Why D&M

Only D&M’s COMMauditor proprietary software offers 100% automation of telecom expense and resource management. This program provides the assurances you demand to guarantee you are not overpaying or paying for assets you either do not need or are not being delivered.

Unlike previous generations of manual telephone expense management tools, COMMauditor does the work itself across the entire telecom life cycle. It is able to transcend provider data faults, (inconsistent, incomplete or inaccurate data), to function as the nerve center of your voice and data networks. With its holistic design, COMMauditor constantly monitors, measures and analyzes the financial aspects of your entire voice and data network, enabling a process and method for persistent optimization, month after month, year after year.

Telecom services, so vital to your business, are now the second or third largest expense item for many companies after payroll and travel. The average Fortune 500 company spends $116 million per year on telecom services while the average mid-size company spends $26 million. Although your company may spend significantly less, the point is that telecom and its related expenses are a significant expense to your operation.

As a result, optimizing telecom expenses and resources is more critical than ever as a means to reduce expenditures and support growth.

Take this test to determine if you are in control of your telephony expenses:

1. Can you easily verify that invoices accurately reflect negotiated contract terms and actual services delivered?
2. Can you identify billing or service discrepancies across your enterprise in order to manage disputes for the multiple carriers that supply voice, data and wireless services to your company?
3. Can you analyze telecom bills at the level of individual lines and services before authorizing payment? 100% of the time? 50%? Less?
4. Can you easily compare competitive vendor quotes to current contracts and current usage?
5. Can you accurately allocate your cost for each service to the correct business unit and cost center?
6. Can you avoid payment penalties and take advantage of new discounts by comparing actual telecom usage to contractual commitments?
7. Do you create and archive Sarbanes-Oxley compliant reference documentation for all voice and data telecom billing, as well as produce an audit trail of all process actions?

What does all of this mean to you?

The usual approach to managing telecom costs–bill audits, cost management measures and outsourcing–does not address current realties in several respects:

• Audits only catch discrepancies after the fact, requiring time you do not have to go back and resolve with each carrier. If you have overpaid, you have incurred unnecessary negative cash flow. If you use third-party auditors, your overpayments are compounded by their fees.
• Simple cost management measures, while necessary, are simply a bandaid for the actual need, which is to optimize services to move your business forward.
• Outsourced bill processing simply moves the problems outside your control.

Equipping yourself with the right tools
You cannot use yesterday’s solutions for today’s problems. Tools that enable total telecom facilities management must be able to support a wide range of functions and roles within the enterprise, from management approvals through contract management and procurement to accounts payable. These tools must span the complete range of voice and data services, both wired and wireless, and accommodate the IP-based converged services. And they must support your need to evaluate and manage real-world transitions between services, and to keep pace with your organization as it grows over time.

September 5, 2010