12 Tips for saving on your telecoms bill.

I was asked the other day how one should approach cutting your telecoms costs as a business in SA.  Now that my rote answer is no longer "take Storm products!", I had to give it some thought.  The points below are as a result of that thought.  Would be good if some of you could add some wisdom to the pot? ;)

The telephone and the personal computer have become ubiquitous; vital communications tools, for business and private use alike.  We use them many times a day without thinking about what it costs us.  As a company grows, it becomes harder and harder to ensure that these tools are used in cost effective ways.  Monitoring and measuring is key.

You're paying too much when:

1. You are unable to measure voice and data usage in your company.
2. When you are expending hours of valuable time in reconciling bills and usage reports to give you intelligence about telecoms usage.
3. You are using more expensive rate plans than you could (it is not in the telco's interest to ensure you're on the most cost effective rate plan).
4. You are not using Least Cost Routing (LCR) on your PBXs.
5. Staff are abusing the phone and internet connection for personal use.
6. You are using outdated or inappropriate technologies which can be costly to maintain, upgrade and manage.

Ways you can save on your communications bill:

1. Review your bills and determine where most of your money is going and where the quick wins will be made.
2. Install a Telephone Management System (TMS) that provides you with customisable reports for every PBX, consolidated into one, web based reporting tool.
3. Install reporting on all your servers and routers that will allow you to monitor individual usage patterns.
4. Provide automated monthly reports to all staff from the CEO down o,n their usage.  Publish a “Top 10 report” each month (warning : it is v. likely that your CEO will feature high on that list).
5. Set the TMS system to distinguish between business and private calls and first report on, then begin to bill for private calls.
6. Install LCR (a mix of Fixed Cellular Terminals and VoIP is likely to give you the best value)
7. Request itemised billing in 'soft-copy' from your telco suppliers and analyse these to ensure staff are on the appropriate packages.
8. Place limits on what staff may and may not do on the internet – usage of youtube, Facebook, etc should be blocked.  Your reporting tool will alert you to the 'arrival' of new sites which distract staff and tempt them to abuse your bandwidth!
9. Review your data links and send out an RFI for more cost effective alternatives.
10. Consider implementing IPPBXs (such as Asterisk) to reduce the need for paying the PBX vendor to add, move and change extensions, and enable value added functionality like voicemail, IVR's, VoIP LCR, etc.
11. Introduce technologies such as Instant Messaging (MSN, Skype, Fring, etc) and train staff on the appropriate use of such tools.  Bear in mind the risk that exists of abuse which is not easy to monitor and control.
12. Review where most of your calls are being made to (suppliers, business partners, customers, etc) and consider persuading them to implement a VoIP technology which would cut the costs of communications between your companies to a minimum.

Questions you need to be able to answer:

1. Where is most of my telecoms budget being spent?
2. Do I know how much each staff member / office / branch is costing us?
3. Can I present reports at management meetings that allows the CEO to review cost per head per department?
4. Am I sure I'm getting the best deal possible from my telcos?
5. Am I getting detailed billing from my suppliers in a format which I can easily analyse?
6. Have they been able to respond to my requests for improved detailed reporting, usage analysis, and discounts.
7. Have I explored all the LCR options open to me?
8. Are we using communications technologies appropriately?
9. Have I limited the possibilities for staff to abuse the communications tools?
10. Do I have adequate ICT policies in place?

While we're talking about TMS systems - the one I have been impressed by and have yet to see bested is Ti by Aspivia.  Apart from liking the people behind the company (one of whom works out of a house on a Greek island - I kid you not - the system is clever and user friendly).

Now go find that Telkom bill of yours! ;)

Comments

[VoIP providers]

i like the 10 step)
Asterisk

[DaveG]

Hey Marc, I know, I know... lime green is a bit of a shock when 8 years of conditioning had you thinking it would be a particular shade of red!

you could always surf across to :
http://web.archive.org/web/20010502231659/www.stormtel.co.za/home/home.htm

wonderful thing the wayback machine!

[Marc]

No No No Dave...How could you link to the (non existent) storm web page, I burnt my eyes :P