By Scott Jonasz, Director, Sales and Business Development
Enterprise wireless expenditures continue to increase. Productivity demands and the advantages represented by Smart Devices, TREOs, Blackberrys, and Windows Mobile Devices have made their adoption the corporate norm. Yet the mandate to control expenditures (typically with overburdened and reduced resources) remains the executive command initiative.
So how do you create an acceptable corporate wireless policy while juggling productivity and expense control concerns, especially within an immediate demand and typically personal decision making environment?
With extreme difficulty is the answer most widely volunteered. But this reply, though meant “tongue in cheek”, echoes with sobering truth.
But where to start?
Foundation and Amendment
When our forefathers wrote the constitution they did so with the prudence and foresight that their written word represented a framework and that the foundation they created would need the ability to recognize, accept, amend and evolve with time.
Corporate wireless policies are no different.
Your corporate policy must begin with a foundation of business practices that manage the wireless lifecycle from procurement to payment. These business practices must be quantifiable, measurable and amendable dependent upon evolving internal and external factors – such as productivity demands and vendor variables (technology, pricing and service).
The foundation elements of the Corporate Wireless Policy:
Procurement
Acceptable Usage
Measurement & Expense Control in Real Time
In this first of three installments we shall cover the first foundation element in the development of your Corporate Wireless Policy: Procurement
Procurement Argument: Corporate Liable versus Individual Liable
There are two schools of thought on Corporate Liable versus Individual liable:
Corporate liable wireless provide more enterprise control on expense by single/limited device adoption representing advantages during vendor contract negotiations – and security with data and web access control and remote shut off/erase abilities
Individual Liable wireless dilutes the need for significant expense control by letting individuals choose their plans and devices (security is still controlled) – and by putting the burden on employees to “expense” their usage which inherently would reduce costs based upon the premise that individuals will be more cost conscious when having to pay for their usage and being reimbursed
In today’s business environment with email and web-enabled devices being the adopted norm – enterprises must adopt corporate liable policies – simply for security and proprietary control factors alone. (See the related article on “Technology's Double Edge Sword” in this issue”)
Procurement policy of Corporate Liable Devices is predicated upon the following and these processes and determinants must be decided upon as the foundation framework of your Wireless Policy.
1. Vendor(s) & Devices(s)
Your company has probably gone through the arduous task of selecting a wireless vendor or typically vendor(s) based upon the geographic and network protocol limitations of the carriers.
Mandating the utilization of one or two vendors and/or devices is not an easy task. Due to the inherent nature of wireless being a mobile device, employees, though not responsible for the associated expenses, tend to view their vendor, device, and plan selection as completely their “right of choice”.
2. User Groups & Plans
Within most companies plan determinants are made based upon “user groups”. Service, sales, operational and executive personnel are activated on a plan suitable to their need and/or position.
The adoption of corporate pooling plans have blurred these lines but remain a cost effective way to reduce wireless expenditures. However defining, adopting and implementing plan policy management by user group is a more advanced methodology for corporate expense monitoring, control and ultimately cost reduction.
3. Request, Approval & Allocation
The nature of corporate wireless procurement ranges from accept and allocate to formal requests and approval policies.
Obviously “accept and allocate” represents a “no policy” policy, and a formal request and approval process demonstrates a level of policy development – though in most cases completely dependent upon human governance and unfortunately due to workload and overburdened staff non-monitored and devoid of value.
Creating, defining and de-humanizing this phase, represents the most imperative, proactive and effective wireless policy ingredient. Furthermore, by incorporating pre-approval budget availability and “Effect” reporting the value of this policy element is significantly enhanced expenditures are controlled, and ultimately costs are substantially reduced.
Defining procurement is the foundation for the development of your corporate wireless policy. Once you have determined the framework of these three elements you will be ready to move on to the management of acceptable usage and the measurement and control of expenses in real time. (Covered in Parts 2 & 3)
For those of you who can’t afford to wait and are interested in receiving the uncondensed article as well as a step by step instruction guide on wireless policy development and real-time expense management – or for those of you struggling with wireless policy development and expense management perhaps due to time and resource bandwidth constraints – TeleBright offers a free wireless expenditure assessment and complete policy outline tailor created for your business.
Contact Scott Jonasz @ 301-296-3861 or by email (sjonasz@telebright.com) to request the article, more information or to schedule your brief interview.
TeleBright Corporation provides Evolved, Enabled, and Empowered Wireless and Wireless Management software and services. TeleBright's software platforms are being enhanced, please visit us to discover the evolution March 4th.
Find out about our affordable monthly licensing costs, guaranteed ROI and Expense Conveyance Programs. See what you've been missing.
Networx Transition Part 2 By
Dan Hannah
In December we examined some of the headlines and highlights surrounding the transition from FTS2000 to FTS2001. Obviously, there is room for improvement. However, it is important to keep things in prospective. 50,000 + locations are going to be competing for the FTS2001 and the Networx vendors’ attention. It is safe to assume that most all telco vendors will be responding to the unprecedented transition from one contract vehicle to another. GSA has planned this transition with lots of involvement by industry.
What steps have you taken? Are you prepared? Are you relying on GSA and the vendors to manage the transition for your organization?
Perhaps you should consider working with an independent company that has been in the telecom business since 1988 delivering robust software applications to carriers, end-users, and government. TeleBright provides ManageRight, our telecom management system for financial and technical aspects of voice, data, and wireless services infrastructure. ManageRight is a web-based solution that offers industry-best practices to enable telecom managers to automate tasks, streamline internal workflow processes and contingencies, and make informed decisions using timely alerts.
This uniquely comprehensive and highly-integrated system allows for an organization-wide view of your telecom assets and expenses with the ability to effectively and efficiently manage them. Our technologies help automate resource-intensive tasks and provide the user with the actionable intelligence to make informed decisions.
Our government customers are given assurance and state-of-the-art tools to manage, control, and collaborate their transitions. We help develop the plan that is right for the client infrastructure, not a cookie cutter approach.
DEVELOP A PLAN
A Plan should consist of (1) the Scope, (2) the Phases, and (3) the Sequence for execution of specific orders. Many of the foregoing events require issuance of orders containing various items to one or more vendors. Some orders have dependencies on other orders to be completed first. Business rules need to be established regarding when an order is deemed completed and accepted before a dependent order can be issued.
E-mail notifications and alerts are required for anyone involved or affected before, during, and after an event. The execution status needs to be tracked to ensure that the dependencies are indeed observed and the successor orders are issued by the client with appropriate reminders from the ManageRight system.
Finally, the performance measures of a vendor are required for the “Report Card”, a formal review between the client and the vendor.
ORGANIZE THE EVENT
Each Transition Event needs to have some type of organization similar to one currently available in Organizations Module as follows:
Currently, we have "Types" of Organizations (Corporate, Region, etc.). The hierarchy structure is created by the organization.
Orders are designated as Initial or Dependent (in addition to being Move, Add, Change, or Disconnect types). A Dependent order cannot be issued without completion/acceptance of an Initial order. A “Responsible Manager” is assigned to each phase to enable responsibility of assignments and ownership.
Tabs on the right:
Plan – containing overview of steps.
Scope – designate the services, locations or organizations for ManageRight included in the level selected within the transition event.
Status – table of orders (Initial and Dependent, if any) with a color coded scheme showing progress. Other status options are available for customization.
Metrics – display the event related numbers such as:
Days before Start
Days since Starting
Days to Completion
Costs
Vendor Performance
Order Errors
Avg. Time to Respond
Avg. Time to Implement
Billing Errors
Quality of Experience (Scale of 1:10)
CREATE THE SCOPE
The Wizard creates the orders for each level as needed. The Org Module “tree structure” helps create events and place them in different levels of event planning / organization. The Phases structure also displays the “Plan” at a glance.
REPORTS
This is a family of reports with filters to be designated by:
Transition Type
Service
Location
Vendor
Organization
Performance Reports
Status
Down time is completely eliminated because all equipment and wiring are existing and remain in place.
Determining the level of risk (i.e., Low, Medium, or High) will ensure that the program management staff exercises the proper degree of management control. This control will monitor the issue and ensure that appropriate alternative action plans are developed and implemented to minimize operational and budgetary impacts for the FTS2001 Program and its agency users.
The integration of ManageRight modules ensures that orders are tracked and once fulfilled and accepted the inventory is updated and the invoices are validated. Likewise, disconnect orders are moved into inactive inventory and expenses are properly reflected in invoices and budgets. The system also provides a mechanism for users to keep a report card on each vendor for each order, recording their overall experience.
If you feel reluctant to depend on GSA, TeleBright has a proven independent system that could mean a truly smooth transition.
Technology's Double Edged Sword
by Joyce Watanabe
They are known by various names, “plug ‘n play devices”, “digital vault on the go”, “USB pen drives”, but whatever you call them, they are technology’s version of the double edged sword.
Most commonly they are devices that will fit in the palm of your hand, your pocket, on your key chain, in your briefcase or purse. Attributes such as being capable of storing as much data as a dozen floppy discs, being almost impervious to scratches and dust, and being rewritable thousands of times have added to their popularity for both personal and business use. The USB drive can store personal or corporate data, documents, pictures, videos and music. It can store software to be used for maintenance and repair by Systems Administrators. Most will work with both PCs and Macs. They certainly sound like the perfect tool!
Nothing is perfect. The same small size and portability that make the USB drive so popular is what makes them so dangerous. According to a survey done by the Yankee Group in 2005, almost 37% of businesses surveyed blamed USB drives for disclosure of company information which resulted in disruption of their business. The USB drive has become such a common accessory that it is not suspect when carried from the office, as a floppy disc or CD would be, making it easy to secretly remove data. The majority of corporations do not monitor what data a user copies to an attached device.
Even if the user is copying the data for legitimate purposes with the company’s blessing, surveys show that 99% of users of mobile devices do not use encryption to protect the content. The small size makes them easy to lose or to misplace where they can be found by persons who should not be privy to the contained information.
Without invasive security procedures to prevent employees from bringing the devices into the workplace there is little to stop their use. The majority of IT security policies do not address the issue of mobile devices, even though the IT professionals who write the policies are well aware of the dangers. Clearly, this tool is a positive for both private and corporate use. However, corporations must become proactive in finding ways to ensure that the USB device does not become more of a negative than a positive in their operation.
Consider State-of-the-Art as Your Reality
by Ron Friday,
Vice President Business Development
Many telecom service providers, especially smaller ones, are managing their sales processes on antiquated technologies, or worse, have no real systems infrastructure. Most simply use Excel spreadsheets, emails, and phone calls. Although this may be manageable, it is certainly not ideal. Over the years, a great deal of emphasis has been placed on “customer facing” systems used by customer service departments in order to facilitate service implementation, trouble resolutions, and billing. What frequently is ignored are the systems used by sales teams in generating quotes, proposals and contracts to these same existing and prospective customers. This is often the first opportunity for a provider to formally communicate with a client.
With today’s state-of-the-art technology, industry leaders have the opportunity to drive a tremendous amount of efficiency into their sales process. Consider a single system that can be utilized by sales teams for all products that incorporates pricing, plus the associated business rules. Web-enabling this tool allows multiple people and functional areas to work in a collaborative fashion to create the best possible client interactions, including quotes, proposals and contracts. The system could also assign varying rights such that certain activities must be approved by specific users. This provides management with the appropriate oversight on pricing, design configurations, ROI targets, etc. The strength in such a state-of-the-art tool is further expanded when it transforms into a post-sales controller. The electronic conversion of the pre-sales information into an interactive template facilitates service implementation and billing setup. All of this being accomplished without having to re-enter any data eliminates errors, frustration, time and ultimately cost. Now consider that this state-of-the-art system is reality. There is a better way – and it's called PANDA!
Take your sales team in a new direction this year. Specifically designed for the telecom industry, PANDA provides flawless accuracy with proposals and contracts, streamlines order initiations, and provides extreme visibility into sales activities and process effectiveness.
IntelliSales will be attending the COMPTEL PLUS show with Keynote Speaker Sugar Ray Leonard, February 27 - March 2, 2007. Visit booth #1013. IntelliSales is a key provider in telco sales software. Discover the system that will improve your sales, network cost optimization and service order management, in seconds!
TeleBright will be attending the Channel Partners conference and expo with Keynote Speaker Joe Theismann, March 4-6, 2007. Visit booth #433. Meet our very own Scott Jonasz, Director, Sales and Business Development. Scott will be presenting "Make Money with Mobility Management". Be sure to stop by March 4th, 3:30pm - 4:20pm.
Tell us what you think. Please send your comments or suggestions to Mellenie Runion.
