To help support growth and success within the telecommunication industry, a Cincinnati-based provider of telecom expense management solutions – technologies that are emerging as increasingly important and widespread as businesses navigate this slower economy – recently added an industry veteran to its board of directors.

 

Officials at Spectrum, Inc. (News - Alert) say John J. “Jack” Mueller, brought on earlier this year, already is contributing in his new role.

 

According to Troy McCracken (News - Alert), Spectrum’s chief executive officer, Mueller has a history of driving innovation.

 

He’s expected to “bring a unique insight into our ongoing development of TrueVue, our TEM solution, as well as where Spectrum’s focus should be over the next several years to continue our growth and success within the telecommunications industry,” McCracken said.

 

In joining Spectrum, Mueller – who has held executive leadership positions at Cincinnati Bell (News - Alert), Valor Communications Group, Idearc Media, Connexion Technologies and Timmaron Capital Advisors – enters an IT market segment that’s on the rise.

 

Mueller, a former United States Telecom Association director who currently sits on the board at Centennial Communications (News - Alert) and Apex CoVantage, is expected to bring wide industry experience to Spectrum’s TEM business.

 

He said he’s long been impressed with the Cincinnati company.

 

“I hope that my experience in strategic mentoring and executive coaching will help their leadership team continue to drive growth for both their company and their customers," Mueller said.

 

“What attracted me to Spectrum initially is that it is a small growing company in telecom whose owners who are highly respected and talented. I have enjoyed an association with Spectrum for several years and I respect them,” he told TMCnet.

 

Mueller also told TMCnet that since spending some time on the board he has been “surprised by the quality of the other board members and their dedication to the company and its success. I didn’t expect a small company to have such talented people helping them. I’m looking forward to continuing my work with Spectrum and helping them to grow their business.”

 

For many companies, since financial markets began teetering in September, it’s been a steady stream of cutbacks, layoffs, lowered revenue estimates and general belt-tightening. 

However Spectrum President, Trent McCracken (News - Alert) tells TMCnet, "We are still hiring. This year we have added to our sales, customer service, and development teams.”

 

Still, many organizations appear to be positioning themselves to accelerate out of the recession. Ways to do that include leveraging existing IT assets and pursuing cost-saving technologies such as Software-as-a-Service, hosted services, cloud computing and virtualization.

 

Another way to do that is to examine IT and telecom expenses closely and find out whether a business is operating as efficiently as possible.

 

That’s where businesses such as Spectrum come in. The TrueVue solution, as its name implies, gives companies a snapshot of their telecom lifecycle so they can improve efficiencies and drive overall communication costs down. That involves a wide range of business processes, from ordering and procurement, asset management, invoice visibility, service optimization, to customized reporting of wireless and wireline services.