventory
management, comprehensive spend management and reporting enable
Avotus customers to realize significant initial spend reduction and achieve
ongoing visibility, cost containment, policy adherence, and process improve-
ments without operational overhead or capital investment.
Avotus has a 20-year history of empowering companies of all sizes to gain
lasting control over their complete worldwide communications environment
through the effective management of their voice, mobile and wireless, data
and converged communications spend.
For more information about Avotus Telecommunications Expense
Management Solutions, please visit: www.avotus.com or call:
1.877.AVOTUS.1
®

Managing Mobile And Wireless Spend

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