The Dell Business Phone (News - Alert) containment function, which allows enterprise workers to separate business and personal numbers and activity on the same device, is a boon for telecom expense management (TEM), argues director of enterprise mobility solutions at Dell (News - Alert) Software, Roger Bjork—even though many haven’t realized it as such just quite yet.

The function, which was launched in September, defaults to routing calls over Wi-Fi using VoIP (courtesy of integration with Vonage (News - Alert)). But consumers also have the option of doing VoIP over 3G if there’s no Wi-Fi available (but no 4G yet), or just using the cellular voice network.

The ability to toggle to the most-cost-effective network takes into account that for most people these days, voice is an unlimited feature in mobile bucket plans. Data, on the other hand, most certainly is not.

“We have a lot of flexibility built in to optimize the cost on the business side, as well as fit the privacy and also minimizing cost on the employee side,” Bjork told AppsTech News.

Though it’s considered an enterprise mobility management (EMM) feature, it includes TEM-related capabilities like pooled resources. A bucket of minutes can be bought and shared among a group rather than being tied to individual plans. It’s a good way to balance out the heavy users of data with the light ones—as long as the overall total is under the limit, no overages are charged.

“Depending on the company size, and where you are, some of the TEM vendors will help negotiate rates, and things like that,” Bjork told the blog. “It’s almost outsourcing that whole management of your telephony expenses.”

Many companies have yet to make the connection between EMM options like Dell’s and general TEM, mainly because historically, TEM and telecom in general is housed in a different department from IT. Mobility management on the other hand is most often a function of IT administrators.

“This is just my observation, but even though [TEM is] one of the older tools that a company can use to help manage their costs ... [it’s] largely due to two very different departments,” Bjork said. “Companies that are selling an EMM solution may not talk to the side or the departments that do TEM.”

He added, “Having sold TEM services for the past five years and EMM services, it is a very different person that you’re talking to.”

It’s likely that this will continue to evolve, especially since the EMM market is expected to more than double by 2018, growing from $3.8 billion in revenue this year to $9.6 billion, according to 451 Research (News - Alert).  

“451 Research sees these as important toolsets adopted by the enterprise, and as critical enablers of future mobile computing,” the firm said.