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Mobile Life Cycle Management

Executive SummaryAs businesses continue to pay more for telecommunications services and equipment, the character of enterprise communications technology is changing rapidly. The most obvious example is the wireless revolution, with penetration of devices among U.S. professionals topping 75%, according to industry sources. Meanwhile, wireless is forcing an architectural shift in the workplace. Consequently, wireless costs and usage are more difficult to capture and manage and enterprises must place focus on wireless devices and services as part of their approach to Total Telecom Cost Management.

Managing mobility is a difficult process and requires focus on many areas – procurement, inventory tracking and management, usage visibility and management, plan optimization, invoice assurance and helpdesk services. Many organizations struggle to manage this spend category through their traditional Telecom or IT departments and are looking for alternatives. What makes mobile lifecycle management so challenging?

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Avotus Corporation - 1-877-AVOTUS-1 | info@avotus.com | www.avotus.com

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ER The ‘Invisible’ Problem

Mobile and wireless devices have quickly become the third leg of an enterprises communications environment — alongside voice and data networks — and for many organizations have become the most expensive. Most enterprises do not optimize or effectively manage their mobile and wireless communications. The decentralization of mobile device purchases, combined with the extensive use of mobile and wireless devices in today’s workforce makes taking control over this problem even more of a challenge. Not only do enterprises need to establish corporate policy and determine the appropriate course of action, but they also need to consolidate information on existing users, usage patterns, plans, and devices.

For years, many companies have chosen to simply ignore the problem. However, as the use and costs of mobile and wireless devices increase and enterprises become more reliant on their mobile data infrastructures, now is the time to start taking charge.

Additionally, we are seeing the proliferation of software that enables mobile phones to access centralized corporate resources, directories and enhanced voice services (e.g., four digit dialing). These products are being developed as PBX extensions by major PBX vendors and some new entrants as well. These developments clearly acknowledge the diminishing role of traditional fixed phones and the increasing reliance on mobile devices as the new norm for communications in the corporate environment.

It should come as no surprise that this problem has developed: The personal nature of the technology and low price points lend themselves to the individual-purchase model; the low purchase price of the devices themselves and associated plans don’t meet most company’s accounting guidelines as an asset that they want or need to manage. As a result, carriers continue marketing their products and services to their enterprise market as they would to teenage consumers. This becomes evident simply by looking at the devices and functionality offered – pictures, music, games, text messages, and so on. Consumers inherently look for different qualities than the enterprise. Consumers tend to want:

• The latest and greatest gadget• A plan that reduces costs at home• A device that entertains more and takes up less room• A plan that meets personal communications patterns

These are clearly different objectives and considerations than those of the organization. The good news is that there are some basic practices that go a long way towards controlling the situation. While this market-to-consumer model works well for the carriers—many are reporting record profits—it is not effective in fulfilling the organization’s business needs, improving the quality of service, or minimizing expenses.

Major Areas of Communications Spend:• Wireless Ser vices

• Data Ser vices

• Voice Ser vices

• Mobi le Handsets

• Enterpr ise Equipment

• Infrastructure Equipment

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Avotus Corporation - 1-877-AVOTUS-1 | info@avotus.com | www.avotus.com

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ER The Complex Management Challenge

In order to understand the importance of effectively managing mobile and wireless, it is first useful to examine why mobile and wireless is so much more difficult to manage than traditional telecom and data network environments.

While voice and data are managed by specific departments, there often is no clear “owner” for mobility and its various components cut across a number of departments — Procurement, Telecom, IT, and Accounting. This lack of ownership stems from the initial emergence of cell phone use in the workplace where individuals used cell phones as a convenience rather than a work tool. As a result, the business processes for mobile management were never established and are highly decentralized, making it difficult to pin down who should manage the problem—is it Procurement? Telecom? IT?

Another challenge that emerges is that mobile & wireless devices require both corporate control and individualized service—in terms of managing inventory, assessing usage patterns, and optimized sourcing strategies (on the corporate side), and selecting device features, functionality and types of plans (on an individual level).

For a glimpse into the complexity as it would apply to a particular organization, consider the following:

How many wireless devices are sanctioned for use in your company?

What is your monthly expense for your mobile employees?

Do you have a published corporate wireless policy?

Is your average per minute usage cost at market rates?

Which employees may be creating corporate liabilities by misusing corporate assets?

Are your mobile users’ usage patterns optimized?

Are you paying for unused, broken, or lost mobile assets?

Most companies today do not have the answers to all these questions, and if they do, chances are they don’t have much confidence in their responses. This creates a complex management challenge: The concern over the expanding mobile environment, the growing demands and involvement from IT to manage the communications, not only at a voice level but at a data level, while worrying about costs, compliance issues for audit regulations, and making sure the vendors are proving the right bills and level of service. All these factors make it a tough environment to manage.

But in spite of best efforts at policies and organization, enterprises face two major challenges in controlling wireless costs: employee resistance and lack of visibility into device inventory and usage. The chief factors pushing enterprises to improve their management of wireless costs and performance focus around the costs themselves.

Wireless solves one Problem.. .Companies that have deployed mobi le field ser vice solut ions have real ized, on average, a 27% improvement in worker product iv i ty, 19% in customer sat isfact ion/ retent ion, 17% in overal l profitabi l i ty, and 13% in ser vice revenues. (Aberdeen Group)

. . .and Causes Another.On average, companies are paying 25-55% more per minute than they should because they are unable to control wireless costs.

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Avotus Corporation - 1-877-AVOTUS-1 | info@avotus.com | www.avotus.com

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ER The top pressures are the following:

Wireless costs are increasing and becoming a much larger percentage of telecom spend;

Adoption of new wireless devices and services or expiration of current contracts provides impetus to get processes and costs under control;

Security concerns, particularly around wireless e-mail and other corporate applications;

Anecdotal awareness that a large percentage of wireless is not centrally managed.

And enterprises are taking the following actions:

Developing and implementing formal, written wireless policies;

Assigning clear ownership of the wireless budget;

Securing the support of executive management, such as the CFO, CPO, or COO,

Adopting technologies to support wireless category management.

Wireless expenses andusage are huge – but they are easy to ignore because they are “ invis ible,” more so than many other communicat ions technologies.

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Avotus Corporation - 1-877-AVOTUS-1 | info@avotus.com | www.avotus.com

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ER Why Mobile Lifecycle Management

The ubiquitous presence of mobile devices across any corporate landscape will give you an idea of the magnitude of mobile communications today. Originally just voice devices, phones and PDA’s are increasingly used for data communications as well, thereby increasing the amount and types of communications that traverse the airwaves. Consider these statistics from respected industry analysts:

Although rates for mobile services continue to decrease, overall spending on mobile will continue to increase as consumption rises faster than prices decline (Gartner).

Wireless costs have exceeded landline costs, and now data network costs for many organizations (Gartner)

More than 70% of mobile employees make their own buying decisions on their mobile phones / plans (Gartner)

Two thirds of companies pay for 100% of mobile bills (Gartner and Aberdeen)

One quarter of all calls made on business cell phones are non-business related – company is paying for personal calls, data transfers, etc. (Gartner)

As a result, companies, on average, are paying 25-55% more per minute than they should because they are unable to control wireless costs. Without taking a holistic approach to managing their mobile and wireless assets, we see this trend continuing and worsening.

Recommendations for Action

What should enterprises do in their efforts to understand and control what they spend on wireless? Begin by taking a Total Telecom Cost Management (TTCM) approach, but modify it to reflect these three realities of this subcategory:

Address the organizational issues. Make sure you have a clear budget owner, a clear mandate, and support from senior management.

Gain access to expertise. Wireless is complex, both in terms of the technologies and the business practices and contracting modes.

Implement technology that can help you in your efforts to control wireless costs.

“52% of enterpr ises have no formal wireless cost management program and another 21% have a program that is less than 1 year old.” - Aberdeen Group

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Avotus Corporation - 1-877-AVOTUS-1 | info@avotus.com | www.avotus.com

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ER Avotus Mobile Lifecycle Management (MLM) enables customers to have comprehensive visibility on their

wireless assets and control the entire gamut of services from procurement to payment. MLM is a comprehensive set of technology and services used to:

establish wireless policy and compliancenegotiate master contracts with wireless carriersestablish and enforcing purchases through a configurable employee self-serve portalprovide helpdesk services for repair, replacement and troubleshootingperform inventory trackingperform rate plan optimizationprocess and assure carrier invoices right through to paymentprovide management visibility, chargeback and billback

Is it worth it? Avotus recently contracted to provide its MLM solution to a large logistics company. The first stage of this engagement was rate plan optimization and the results were amazing! While only considering 1000 devices, the project found $263k in real savings in less than 3 months. The savings gave the customer a 113% ROI on the total Avotus MLM project.

About Avotus

Avotus is changing the way companies source, procure, and manage their communications services and assets. Combining technology, automation, and domain expertise, Avotus is redefining industry best practices. Avotus solutions eliminate the wasted time and hassle usually associated with contracting for new communications services and products and renegotiating existing or expiring agreements. Automated invoice processing, inventory management, comprehensive spend management and reporting enable Avotus customers to realize significant initial spend reduction and achieve ongoing visibility, cost containment, policy adherence, and process improvements without operational overhead or capital investment.

Avotus has a 30-year history of empowering companies of all sizes to gain lasting control over their complete worldwide communications environment through the effective management of their voice, mobile and wireless, data and converged communications spend.