Technology is changing the face of business every day. As modern executives scramble to provide their clients with innovative services, new issues affect the bottom-line.
A solid telecommunications infrastructure is vital to meet the demands of a changing marketplace. Mobile sales teams, telecommuters and online customer support all demand increasing attention to telecom needs. How can a company manage costs in this critical area without sacrificing the company’s growth?
It might surprise you to know that the error rate in telecommunications billing tops 80 percent. The first thing the concerned CEO must ask himself is whether his staff is capable of identifying these errors and withholding inappropriate payments.
Companies once only needed to monitor invoices for duplicate billing and the correct number of phone lines. Now Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP), which facilitates internet phone calls, the Cloud, which accommodates file storage not limited to your local hard drive, and SaaS, which delivers software as a service, fill invoices with complex jargon and abbreviations. The questions that arise are not only whether the billing is accurate, but also whether the services are appropriate. To see how Profit Advisory Group has responded to this issue for its clients, consider this overview of a Regional Medical Center project.
The Telecom Challenge:
The company experienced rapid expansion over a short period. This resulted in a decentralized decision process. This created a disconnection between the accounting staff that actually received the invoices and upper management, responsible for financial and operational decisions. The company realized it had issues relating to vendor billing, but had not isolated them nor identified solutions when it engaged Profit Advisory Group for assistance.
The Scope of the Project:
- Review of $1.5 million in telecom invoices over a one-year period. This detailed audit addressed both the accuracy of the billing itself and provided the opportunity to review usage. This offered insight into the viability of the services the vendors provided.
- Overall savings of 33 percent
- $59K one-time credits and refunds of inappropriate charges.
- $500K annual savings on services contracted and billed that the Medical Center did not use.
- After consultation with Medical Center personnel and it vendors, PAG recommended future actions to improve operating efficiencies with anticipated savings beyond the amounts cited in this study. This included the elimination of services that do not bring significant benefit to Medical Center operations and the addition of services that could save resources for the Center.
Telecom Results:
PAG leveraged its knowledge of business processes, vendor organizations and data collected and reviewed to identify significant overcharges, unnecessary services and opportunities to improve operations. These changes contributed directly to the company’s bottom line, not just once, but on an ongoing basis. PAG offered an additional advantage in that the Medical Center was not required to dedicate many resources to the project, leaving Medical Center personnel free to pursue their normal activities.
[author_bio username=”Ken” name=”yes”]
