Managing telecom expenses – both wireline and wireless – is becoming an increasingly important priority for not only enterprises, but small- and medium-sized organizations as well. As more players enter the telecom expense management field, the task of finding the right provider can be daunting. For many companies, a fully integrated telecom lifecycle management is the answer.

 

Cincinnati-based Spectrum (News - Alert) helps its clients manage the entire telecommunications lifecycle, including carrier-independent consulting, network design, management and optimization, contract negotiation and customer support. Trent McCracken (News - Alert), president of Spectrum, touts the company’s solutions as user-friendly with easily accessible data to better manage telecom expenses.

  

“Our application uses a hierarchical tab navigation which allows our users to practically navigate anywhere in the application within three clicks of the mouse,” McCracken explained. Our drill-down capabilities of our invoices module allows the user to see the data they seek, and not be convoluted with everything else.”

 

As a fully integrated wireline and wireless expense manager, Spectrum’s core philosophy of providing a turnkey solution gives the company a distinct competitive advantage.

 

“TrueVue  was built from the ground up, and is one of very few TEM/TLM solutions available today which has a unified platform for both wireless and wireline services,” McCracken said. “Many of  our competitors have built their solutions through mergers and acquisitions and are still trying to integrate the functionality of the wireless into the wireline or vice-versa.

 

Example of this, he said, are Tangoe (wireline) acquiring Traq (wireless), Rivermine (News - Alert) (wireline) buying BBR Wireless (wireless), and Invoice Insight (wireline) buying Oreon (wireless).  

 

“By incorporating both types of services in the initial platform design, our solution is easier to scale, more robust, and more user-friendly,” McCracken said. “Adding full-featured wireline functionality to a wireless platform, or full-featured wireless functionality to a wireline platform is like adding a new floor between floors three and four of an existing building.  There is going to be a lot of disruption to the tenants.”

 

Spectrum officials said its bundled software and managed services TEM offering, as well as its technology for processing paper and electronic invoices, continues to be a “clear differentiator” among its competitors. In September, the company released its newest version of the TrueVue software with enhancements that offer comprehensive TEM solutions, in addition to an agent-friendly dashboard.

 

We are expanding our scope of clients to include other agents within the indirect channel,” explained Troy McCracken, Spectrum’s CEO. “Our depth of experience in the wireless sector, as well as our successful track record in developing and implementing telecommunications management strategies, is a wonderful complement to our growing SaaS capabilities offered through TrueVue v3.5.”