Telecommunication Expense Management

Dramatically Reduce Telecom Expenses

Telecommunications costs are typically a top-five corporate expense, but according to Gartner Group, on average 8-12% of those expenses are billed in error. Since the average Fortune 500 company spends over $100 million on telecom services annually, those errors can mean $12 million per year in waste. Some of this waste is caused by a lack of internal management controls and some through erroneous billing generated by the carriers. The greatest challenge to managing voice, data and wireless expenses comes from sheer volume: most companies have hundreds of vendors and thousands of invoices that must be reconciled against contracts to ensure invoice accuracy and against the actual inventory of services being used. All this while thousands of circuits, wireless devices, etc. are being activated and deactivated every month.

A one-time financial audit can lead to significant financial recovery, but the real savings come from automated on-going bill verification and maintaining an accurate inventory of devices and services in use. Without accurate inventory, any financial analysis is suspect, and it becomes difficult to recover incorrect charges and negotiate the SLAs and contracts that are crucial to telecom expense management.

Rivermine's telecom expense management solution can solve the problem by automating the process of negotiating telecom contracts, ordering telecom services, maintaining an accurate inventory and receiving, auditing, and paying the bills.

Savings that can be realized through Rivermine software and managed services include:

20%-70% reduction in spend through telecom contract renegotiations
10% on-going reduction in overall telecom spend each year through automated bill auditing and inventory optimization
50% reduction in the headcount required to process services orders and invoices

These savings are achieved through Rivermine enabling you to:

Get the lowest rates possible through Rivermine’s telecom contract negotiation service that leverages reverse auction capabilities and industry benchmark data
Receive invoices electronically (via XML, EDI, web site downloads, CD ROMs, and other standard formats) or enter invoices manually
Verify that each line item on the invoice exists in the inventory (circuits, services, or equipment)
Validate invoices against contracts
Apply automated audits to determine if the amount being billed is accurate
Automatically allocate expenses back to the business units
Provide data feeds to accounting to facilitate accurate and complete payment of the telecom invoices
Process orders for new services electronically and maintain an accurate inventory of devices and services

The Rivermine system provides dashboards and reports that enable you to quickly and easily report on network expenses and trends. Moreover, through analytic tools, you can price/performance optimize your network and make better decisions regarding when to convert to new technologies such as VoIP, MPLS, VPN, etc.