Call Accounting Featured Article

ISI Can Help Government Cut Costs

  By Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, TMC

Government takes a lot of flak for inefficient spending. And in some cases, that’s certainly justified.

Of course, what is considered wasteful depends upon who you’re talking to.                                                             But, often, the areas of waste that get the most attention are individual initiatives. Remember the so-called Bridge to Nowhere?

While there’s no doubt we should steer clear of such large ticket price items that lack real and widespread benefits, we can also realize savings by taking steps to make the government – or, for that matter, any organization – more efficient in its day-to-day functions. And telecommunications is one potential area of savings that is ripe for exploration.

That’s because telecom spend is one of the biggest costs of any organization, and that includes government bodies, says ISI (News - Alert). Government workers spend a lot of time on the phone to communicate with constituents and colleagues. Yet, traditionally, government bodies think little about telecom costs and how their telecom departments operate.

Landlines are often assigned to desks, but organizations sometimes fail to disconnect them when an employee leaves the organization or moves on to another location. And cell phones are sometimes distributed without justification for employee use.

Many organizations lack processes and systems to track the cell phones and deskphones being used by their employees. Few look for and address the abuse and/or misuse of those phones. And sometimes accounting personnel and managers don’t review carrier bills as closely as they should – or simply don’t have the necessary tools available – to understand when billing and plans from their telecommunications carriers could be more effectively managed or are just plain wrong.

Telecom expense management solutions can help with all of the above.

For example, ISI’s Telecom Audit service, Telecom Profit Optimizer,

• helps organizations understand telecom expenses,
• provides analysis and itemized reports that can identify areas of potential cost savings, and
• has no upfront cost, because ISI’s fees are based on a percentage of the business customer’s found savings.

ISI also offers the Infortel Invoice Manager. This is a telecom expense management solution that analyzes and helps pay telecom invoices.

It allows users to perform cost allocation, establish automated invoice approval processes, simplify procurement, handle inventory management, and increase telecom spend visibility. The company says this solution is ideal for use by state and local governments.

For organizations looking for a telecom expense management solution specifically for cell phones and tablets, ISI provides Infortel Wireless Manager. This offering optimizes mobile bills and plans, and enables employees to bring their own devices and get reimbursed for their mobile costs through expense reports and itemized carrier bills. The amount of the reimbursement is based on the employee’s job description and pay grade.

Infortel Wireless Manager also looks at bills and usage based on three-month averages. It uses that practice to understand typical usage and to spot abnormalities.

Sometimes significant shifts are simply a sign that an employee has been traveling for work. In other cases, however, they might signal that the carrier has made a mistake or the employee has lost his or her device, or has changed his or her online behavior.

In any case, it’s important for the organizations that are charged for these connectivity services to pay attention to such trends because sudden high-minute use, continuous overages, and high texting can cause mobile costs to skyrocket. If they are able to understand such changes, the organizations can switch a user to a more appropriate plan, deactivate a device, or take other steps to avoid unnecessary charges.

Additionally, ISI offers its Help Desk service as an add-on to its telecom expense management solutions. Help Desk assists organizations in managing upgrades, in adding and removing data and voice/text services, and in optimizing billing and device usage as trends shift. This capability is available Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. CST.