By Joe Basili
It may seem counterintuitive for you as a channel partner who makes your living selling network services to sell telecommunications expense management (TEM), but there are at least six reasons why you should:
- With carrier commissions from carriers shrinking, TEM can provide new revenue and consistent income.
- Carriers are seeking partners that have ongoing customer contact and bring value to the relationship.
- No customer wants to buy services they do not need or pay extra for services.
- Customers and agents benefit from reporting that consolidates all carrier expenses and validates charges.
- TEM provides visibility that agents are providing efficient service to their clients, controlling costs and proof that clients are realizing savings.
- TEM providers offer best practices that can help enterprises manage their networks more proactively.
As long as network and network-related expenses remain among the top five expense items on the profit-and-loss statement, TEM will remain central to the profitability and success of the enterprise. These developments show promise for channel partners that are seeking to attract new customers and sell more services and functionality to existing clients.
Before you dive in, it’s important to understand what TEM is and how it’s delivered. TEM engagements vary considerably from one client to the next and one solutions provider to the next.
Scope of Work
Before recommending a TEM solution, it is important to consider the scope of work relating to the three areas of fixed, mobile and international telecom expenses. (Note: International telecom expenses are those from international carriers and overseas locations rather than just international calls from domestic locations.)
Managing each of these categories of telecom expenses offers some unique challenges: most telecom carriers use a variety of billing systems and formats for these services; charges for each of these services are different; carrier account teams have different compensation for selling these services; and government regulations vary for these services.
