WHITEPAPER. The Case for Mobile Management Outsourcing

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1 The Case for Mobile Management Outsourcing Mobile and wireless technologies have fundamentally changed the way we do business and increased productivity in companies of all sizes Mobile and wireless technologies have fundamentally changed the way we do business and increased productivity in companies of all sizes. Yet, the economic impact of these gains is being undermined by a lack of management control over costs. In fact, analysts estimate that 90% of all organizations lack sufficient visibility to effectively manage their mobile and wireless spend. Avotus can help you reverse that money drain and put you back in the driver s seat - giving you unprecedented Control, Visibility and Savings on your mobile and wireless expenses. And we ll do this with a solution that will have minimal impact on your existing resources. You ll have all of the gain and none of the headaches, and savings will drop directly to your bottom line. With Avotus ICM Mobile Management (MM) you ll be able to appropriately centralize management of wireless devices and plans. You ll gain an under-standing of your wireless usage so you can formulate wireless communications policy and negotiate more effectively with carriers. And your end-users will enjoy world-class support for everything from ordering a new phone to troubleshooting a technical problem. We accomplish all of this using a combination of unique, industry-leading capabilities: Avotus Intelligent Communications Management (ICM) a proven and comprehensive software platform for communications expense management A Self-Service Portal to enable quicker turnaround on changes or requests while maintaining complete control over process and approvals. A Contact Center committed to meeting the unique support needs of each mobile end-user, from executive staff to entry-level workers. Business analysts with deep wireless industry expertise to customize policies and processes for your organization and then implement the solution Bring the Invisible to Light Inventory Capture Mobility is hard to manage because it is, quite literally, invisible. The network is invisible. The devices are so small they can be concealed in a pocket. And the expenses are often buried in individual T&E reports making it virtually impossible to consolidate them at an aggregate level. Avotus will bring into view the full extent of your mobile and wireless inventory through the automated analysis of your bills, your internal records as well as employee self-reporting via web-based and phone surveys. Finally, you ll know exactly what you are dealing with.

2 Make the Complex - Simple Plans, Contracts, Invoices Mobile communications suffers from a plethora of intricate and constantly changing plans, services, technologies and devices. Carriers sometimes encourage this complexity in order to keep customers from looking too closely and doing complete side-by-side comparisons. Avotus will help keep the focus on what really matters you, your organization, your users, your needs for minutes, coverage and special features. And then we will work with you to determine which mode of contracting makes the most sense: through an automated RFP and reverse webauction process, rate plan optimization or a combination of the two. We will help you negotiate a market-leading contract with best-in-class pricing slashing your current costs. Then, we will audit your bills to make sure that the carriers stay true to their contract. Control Visibility Savings Avotus ICM Mobile Management is the industry s most complete and comprehensive outsourced solution for managing the growing corporate wireless telecommunications problem. Our key differentiators are: Mobile and BPO Expertise and Focus Our experience in providing contract negotiation, web auctions, provisioning, help desk, invoice management and reporting analytics spans over 30 years. Our staff has extensive expertise in all areas of voice and data communications, both wireline and wireless. We have developed and introduced to our customers best practice telecommunications management processes that have become the gold standard of the industry. Our ongoing focus is to continue to develop powerful products and services that our customers can easily deploy within their businesses. Avotus processes and procedures are designed to reduce your internal overhead and channel all management activities through a single customer-focused team. Since we know the importance of working with a team that is dedicated to your issues, you can be assured of speaking to the same Avotus staff members each and every time. Maximized savings Our MM offering enables companies to drive down costs, mitigate risk and lessen the hassles involved with managing communications especially, mobile and wireless. Avotus solutions including automated invoice processing and reconciliation, online auctions and automated ordering systems create opportunities for organizations to both lower their communications expenses and enjoy a greater quality of service than that had been possible in the past. In fact, Avotus clients have been able to save 30%, 40% or more of their total communications expenses including wireless by using this kind of approach. Such savings can have a profound effect on a company s bottom line. Our Optimization capabilities are one such saving component. Avotus can recommend the mobile plan most likely to fit the average use pattern per individual user of group of users. Of course this can be accomplished by monitoring patterns over several months. Unlike others, we implement these recommendations once they have been reviewed and accepted.

3 Avotus also configures every possible combination of standard rate plans with ancillary plans to produce the most cost-efficient calling plan available. We use numerous criteria to qualify a recommendation including: 1. Length of historical data analyzed 2. Variability in the call volume 3. Buffer of minutes in a recommended plan over the phone s average use 4. And up to 10 usage points affecting airtime costs Automated alerts Lowering costs is achieved by active management and communication that provides employees and their managers with meaningful feedback, best practices and policy enforcement. Avotus mobile management tools provide powerful features that Alert managers to potential problems with phone use or costs. The Alerts highlight issues and provide automatic feedback so individuals can take immediate corrective action. Complete Communications Suite of Reporting Analytics We understand the spend management equation and have tailored the best reports for managing this demand. We provide the most flexible methods for delivery and design to build specific customized analysis based on business rules and objectives for cost control. Complete Mobile Lifecycle Management Capabilities Based on working with our customers, we have discovered that their mobile management issues fall into two categories managing the spend and supporting their users. For this reason, we have segmented our offer to address these two areas. Customers can choose to implement either or both depending on their particular issues. Spend Management Our spend management services are designed to provide enterprises get a complete understanding of their mobile inventory and what their actual mobile spend is. It is important to have a clear view of the mobile landscape within your company and the MM offer provides this industry leading capability to manage invoices and get a complete set of reports and analytics to support this effort. Inventory Management Company assets that are in the possession of users will be tracked, and reporting can be provided for asset management, financial reporting and human resources purposes. Reporting is provided on a user or asset basis. We track multiple devices or items per user, both serialized (phone, PDA, wireless data cards) and non-serialized (accessories). Mobile Invoice Management Like the rest of our outsourcing solutions, our Mobile Invoice Management solution provides all the benefits of automated capabilities and technology without the addition of staff, training of existing staff or investments in hardware or software. We take the hassle out of processing and verifying your wireless invoices. Automated Invoice Processing We receive and handle all of your wireless invoices, regardless of format, carrier or service. We ensure that each wireless invoice has been received and entered into the process for verification and payment. Typically, we perform our receipt to pay activities within five days of receipt. To facilitate efficient invoice processing, we work with your carriers to organize and consolidate your invoices and convert them into electronic media. We support all wireless invoice formats, including international carriers, and support all electronic (EDI, CDs, downloads). We also use scanning and perform manual entry of paper invoices.

4 Automated Invoice Reconciliation - It is a fact that your wireless invoices contain errors. Verifying the thousands of invoices and hundreds of thousands of charges is a job best done through automation. We use technology to catch these errors and initiate the dispute process. We perform automated invoice audits. We check invoices against contract and plan terms, inventory, taxes and regulatory fees. As we identify errors, we open disputes with the carrier and manage them to resolution. Eighty percent of the work involved in resolving disputes is in management of the process with the vendors. We have a track record of results including a 98% recovery rate usually within a single billing cycle. Invoice Accounting and Payment By outsourcing to us, you eliminate the invoice-coding headache. We use our technology to leverage your accounting rules and apply them to your wireless invoices. We provide A/P feeds for you to make payments to your providers. The A/P files identify wireless invoices to short pay based on open disputes and include charges and accruals for services installed but not billed. Comprehensive Mobile Analytics and Reporting Our management reporting is the ultimate solution for gaining visibility and insight into how employees are using all of the communications tools that are available to them. With a comprehensive view of usage, you will be able to manage your communications assets more effectively than ever before and ensure that you are gaining real business value for your communications spend. Our mobile reporting platform is a simple-to-use solution for visibility into wireless costs. Tracking and reporting on cellular usage, you can schedule, generate and deliver summary, trending and detailed reports of what you and your employees are spending on mobile communications. User Management Our User Management services are designed to make the mobile end-user s experience easy and efficient. From initial procurement, to a fully functioning wireless phone or data device, and through ongoing support for problem resolution, service changes and new equipment, we offer a high-touch solution with a mix of human involvement and technology. Continued human involvement and contact are a hallmark of the service. Users are not abandoned to fully automated web sites; rather, technology is just a valuable tool with which we gain efficiency. Travelers, executives, field staff as well as others can contact us by voic , or online. Once we get the message, we own the problem and work on the user s behalf until the request is completed and the user is satisfied. Procurement and Provisioning - Procurement and provisioning provides users with a short, simple, pain-free process to select new or changed equipment and plans. Once selected, we provide all carrier interaction, company policy compliance and company purchasing approval process compliance. The intended goal is to achieve fast turnaround of a correctly provisioned phone or data device to the end-user with minimal time and effort from the user s part.

5 Mobile Support Center - The Mobile Support Center will respond to user requests, manage the procurement and provisioning process, and track assets. All requests, including new orders, are entered in and tracked through a Request Ticketing System. End users rely on our staff that is experienced in wireless technology, which will also have full user-specific issue, equipment and usage history at their disposal. For travelers and executives, customized and after hours care is optionally available. Managed Mobile Rate Plan Optimization - Our cost reduction activities focus on reducing expenses through rate plan changes, rate plan matching, feature adjustments, and enhanced carrier programs measured against the same minutes of use and calling patterns as outlined in the Historical Usage and Expense Dashboard, with no loss of functionality or services unless chosen to be reduced by the customer. Equipment changes are at the customer s option. We use a rolling three to six months of historical billing records to establish a baseline average for individual and group usage across your entire enterprise. Using the specific needs of your organization and established functional, operational, and financial goals for the project, we process this information through our optimization engine to formulate our recommendations. We deliver detailed optimization recommendations with specific rate plan assignments for each individual user, taking into account their unique behavior patterns and how they interrelate to other users in your organization. We can generate scenarios that include individual plans, shared/pooled plans, best fit based on cost, or any combination depending on your pre-determined functional, operational and financial goals. And once you have approved, we make sure any changes are implemented by the carrier. We look at every user s habits of voice minutes and data use, their trends, spikes, call categories, statistical variances and expenses. Our optimization engine incorporates our extensive experience of optimization logic, thousands of rate plans (published and unpublished), and multiple scenario processes to come up with the optimal answer for the client. About Avotus Avotus is an award-winning provider of Communication Lifecycle Management solutions. Avotus provides both wireline and wireless solutions that manage enterprise communications assets and services and tackle challenges, including planning and sourcing, procurement and provisioning, invoice and usage management, expense allocation, and asset decommissioning and asset disposal. In the business of providing excellence to clients for over 30 years, Avotus serves over 1000 customers across 41 global destinations, many of which are industry leading Fortune 2000 customers. For more information on Avotus products and services, visit or call AVOTUS-1. For Avotus news and updates, follow AvotusCorp on Twitter, and Avotus Corporation on LinkedIn and Facebook.