Wireless Management

Want to make sure you employees aren’t using company smartphones to text in “American Idol” votes? Institute a policy that regulates phone usage.

 

Research firm Gartner (News - Alert) Inc., 80 percent of enterprises will overspend on their wireless service costs by an average of 15 percent through 2014.

 

In addition to putting in place a procurement policy that includes checks and balances for who gets what type of wireless device and plan, companies need to take the next step and look at their usage policies to make sure they’re sufficient, said Pankaj “PJ” Gupta, founder and CEO of Amtel (News - Alert), a company that helps enterprises to rein in wireless management expenses and improve productivity.

 

“Unlike fixed line, wireless phones stay with users at all times,” Gupta told TMCnet. “How do you make sure that precious minutes in the pooled plan are not used by users for making personal calls?”

 

In answering his own question, Gupta said companies can set a variety of usage policies. They can base it on the business hours, where the telecom expense management system would automatically flag the minutes used outside the hours of operation. Or, IT managers can set usage policies in terms of total minutes used, data usage charges, international usage and so on – sort of like the “per diem” rate for meals when employees go out of town for business.

 

Or, a telecom manager can set different usage profiles based on the job function and then associate those profiles with individual users. Such a system would automatically send detailed reports to the IT managers or the managers responsible for handling the users who have fallen outside the usage policy. 

 

Additionally, administrators can set up usage policies for ringtones, eWallet charges, text/SMS messaging, international roaming and more in the system.

 

“Numerous times we have found the system flagging users who are using premium messaging to vote for popular TV reality shows, adding up to hundreds of dollars in non-business usage” Gupta said.