Covid-19 Spikes Mobile Phone Bills

The explosion of the "Work from Home" movement, spurred by the Coronavirus Pandemic, is having some troubling effects on already stretched corporate budgets. Many firms lacking a professional Mobile Expense Management and Rate Plan Optimization program are receiving bills this week that are busting budgets and spurring a fire hose response. Worse yet, the pain won’t stop until these plans are professionally optimized to align with the new usage patterns. Since patterns won’t stabilize anytime soon, as the workforce ebbs and flows, it’s imperative that Enterprises put in place a real time Mobile Optimization strategy.

Since many corporate mobile plans rely on Pools of Minutes and Pooled Data Usage, designed for the typical office environment, the shift to a mobile workforce is driving volatility in usage patterns and pushing enterprises above their historical pool maximums and into the realm of expensive variable usage charges. The result is big increases in invoices and an emergency response to re-write the Corporate Mobility Policy to stem the bleeding. These on the fly rewrites of the policy impact Employee Engagement at a time when spirits are already under stress and rarely achieve the goal.

The budget busting goes well beyond the inventory of Corporate Liable Devices (CLM). Suddenly, employees who had little justification for a Corporate Phone, are expected to work from home using their personal devices. Since their patterns and usage has changed, they too are seeing an increase in billing and many are looking for their employer to reimburse this expense. This creates "tail spend", which shows up in the corporate expense reimbursement process rather than the IT infrastructure budget….. masking visibility.

The answer may be for firm's to partner with experts in the Wireless Device Management industry or reassess the partnerships they currently have, if the current vendor was unable to mitigate these WFH costs early in the process. Such programs tend to be highly effective at mitigating cost and ensuring that firm's are prepared to support and manage a mobile workforce quickly. Most quality vendors will provide SLA’s, that ensure the CFO that the program costs will be significantly lower than the savings. This is a process which really benefits from an outside partner, who has the time and expertise to keep up with all the mobile plans and monitor usage changes on a daily basis. The Author is an expert in Technology Expense Management and can assist you in determining if professional management can benefit your firm. Email [email protected] to arrange a free Mobile Assessment to estimate the level of savings available and how conduct an initial Optimization risk free.

The key glide path for developing a strategic Mobile Spend Program, which enhances savings and visibility, often looks as such:

1)   Assessment

2)   Inventory Build, Analytics and Reporting

3) Initial and Recurring Rate Plan Optimization

4)   Invoice Management, Validation and Payment Processing

5)   Consolidated White Glove Employee Help Desk

6)   Device Procurement, Decommissioning and Kitting

7)   Contract Evaluation and Negotiation Support

8)   eSourcing and Tender Development

Enterprises can enter the glide path at any time and with the preferred mix of in house and outsourced functionality. Savings expands as the glide path matures. The initial Assessment and Optimization components can often be designed on a risk free, % of savings model.

More on The Nuts and Bolts

Would your business willingly pay 50 cents for a service that was offered at 10 cents? If you are using wireless services, you might be doing just that. In the constantly evolving world of mobility, the need for carrier-spend optimization continues to be of paramount importance within the enterprise. With major shifts in carrier rate plan offerings, migration trends away from unlimited data plans and more flexibility on pricing for voice and text, never before has there been such a need to organize, analyze and optimize your mobile spend. And you need robust tools to help you vigilantly manage against overspend.

For example, when reviewing a typical voice rate plan, the effective rate-per-minute (ERPM) calculation is a metric that can help determine the overall cost of usage for your voice services from a wireless provider. Simply put, it is the calculation of the cost to acquire the needed voice minutes monthly and then the actual utility of peak minutes that decrement your voice allowance. This calculation is relative to one user or thousands that may be in a shared pool configuration.

Breakage is another term to describe purchased but unused services. At 100 minutes for example, the “effective” rate is 50 cents per minute, not 10. Likewise, if you go above your allowed pool for an individual user or for multiple users sharing minutes together, overage charges apply that also drive your costs higher.

The breakage game – when is 10 cents a minute not 10 cents? When you are not using your plans optimally, this can lead to significant overspend. Managing usage to plan is a good way to minimize costs without sacrificing service options or coverage.

As a larger share of telecom spend has shifted to wireless assets, businesses often require assistance in managing, tracking and securing wireless assets. Businesses should seek a solution that includes usage management, asset tracking, contract optimization, sourcing and wireless help desk. In short, businesses need complete visibility.

The Robust Data Future for Carriers and Need for Client Spend Management

The same approach as ERPM can be applied to data plans to be sure that your effective rate per kilobyte is as optimal as possible through the management of utilization percentages and proper pool sizing. Data usage is somewhat more complicated to forecast. However, trends should be relied on and pools created to accommodate the usage plus cushion or a percentage of extra capacity.

Data usage is expected to grow by 14 times over the next decade. The future of revenue for mobile carriers lies in the consumption of data on a more robust and faster basis in the years ahead. Some sources are forecasting that with faster device operating systems, new technology and more mobile applications to enjoy and deploy that a typical user may use nearly 1 gigabyte of data per day. This contrasts sharply with today's usage where users are running at levels that are a fraction of that forecast.

More smart devices in the workplace have meant the doubling of KB usage year over year and more apps to drive business. All of these contribute to the growth. As a real eye-opener, 5G speeds are being touted to be almost 100 times the speed of 4G. Imagine not waiting on content to appear coupled with the natural speed of users demanding more, all which will increase consumption.

To prevent unnecessary expense and head off opportunity cost, a sound utilization and effective rate management program for all services should be deployed for organizations large and small. Managing voice and data costs today is very important. In the future, it will become even more critical. Companies should prepare to manage continued growth in wireless spend and identify ways to avoid overspend pitfalls.