Telecom service rates are either flat or dropping. Yet telecom expenses continue to rise. In fact, more than 20 percent of an organization’s IT budget, on average, is spent on telecom services. What gives?

Many organizations are unable to properly manage and monitor telecom services, assets, contracts and invoices. This is especially true of organizations that have multiple locations and a cloud-based infrastructure, or have been involved in mergers and acquisitions. All of these factors add layers of complexity and place additional strain on IT departments trying to rein in telecom expenses.

These organizations are likely using a mix of telecom services from multiple suppliers, creating costly overlaps and redundancies. In some cases, services that are no longer needed are never turned off, either from lack of communication or concern about unknown dependencies.

In a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) environment, employees are utilizing mobile devices and cloud-based services to access data and applications. They typically pay their own bills and get reimbursed by the organization for business-related expenses. It’s hard for any organization to make apples-to-apples comparisons and understand how those costs can be optimized.

With so many moving parts – and different services, contract terms and charges associated with each of those moving parts – it’s incredibly difficult for organizations to understand telecom expenses, much less manage and control them.

Although telecom expense management isn’t a core capability for most organizations, it must be considered a business necessity, not a distraction – especially if telecom demands 20 percent of the average organization’s IT budget. Start by asking yourself these questions.

• How are telecom expenses being tracked and reported?
• When was the last time your carrier contracts were thoroughly reviewed or renegotiated?
• When was the last time you took inventory of all voice, data and mobile services and assets?
• Do you have overlapping telephony services that are unnecessarily driving up costs?
• Can you reduce mobile costs by consolidating data plans?
• Can you simplify telecom management and reduce costs by streamlining your infrastructure to eliminate redundancies?
• Are invoices being reviewed for errors and overcharges? If so, are these errors and overcharges being disputed?

These are questions that require significant time and resources to answer – time and resources that your IT department may not have. That’s why telecom expense management is a key component of what we do at IPC Technologies.

Before we recommend or implement any of our IT solutions, we can help you analyze exactly what telecom services, equipment and contracts you have, why you have them, how much they cost, what benefits they deliver, and whether or not you’re being overcharged.

By thoroughly analyzing not only your telecom environment, but you’re entire network and cloud environment, we can identify opportunities to reduce costs and complexity, consolidate services and infrastructure, and simplify telecom expense management. We can also ensure that your telecom services are enhancing employee productivity and improving how you do business.

IPC Technologies is your single resource for telecom services, public and private cloud, and on-premises technologies that improve communication, collaboration, operational efficiency and customer service. Let us help you evaluate your existing infrastructure and take control of telecom expense management.