GLOBAL TELECOM EXPENSE MANAGEMENT (TEM) The Essential Guide to Planning and Implementing Your Global TEM Initiative.

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1 GLOBAL TELECOM EXPENSE MANAGEMENT (TEM) The Essential Guide to Planning and Implementing Your Global TEM Initiative

2 "Would you tell me which way I ought to go from here?" asked Alice. "That depends a good deal on where you want to get," said the Cat. "I really don't care where" replied Alice. "Then it doesn't much matter which way you go," said the Cat. - Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), novelist and poet For the first time I can see and manage Telecom across country borders. What a breakthrough! - European IT Director after Implementation of a Global TEM Solution Business today relies on connectivity. 24/7/365 we are doing business with associates, partners, vendors and customers in all regions of the world. New advances in telecommunications, especially in mobility helps us increase our business potential, bringing us closer to our customers and helping workers be more productive. But all this presents a tricky challenge. In the drive for ever more efficiency in a more and more global operating environment, better and more holistic management control of your telecom landscape becomes a prerequisite. It does matter which way you go. You should be asking yourself, In Telecom, how can I more effectively support our global approach to running the business to gain productivity and competitive advantage by extending my North American or Headquarters- based TEM operation globally? The solutions now available are finally starting to address the global challenge. But it s not as simple as the push of a button. The need for a centralized, global view and approach to the management of your telecom environment is no longer a nice-to-have in order to gain the results sought by the C-level suite today. Effective management and cost control of all telecom assets has become critical for companies that are relying more and more on their communications infrastructure to compete on a global basis. This essential guide illustrates 5 key guidelines to ensure an effective implementation of a global TEM program that demonstrates immediate and long term results in alignment with your company s business goals. Proven through successful implementations around the globe, follow these tried and proven guidelines to ensure your own global initiative doesn t get lost in the annals of misdirected projects and mislaid plans. The important thing to keep in mind is that one size doesn t fit all. 1. Plan for global needs and local realities 2. Don t get overwhelmed - get professional help to benefit from lessons learned 3. Assemble a focused, cross-functional and cross-geographic project group 4. Communicate and energize your user base 5. Identify opportunities for early wins and pay-back 1 Plan for global needs and local realities Don t shoot for the moon, with a dream of the ultimate solution. If your footprint is large and varied, a copy and paste of your current TEM solution around the world is not possible, practical, nor affordable. Begin laying out your planning and communications efforts well before the implementation phase ever begins. The key to designing a cost effective solution that you can deploy quickly with demonstrated early wins is to embrace the notion of P a g e 2

3 different service levels for specific groups or groupings. In working with our global clients, we have found that in order to truly satisfy the unique needs of a Multi- National Corporation (MNC), grouping demand profiles into three to four categories of service levels addresses the value of Expense Management while keeping the project manageable and cost effective. The service levels we recommend take into account factors such as number and types of users, spend volume, availability of electronic carrier interfaces, carrier technology, and service level needs. Some of the key differences in the service levels and their associated cost involve ordering, reporting, technical, and language support. For example, is it enough to add your South American originated telecom expenses to your global reporting view, or do you have a large user base of consultants with smartphones in Brazil that require ordering, provisioning and device support? The answers to questions like these will help you to delineate the must-haves from the nice-to-haves and build the approach that fits your company. Once you have an initial plan and understanding of your total environment to be addressed, don t hesitate to partner with a solution provider that can help put the pieces of your puzzle together. 2 Don t get overwhelmed get professional help to benefit from lessons learned Any global enterprise IT project can make or break a career. Especially in a tight economy, a global TEM implementation carries a lot of risk if not well-managed. The best approach is to involve a capable, strategic advisor or experienced solution provider early in the process and get help and advice from their experience to put together the overall solution design. There are many choices to be made and leveraging experience in the process will save costs, time and frustration. An advisor with real experience and battle scars from designing global solutions can take a look at your environment, and shed light on what s possible, what s realistic, what the risks are, and what the costs and ROI could be. When designing a solution with such an advisor, you may learn about different options you hadn t thought of, or realize that some nice-to-have requirements are just not cost effective for you. For example, you may have originally thought you d need eight languages accommodated for voice support. But, after looking at the cost-benefit you may determine it s more effective to standardize on three languages for your biggest volume user sections and have the rest utilize a portal configured to a common language. This however, does not obviate the need for you to do plenty of analysis and internal alignment of your requirements before talking to a consultant or solution provider you must do that. But avoid going to the other extreme and try to nail down every plausible service requirement -- or just pick a canned template from the Internet -- and then issue a lengthy RFP without ever talking to an experienced advisor/provider. You will likely miss the mark. We ve seen this happen with the resulting RFP providing confusing responses by providers, misunderstandings over the real requirements, no realistic plan of implementation, and pricing with a laundry list of disclaimers. So whether you are leaning towards building internal capabilities or outsourcing to a managed services provider, get help before you burn crucial cycles that can halt your project before it starts. Work with an advisor, get internal buy-in, map out your business needs, then take the next step. 3 Assemble a focused, cross-functional and crossgeographic project group Building a core team of executive-level stakeholders from across the globe is important to the initial and ongoing success of the initiative. Enterprises that just P a g e 3

4 involve a few headquarter groups conveniently connected by the org chart inadvertently omit crucial regional stakeholders that will be needed to play key roles down the line. A highly visible and impactful initiative like this must be a strongly collaborative effort. Responsibility doesn t reside in a single place not a single region, nor a single department. That s why passionate stakeholders need to be brought in from a variety of cross-functional groups from multiple regions. Ensure strong representation from groups such as the CFO (Risk Management, Security, Finance), HR (local laws), CPO (Vendor Management), CIO (IT, Telecom, Product and Service Innovation), and the COO (Business). Since these may be players who rarely work together, if at all, it s important to assign an enthusiastic, empowered and highly visible project lead who will oversee the scope of the project as well as coordinate internal champions. These champions should be resources that are passionate about the project and have the motivation to drive it forward and traverse all phases from planning to execution. These internal champions should be involved early and should participate for the life of the project. For instance, if you re undertaking a global managed mobility effort it is necessary to consider the affected regional organizations and have the right players, for example, in the UK, Italy and the US assigned to develop the project plan, synchronize roll-out priorities and drive the project to closure. Think about your key regions which might either have the most influence, highest visibility, want to be first or have the most likely potential for early wins and start there. 4 Communicate and energize your user base Once you have the right team in place, the next key step is communicating the initiative and selling your next tier of internal contributors and participants on the value of the project. This is where the real implementation starts. All those impacted should understand the corporate goal and business purpose of the project and the wide ranging benefits to the organization. Some of you may be thinking I don t need to sell anyone, and as long as I have a top-down mandate from a C-Level executive then the project will be fine. But, these types of mandates without buy-in and support are often not enough and can lead to execution problems down the road in the realities of matrixed organizations and where user satisfaction is an important measure of successful IT initiatives. Especially when implementing a Mobility Management solution globally, this type of broad initiative impacts the users both from a personal as well as a business perspective. Therefore it s important to keep that balance in mind. You will need careful change management to affect the resulting culture shift. Depending on your initiative, you may be asking end-users to make changes that affect them personally and professionally and, to not forget, in context of their local culture. Therefore, mobility requires more focus on communication and change management than other IT initiatives. Having an energized group of people involved in the project will pay big dividends down the road. 5 Identify opportunities for early wins and pay-back As you proceed through your implementation plan, group rollouts to achieve the shortest possible implementation duration to keep interest and create business value early on. One of the most likely ways for a global TEM initiative to fail is by allowing the timeline to drag on too long. Therefore it s imperative to group phases of the project together as much as possible in order to prove the value of the project early and start momentum for other groups. Now you may be asking yourself how should I group phases together? By country/location, by solution service level, or some other criteria? The answer is completely dependent upon your unique P a g e 4

5 requirements and environment. From our experience we ve seen companies group phases into three categories: Region, Business Requirement, and Company Strategy. An example of a business requirement grouping would be to first address the needs of some key segment of your user base with a particular set of requirements. This could be a large sales force in Europe that needs full support. A company strategy grouping could be addressing an area of the world that is becoming a key focus of your company going forward. For example, if your company has identified South America as the key region in terms of targets, development, etc, then it could make sense to address these users first. Company strategy groupings can often drive prioritization (timing) as well as service levels. Lastly, regional phasing entails grouping countries into larger geographic phases. This is a very common approach when you consider the similar time zones as well as other potential factors such as language, culture, etc. In the diagram below you can see how one client grouped some 35 countries into five larger geographic phases. In this scenario countries like Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Mexico would be grouped into the South American phase. Phase Month 1 Month 2 Month 4 Month 5 Month 6 Month 7 Month 8 Month 9 Month 10 1 North America Discovery Phase 1 Live 2 Europe Discovery Phase 2 Live 3 South America Discovery Phase 3 Live 4 Western Asia Discovery Phase 4 Live 5 Eastern Asia Discovery All phases live Generally, the more you group similar regions or business units, the more cost effective it is and the sooner you can see the benefits. Whatever criteria you use for phasing, remember that the lowest common denominator should always be by country. Conclusion If you are starting to consider a global approach to managing your telecom environment, the opportunity is ripe. With the appropriate planning and alignment of resources, you can design a solution from the start that will meet the goals of your organization while providing a rapid and positive return on your investment. So remember to assign a cross functional team with high level representation, apply a concentrated effort on high touch communications and change management, get help from a trusted advisor on solution design, embrace the notion of different service levels for specific groups and plan rollouts to achieve the shortest possible implementation duration so that you create momentum early. ProfitLine Inc Pacific Heights Blvd. Suite 200 San Diego, CA USA ProfitLine, Inc. Once your solution is in place, your company can reap benefits with a new global visibility and control over telecom that will improve the way you communicate and improve end-user productivity while also offering reduced operational and service costs. Therefore we hope you embrace these tips and avoid the mistakes that can stall a project and cloud your management s view of the benefits of Global TEM and managed mobility. Overwhelmed on where to start? ProfitLine has helped many companies analyze their existing environment and determine the best path for their global TEM needs. We can do the same for your organization. For more information contact us at info@profitline.com. P a g e 5