What You Have, Where It Is, What It Costs

Telecom managers are clearly on the front lines. They operate in a dynamic environment of service changes, but have the absolute requirement to keep a complex network (voice, data, wireless) in full operation 24/7. So, when keeping the network up and running always comes first, maintaining a quality inventory for cost management and planning all too often falls off the project list.

Even when the internal decision is made to generate an inventory, telecom managers understand that assembling and maintaining it can be one of their toughest challenges. Here are just a few of the obstacles:

• Lack of a universal database management tool
• Lack of understandable, uniform service data from multiple vendors
• Lack of resources to initially populate the data base
• Lack of a system to link ordering process and inventory

Circuits + Features + Devices + Usage = Inventory = Power

Few companies can carve out the time or resources for the labor- and system-intensive effort to compile and maintain a data-rich environment of telecom information. But we can. And do. We use the term ‘Inventory’ to generically describe the combination of items that our clients pay for. It’s not the perfect word, but it does the job.

More importantly, it provides clients with a clear picture of their entire telecom network landscape to improve their ability to manage. Here are some ways our clients use the inventory we build to their advantage.

• Contract Time – Need to know exactly when, how and where you spent $9.3M with your multiple long distance vendors over the last 12 months? We’ll have the details.
• Business Unit Sell-off – Need to know every single line of service associated with a given business unit you intend to sell, and what contracts are associated with those services? We’ll have the details.
• Technology Change – Migrating to a new network platform and need to know all of the impacts? We’ve got the information.
• New Wireless Vendor – Imagine having all the details on every wireless device under your corporate umbrella to help assist with number portability and transitions.

Inventories Change Quickly

What you have today isn’t what you’ll have tomorrow. Client locations change, vendors change, technology changes, and more. Our processes are structured to maintain inventories that are reliable and reflect your current telecom environment – not the one you had last year.

Next Step: Vendor Contracts Management