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What makes Technology Expense Management (TEM) so challenging?
Managing all the invoices for a complex IT infrastructure is a huge challenge and often requires a tremendous amount of manual work. Depending on the scale of your IT needs and the development of your network, you may have hundreds or even thousands of invoices to manage every month. As a telecom or billing analyst, you know the headache – there just isn’t enough time in the day to go through each invoice, verify you were billed correctly, and then map that data back to business segments and strategic initiatives.
As networks continue to evolve and grow, do you have the tools and resources needed to manage your IT expenses? Many organizations are struggling with manual work and are unsure where to even begin. And as technology continues to escalate, the problems will only become more complex.
Don’t worry, there is a solution. For many, Technology Expense Management (TEM) outsourcing provides the insight and additional resources needed to manage IT expenses at scale. Gartner defines Technology Expense Management as a set of solutions and services that “provide enterprises’ IT, procurement and finance departments with the ability to order, provision, support and manage costs of large-scale corporate communications and associated IT services with their inventories (such as fixed and mobile telephony and data, cloud license tracking and emerging IoT connectivity).”
How Technology Expense Management (TEM) Outsourcing can help
Enterprise organizations process hundreds, or even thousands of invoices each month and without the confidence that each is handled appropriately, IT dollars might be left on the table. Companies must pay these invoices within 30 days, leaving almost no time many organizations to verify line items and check for accuracy. IT teams must spend hours and hours sorting through invoices.
The kicker? Even with their best efforts, human error is inevitable, simply because the process is too manual, time-intensive, and complicated.
Technology Expense Management outsourcing provides organizations with an automated solution that can unify their mobile, fixed, and cloud expense management processed. TEM providers offer needed visibility into all of the various vendors and invoices, but also consolidate all of the data so organizations can make strategic decisions on IT spend. A robust TEM software provides critical reports to assist with expense audits, IT asset management, and expense optimization. When these audits discover invoice errors, you receive actionable alerts so you can quickly resolve any issues.
In addition to providing transparency and consolidating IT spend across the organization, Technology Expense Management outsourcing also allows organizations to leverage automation for bill payment. This can help to eliminate late fees, avoid service interruptions, and ensure payments are applied to the appropriate invoices. TEM providers automatically allocate charges to the right cost center or location so you can see where IT spend is going at a granular level. Additionally, many Technology Expense Management providers will help you resolve billing errors and refunds as well as contract negotiation.
Key Features and Capabilities of Technology Expense Management Software
If you are looking to utilize TEM vendors for outsourcing, here are the features to look for:
Mobile expense management
With over 75 billion connected devices by 2025 and a rapid trend toward remote work, companies are challenged with managing mobile assets, properly allocating expenses, and optimizing spend. From the CIO to finance to your end-users, the proliferation of mobile technology only continues to grow. Without the right solutions, managing mobile endpoints can be costly. Our platform makes it simple for you to understand your mobile environment and take meaningful actions to save your organization money.
Fixed/Telecom expense management
Telecom expense management (fixed voice & data) used to be limited to just reducing spend. Today, IT departments are under pressure to not only streamline costs but to show the value of IT investments, especially as part of digital transformation projects. brightfin empowers IT teams to optimize budget through cost optimizations, more efficient workflows, and expertly allocating IT spend to departments and company initiatives.
Optimize cloud expense management and gain visibility of assets
Gartner projects that public cloud will make up 14.2% of the total global enterprise IT spending market in 2024, a 56% increase from 2020. Cloud’s growth for enterprises reflects a drastic change in the way that IT services are bought and delivered; however, managing those expenses and assets related to this growth has been a difficult, fragmented process for IT groups so far.
Automated invoice processing
Managing all the tasks related to telecom expense management is a daunting process including processing invoices, auditing, reconciliation, disputes, and more. Compound that with checking each invoice for accuracy and finding cost-saving opportunities and the task gets even more unmanageable. Look for a vendor who can proactively manage cost savings and invoice audits.
Allocate expenses to the right department and initiative
Fixed invoice management means knowing exactly what your expenses are and where they’re being allocated. brightfin gives organizations the ability to understand the impact of their IT investments through expert allocation by department or company initiative.
Improve inventory accuracy with existing HR data
One of our customers who had previously been using another platform found that they were paying for a service that should have been disconnected 8 years prior. An accurate view of inventory enables brightfin users to know whether they’re accurately billed or need to make changes with their vendors. Growing organizations are often surprised by how much inventory is unaccounted for, unused, or being billed for incorrectly.
Bill pay services
Managing telecom bill payment manually is a tedious task while outsourcing to a third party with limited visibility into your operations is often expensive and ineffective. CFO.com estimated that it can cost up to $10 per invoice to process them manually, generating huge costs in organizations with hundreds or thousands of monthly invoices.