In today’s 24/7 global market, it’s necessary for both office and remote/field staff to have access to mobile technology, but it’s not always easy for a company’s IT division to efficiently manage those devices and service plans. And most companies lose unnecessary profits on overpriced mobile service charges. This was the case for the U.S. division of a leading global manufacturer of premium consumer packaged goods. As the person responsible for the mobile device expenditures of more than 3,000 employees, the telecom manager found he was spending a considerable amount of time putting together monthly reports on mobile expenses and fielding calls from the company’s help desk to authorize orders and service requests. More importantly, he noted the mobile service carriers offered significantly lower rates to individuals than they did to enterprise customers, and he felt they should be able to dramatically reduce their wireless expenses. The question: Should they turn to a BYOD program, continue to leverage in-house resources or find an outsourced solution?
CASE IN POINT: Unmotivated Carriers
Lack Incentives to Help Reduce Costs After months of dealing with an unresponsive carrier, a sales representative and a sales manager who mostly seemed MIA, the telecom manager went in search of a company that could help streamline their mobile plans and reduce their costs. A trusted IT partner referred him to McCracken, where he found a unique blend of wireless expense management solutions, and the ability to proactively manage both the costs and maintenance plans for his current wireless carriers. He challenged McCracken to address his two main issues:
1) The company needed to see at least a net 15 percent reduction in mobile service costs.
2) The technology department needed to reduce overhead time spent managing devices and building monthly expense reports.
While deciding whether to work with McCracken, the telecom manager finally heard from the primary service carrier, who unsurprisingly proposed a meager 10 percent reduction in costs. Considering the carrier recommendation, he decided to engage McCracken, which promptly found several opportunities for additional credits and savings. Due to McCracken’s knowledge and expertise, the company was able to receive a savings of more than 35 percent on their monthly mobile service costs.
More Transparent Reporting Sheds Light on Expenses, Saves Time
Each month, the telecom manager would tackle the tedious and time-consuming task of building a cost report for the executive team itemizing their mobile device and service plan costs. After importing the carrier’s .csv files into Excel, he would then spend hours matching this information line by line with data from Human Resources. What should have been a relatively simple task would take hours of overhead time to build. And because the costs varied from month to month, he would often have to go back to the invoices from the carrier to determine the cause of the cost, e.g., if an employee received a new phone or had a number of unexpected international calls.
Wireless expense management application, the telecom manager can easily and quickly create a more detailed report that includes the reasons for any unusual costs, not only reducing the time he spends building reports but also virtually eliminating follow-up questions from the executive team. McCracken also provides a series of other monthly reports, allowing him to better view his enterprise wide costs and usage so he can swiftly and efficiently investigate any anomalies.
Now, using McCracken’s TrueVue® the company has seen other operational benefits from using McCracken as well. The company’s help desk uses TrueVue to self-manage their devices for selections and changes, procurement, activation and troubleshooting. The telecom manager receives fewer calls from the help desk staff now that they have access to TrueVue to manage devices. Overall, the premium consumer goods company is extremely satisfied with their cost savings and the greater clarity they have over employees’ mobile device expenses. McCracken has streamlined the company’s processes and saved hours of overhead time in device reporting and management. And to “put the icing on the cake,” McCracken reduced the company’s cost by 25 percent more than the carrier’s proposal.
