Verilytics Inc

Channel Partners Conference & Expo 2010

mshifley — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 06:10:05 +0000

The Channel Partners Conference & Expo in Washington, D.C. is the communications industry’s only event exclusively for indirect sales organizations – agents, VARs, systems integrators, interconnects and consultants – focused on transforming their businesses to become converged solutions providers.

We look forward to seeing you there.

http://www.channelpartnersconference.com/2010/dc/

Tips For Managing The Mobile Purchasing Process

mshifley — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 06:03:37 +0000

Keeping your mobile workforce equipped presents major challenges when it comes to managing the process of purchasing devices and applications. Even smaller organizations may find themselves wrangling a rodeo of laptops, tablet PCs, ruggedized handhelds or laptops, and smartphones. Good purchase control requires striking the proper balance between corporate control and end-user flexibility. Among the factors adding to mobile purchasing challenges are:

Employees who purchase handheld devices directly, often circumventing corporate procedures.
Devices that make it easy for individuals to add software, with potentially costly consequences for the enterprise.
Corporate departments that may require unique mobile applications that work only for their specific needs and don’t apply to the rest of the organization.
And, of course, carrier service fees for voice and data communication.

Here’s what end users interviewed advise about managing mobile purchasing expenses in your enterprise.

Identify who within the organization really needs the software application on their mobile device.
Discuss mobility needs with department managers and make a list of appropriate devices.
Implement direct billing to individual departments within the
corporation.
Limit the number of wireless carriers that I.T. will support.
Factor in how you’re going to deal with accessories, repairs and spare parts for every device your enterprise is supporting.
Be prepared for additional costs thatwill be incurred when extending desktop applications to mobile devices.
Set voice and data contracts with carriers for as short a term as possible to give you the flexibility to keep up with rapidly changing technology.

Mobile, Wireless Expense Management Makes Sense for Today’s Enterprise

mshifley — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 06:00:54 +0000

Service providers who want to remain competitive must focus on the promise offered in mobility solutions. As captured in a recent white paper, any enterprise wishing to remain competitive must embrace the flexibility and productivity gains with mobile communications and data access.

With the evolution of available technology platforms and the personal preferences of employees, an enterprise cannot ignore the potential of the integration of mobile telecommunications into the business model. The challenge is that even with its promises, mobile solutions offer serious management drawbacks as mobile technology is nothing if not dynamic. With the rapid deployment of devices and applications in the market, staff members have little time to learn how to use them before it is time to update.

Click here to read the rest of the article …

3G vs. 4G: Who cares?

mshifley — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 05:54:29 +0000

Back in high school I used to drive an old Chevy Blazer. This was before SUVs were all the rage, so many people referred to it as my “truck.” This bugged me to no end. I’m not sure why it mattered so much, but in my mind I didn’t drive a “truck” and couldn’t stand it when anyone suggested otherwise.

This little trip down memory lane comes thanks to the recent arguments around 4G and which technologies get to associate themselves with the label.

Click here to read the rest of the story ….

Telecom Expense Management (TEM) Software & Services Can Bring Order & Savings To Your Telecom Finances

mshifley — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 05:49:51 +0000

Telecommunications networks may be the lifeblood of the modern enterprise, but they’re clogged with cholesterol in the form of byzantine, complex, and often inscrutable bills. As enterprises have increased their use of telecom services, the monthly invoices—which often come from a host of different voice, data, and wireless carriers throughout the country—are so ponderous they make hospital bills look trivial by comparison.

Click here to read the rest of the article ….

Things You Can Do with Telecom Expense Management (TEM)

mshifley — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 05:42:34 +0000

Once you have all the technology, processes, policy, and people in place in your telecom organization, what types of things will you be able to do to better manage your telecom operations? The following is a sample list of some of these things:

Maintain a complete an accurate inventory of every network element in your company including every circuit, service, computer, blackberry, cellphone, hub, server, wiring panel, laptop, PDA, etc.
Just in time provisioning — order what you need when you need it
Convert from technology to technology easily
Assess the impact of the network on the company’s bottom line
Pay your bills on time
Validate the accuracy of your invoices
Allocate costs back to the appropriate organization
Allocate usage of the network back to the organizations that consumed the bandwidth
Dispute invoice charges with the carrier
Predict future network costs
Build your telecom budget
Identify weaknesses in your security infrastructure
Optimize your existing network infrastructure
Electronically bond with your service providers
Understand the true costs of operating the network
Negotiate better contracts with your providers
Measure your SLAs internally and externally
Analyze your Call Detail Reporting (CDR) from your invoices and your telephone switches
Centralize all your telecom data into one single repository for doing data reporting, analysis, and business intelligence.

10 Things You Need to Know to Manage your AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile Business Cell Phone Service

mshifley — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 05:39:25 +0000

AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile Business Cell Phone Service is not easy to manage. Here are a few tips on wireless expense management.

1) Every carrier claims to be the best in their space; AT&T pumps up their worldwide footprint boasting coverage in a fictitious combination of areas such as “works in philowarepraugacago,” Verizon has you covered with their “It’s the Network” campaign and Sprint can get you there faster with “Sprint Speed”. The bottom line is that the Big 3 (Sprint, Verizon, AT&T) all have comparable solutions. The biggest difference in the Big 3 is simply the way they’re marketed to the YOU, the end user. So throw out your brand loyalty and make a decision based on what fits the needs of your enterprise – after all, next month the carrier you hate may acquire the carrier you love.

(Example:)

You want high-speed internet, you may think “Sprint Speed”, but Verizon has similar speeds on the same Rev-A technology as Sprint.

How about getting your email on your Blackberry while on a business trip in Hong Kong, probably think you need AT&T, but the fact is Verizon and Sprint can deliver on that promise as well.

2) The infamous cellular plan; all of us have been burned by them, many of us know someone that has a better one, and they always cost more than we expect. The fact of the matter is by the time you select your perfect plan a new and better one is available. As cellular evolves the costs for the service declines, but wait a minute — that doesn’t mean that your costs for the service decline.

In a perfect world your carrier would always make sure that you were on the best offering available, but in a cellular world your offer is only as good as what you signed up for. If you are committed to managing your company’s cellular account the “right way” it’s necessary to review your account on a monthly basis and reference your plan with the existing carrier offerings to ensure you are getting the best bang for your buck. Recently carriers have been encouraged by various lawsuits to refrain from renewing contract terms and charging early termination penalties when making plan changes. Now you have no excuse! You should always have everybody on the best plan.

3) End user plan compatibility; the only thing that can hurt your company’s pocket book more than a bad plan is a plan that doesn’t meet the needs of an end user. It’s important that every plan is selected for the person that’s using it. For example an unlimited text messaging plan is a complete waste of money for a person not using the feature, but for the person using text messaging it can save hundreds of dollars in unnecessary per message charges. The more users you have, the more complicated it can become to juggle this recurring task, but neglecting it wont make it go away; instead it will surely produce an astronomical invoice.

4) Feature Blocking; all the carriers have the ability to block unwanted features such as text messaging, web, voice calls, etc., but few advertise it to their customer base as it reduces revenue and hurts the carriers bottom line. It is always recommended to block the cellular features you don’t want an employee to access, don’t leave it up to them to make the call, rather go the most cost efficient and management friendly route and make it for them.

5) The equipment subsidy; many carriers lure business customers into 2-3yr contracts with enticing equipment subsidies. Is this a bad thing? Not always, the bottom line is signing a contract allows the carriers to lock in future revenue and give upfront plan and equipment subsidies that can reduce the cost to implement a solution for your company. The best advice to follow while negotiating this aspect of a cellular deal is to only extend the term when you receive more subsidies.

6) Billing; “nobody is perfect”… The carriers take this phrase straight to the bank. Cellular billing errors can occur on a monthly basis. They can stem from many different places. For example you called that rep at AT&T and told them to add data to your bosses new Blackberry, but little did you know it wasn’t added correctly. Your next bill arrives and he’s been charged $600 in data charges (i.e. many unhappy iPHONE customers). Or maybe the rep didn’t set it to take effect until the beginning of your next billing cycle, but your boss started using it right away and the charges started piling up. Billing errors like this are common at cellular companies as are their empty promises of making sure that they won’t happen again.

7) Carrier reps; have you ever been promised the world by a carrier rep and then received a solution that didn’t quite work out as promised? Remember, they represent the carrier. They may promise to have the best of the best and may get it to you at an amazingly low price and though they may even deliver on that promise the stats of unhappy customers show that in many cases the promises aren’t being kept.

Look to source from multiple channels (agents, business mvno’s, direct sales) or seek a company that specializes in cellular from a carrier agnostic perspective. Ask lots of questions such as…why this carrier, why this solution, how are you compensated, why should I work with you over the next guy, how is my post rollout support, if you leave who helps me, etc. Remember the easy part is making the decision on what to buy – the hard part is getting support after the rep that closed your deal has been paid a big commission! Make sure you make a relationship with somebody that benefits from you paying your bill every month and isn’t just motivated by the first order.

8) Customer care; lol!!! This is almost an oxymoron in cellular unless you are an enterprise like GM or FORD. Odds are you’ve had your account team change every 3-6 months, that is if you’re lucky enough to have an account team, and if they aren’t available or you don’t have one and need to resolve an issue you call an 800 number, you then pray that the person is competent…oh wait they’re not… call again. After a few hours on the phone and countless transfers your issue is finally resolved only to get your next bill and find out that the charge that rep said was reversed – wasn’t. TRY AGAIN… and so the game goes.

While it is easy to place the blame on the carrier here, how many resources can the carrier really assign to an account? The answer is not many. So while they may tell you that poor customer service “is a known issue and it is being worked on”, don’t hold your breath – until you are billing enough to justify a 5 person account team you will continue to be transferred to the same person that is trained to help little Timmy trouble shoot the 50 Cent song he downloaded on his RAZR 2.

How do you avoid this headache? Luckily there are companies out there that bridge the gap of the customer’s needs and the carrier inability to meet them through cellular managed services programs. In the long run it makes sense to pay a marginal fee and ensure that your problems are fixed by an expert. With a wireless expense management company you will see an instant ROI on time, money and your cellular solutions performance.

9) The carrier transition; this process has become easier over the past couple of years with WLNP (Wireless Local Number Portability) allowing users to keep their existing phone number when swapping carriers. But, depending on the size of your account transitioning cellular companies can be a logistical nightmare. Make sure that you are working with someone that has a proven track record of executing this process seamlessly. Ask for referrals of past customers comparable to your size that have transitioned through them and call them for feedback.

Make sure that you find out about all known transitioning issues before you start the process. That will enable you to prepare and plan for them prior to the implementation. Most importantly have adequate time to control potential challenges. The best time to make a transition is on a Sunday morning, generally the least important time for a business to need cellular connectivity. If an issue occurs it gives you 24 hours to work on resolution before the work week starts and the heat gets turned up a few notches.

The last thing you want is for your CEO to be without email while he is off at that big meeting trying to close the deal of the year for your company.

10) Procurement; naturally your implementation of mobile solutions has made your business more productive. Now you need to order new devices and grow your account. Make sure that you order from a consistent source, spreading orders across multiple vehicles such as stores, online and B-to-B reps can result in a cellular account that is in disarray. Make sure that you are ordering from people that actually look at what you need and make recommendations accordingly rather than based off of commission payouts. The best way to ensure that this is happening is to do a monthly bill audit, look for how many minutes you are paying for vs. how many you actually used. Look for features end users aren’t using. Look for new plans that can lower your overall costs. This can be a painstaking process, but it is an essential piece to any well managed cellular account.

The Benefits of Telecom Expense Management

mshifley — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 01:36:49 +0000

The benefits of adopting a telecom expense management (TEM)solution are becoming increasingly evident in the current economy. More and more best-in-class companies are turning to TEM to uncover missing dollars and take control of their telecom systems once and for all. The case is clear, but how do you get your C-level team on board? After all, research shows that executive buy-in is critical to the success of any IT campaign, especially TEM.

Click here to read the full story …

8 Ways to Tame Mobile Devices in the Workplace

mshifley — Tue, 18 May 2010 01:36:37 +0000

Agencies are swimming against the current in their efforts to corral mobile devices. But there is hope for managing all these devices. Several industry experts offered tips for agency executives to follow to control costs and improve security as more employees carry smart phones and other devices intended to improve on-the-job efficiency.

Click here to read the full story …

Management of Wireless Services Can Save Companies 10 to 35 Percent of Their Wireless Costs Through 2015

mshifley — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 06:48:26 +0000

As companies increase their spending on wireless and adopt ever- more-sophisticated mobile devices, managing service costs, security and procurement has become critical. However, Gartner analysts said that many companies still do not have thorough wireless usage policies.

Telecom Expense Management (TEM) software and services like the ones offered from Verilytics can bring order and savings to your wireless costs.

Click here to read the full story …