Emptoris Rivermine Takes the Hassle Out of Telecom Expense Management
November 29, 2012
By Mae Kowalke, TMCnet Contributor
Just like many family plans, enterprise mobility can get out of hand if not monitored and optimized for the habits of its users.
Making mobile telecom expense management easier is IBM’s (News - Alert) Emptoris Rivermine Telecom Expense Management solution. Emptoris Rivermine is a suite of mobile expense management (MEM) and mobile device management (MDM) for managing, tracking and optimizing mobility spending while ensuring that policies are enforced, according to IBM.
Using the platform, mobile bills are analyzed on the level of individual employees using a database of rate plans. From this data, IBM algorithms determine the best rate plan for each employee, and both reports can be generated and plans adjusted automatically.
Using Emptoris Rivermine (News - Alert), a Fortune 500 healthcare firm significantly curbed its mobile telecom expenses, saving $1.9 million in savings. That was a 750 percent return on investment within the first year.
For end-users, Emptoris Rivermine lets users use a Web portal to place orders for mobile plans, devices, and accessories according to corporate policies and approved catalog items. Employees also can access usage and spend reports and place mobile device management and help desk requests.
Managers can utilize the portal to approve orders and access a variety of reports. Automated approval processes helps ensure that orders are submitted according to company policies, according to IBM.
Mobile tech support is also offloaded to IBM when firms use Emptoris Rivermine, freeing up IT to deal with other issues, according to IBM. It offers three tiers of support depending on business needs.
Integrated with the help desk is MDM that offers a number of features, including remote device monitoring, remote device access and control for efficient troubleshooting, over-the-air (OTA) application deployment and updates, remote kill and wipe capabilities for lost devices, and support IT and application security policy management.
Since personal devices now go hand-in-hand with corporate mobile devices, Emptoris Rivermine lets employees order equipment and accessories on individual or corporate credit cards while allowing the enterprise to maintain centralized corporate mobile management, notes IBM.
It also processes invoices and allows users to tag (News - Alert) calls as either personal or professional using the Emptoris Rivermine web portal, letting enterprises accurately account for calls.
The platform also supports Carrier Request for Proposal/Request for Information (RFP/RFI (News - Alert)) management, benchmark services that correlate current market rate information to enterprise contract terms and conditions for virtually all major services and providers, and facilitates mobile device recycling and mobile policy development.
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Edited by Rachel Ramsey