enterprise mobility wireless management spend control

Making the Case For Enterprise Mobility Wireless Management and Spend Control Executive Summary It is widely recognized that equipping enterprise employees with an array of wireless capabilities can sharply increase equipment choices and pricing plans, which become exponentially more difficult to navigate when trying to support thousands of users. An enterprise can easily end up spending millions of dollars for wireless services each year with little to no ‘visibility’ into the costs, the productivity and flexibility of an organization. However, in a large enterprise with hundreds or thousands of and no practical way to control or monitor the investment. In many companies the existing systems may not even be able to determine individual users, the task of procuring and managing these wireless services can be cumbersome and imprecise – who the actual users are, nor which plans or providers they are using. resulting in spiraling costs and inefficient use of the assets. More than 5,000 employees within use wireless devices and services, which are provided by multiple carriers, and managed by Information Technology Services (ITS), an internal support organization, gained a number of management capabilities and the internal ITS organization. As a networking company, had already built sophisticated internal systems for managing those achieved surprisingly sharp reductions in the costs of employee wireless services by taking advantage of Multi-Carrier Solutions wireless services, using features such as direct data feeds from the carriers as well as automated functions. But in the ongoing effort (MCS), an integrated wireless spend management system recently introduced for ’s enterprise customers. to improve processes – and to serve as a real-world proving ground for new services offered to enterprise customers – ITS decided to trial Multi-Carrier Solutions. This managed portfolio of tools and services is specifically designed to allow for dynamic, Introduction As many companies have discovered, providing employees with wireless services such as cell phones, pagers, wireless PDAs and high-precision management of wireless costs and services across an enterprise. wireless data services offers significant benefits in productivity. But managing these services presents a number of challenges. How does an enterprise track and monitor the costs of providing these devices? What is the most efficient way to manage the utilization of these The Challenge How would the Multi-Carrier Solutions approach compare to the existing management system? ITS decided to test the assets across the entire company? Solutions on a subset of 664 wireless users who were representative of ’s overall user population. The subset included a wide range of job functions from executives to technicians, and represented the spectrum from power users who virtually ‘live’ on cell phones More than 50 percent of large enterprises don’t know what they are spending on telecom-related services across the company. and multiple wireless devices, to individual phones that are designated only as standbys for disaster recovery roles. Cisco Enterprise Buyer’s Guide For a period of five months, ITS would manage this subset of users with Multi-Carrier Solutions technologies, while continuing to manage the remaining users with the in-place processes. ITS would then evaluate the sample population against some key cost and Most procurement processes designed for IT and telecom services are not sufficiently powered tooptimize the purchase and use of wireless services. efficiency metrics. In the wireless sphere, there are a wide variety of options, variables, The goal was to determine precisely how much the new Multi-Carrier Solutions could reduce the costs of providing the employee wireless services at , compared to existing strategies – and to The Results Optimizing Service and Rate Plans Saves $76,788 evaluate the additional management capabilities the Solutions offered. The Multi-Carrier Solutions analysis showed that 23% of the lines were operating under rate plans that were inappropriate for the user’s The Baseline The pilot program encompassed five months of typical usage and charges for the sample population. At baseline, the average monthly customary usage patterns, resulting in costs that were significantly higher than necessary. cost per user was $145, with an average cost per minute of $0.12. To create an optimization strategy, the MCS Account Coordinator used the MCS platform to compare each user’s historical usage patterns against all the possible rate plans and options offered by the ITS wireless carriers. The MCS platform can accommodate literally The Implementation The Multi-Carrier Solutions provides a holistic, integrated strategy for managing enterprise-wide wireless resources across multiple hundreds of different plans from several different carriers to determine which plan offers the lowest net cost for that particular user – and providers, plans and services. The Solution incorporates specialized information tools and expert technologies, along with coordinated for the organization as a whole. And with ongoing MCS Lifecycle Management, this optimization analysis is performed periodically support from dedicated wireless management specialists. to assure that plans keep pace with any changes in usage patterns and new carrier offers. As a first step, an Multi-Carrier Solutions Account Coordinator worked with an ITS representative to understand the existing HR and The Account Coordinator developed a plan for migrating these lines to the optimal rate plans, worked with ITS to gain approval provisioning data structures for the wireless population. They then defined an automated method for relating individual wireless users to for changing the existing plans, then implemented the changes with the carriers. The Account Coordinator also took responsibility hierarchical department and individual HR data, to create an Asset Inventory in the Multi-Carrier Solutions tool. for communicating the changes to the users who were affected. Thereafter, the monthly usage feeds for the test population were directed automatically into the Multi-Carrier Solutions systems. One month after the optimization, the total costs for these lines dropped by $6,399 – for a projected annual savings of $76,788 just through optimizing approximately 150 users. The clean and streamlined Asset Inventory of their wireless users and equipment allowed for detailed views of their wireless charges by user, by device, by service and other parameters. Interestingly, the optimizations recommended by the MCS platform differed markedly from the recommendations made by the carriers The MCS Account Coordinator then applied a number of specialized Multi-Carrier Solutions analysis tools that revealed a number of themselves; MCS was able to uncover efficiencies and reductions that didn’t appear in the carriers’ suggestions. opportunities in the ITS wireless environment. The Multi-Carrier Solution Process ORGANIZE Centralizes mobile service and equipment information Structures and simplifies asset management ANALYZE Provides information on spending trends and services Identifies zero or excessive use accounts OPTI MIZE Identifies alternatives for optimization Initiates plan changes with service providers SUMM ARIZE Produces reports at company or departmental levels Customizes reports for easy access and visibility NOTIFY Monitors changes in mobile communications offerings Improves employee productivity and satisfaction Trimming Zero-Use Lines Metrics for Lines Managed ITS maintains a number of wireless lines solely for disaster recovery use, so the lines typically do not bill any usage under normal conditions. But in analyzing these zero-usage accounts, the MCS Account Coordinator found that nearly a third of these Before After Savings Average $145/month $114/month 21% lines were not needed for disaster recovery and recommended deactivation to save the monthly costs. cost-per-user Actual $.12/minute $.10/minute 17% cost-per-minute Correcting Billing Inconsistencies Minutes of 1,251 minutes/user 999 minutes/user 20% The analysis of five months of billing detail revealed a number of recurring month-to-month errors, omissions and overcharges, use-per-line which were reported to the carrier for correction. A New Wireless ‘Dashboard’ Via the Web Conclusion Even in an organization with a built-in competency in telecom and networking, it was difficult to manage wide-ranging wireless services To give ITS managers greater visibility into their wireless assets, the Multi-Carrier Solutions also provides online access to their wireless information and MCS platform via the BusinessDirect portal. ITS staff can view cost and usage information by line, by user, without highly specialized tools and resources. In the case of ITS, the Multi-Carrier Solutions management approach dramatically by service, by group or department, as well as drill down into individual lines and devices. improved their ability to view and understand their wireless operations, and provided a number of opportunities to reduce costs immediately, and to keep them optimized as their needs change. The information offered by the MCS platform includes: •Average monthly charges per user. This provides a top-line view of the overall efficiency and trends in the sample user population. Based on the results of this pilot program, ITS has decided to proceed with a deployment of Multi-Carrier Solutions that will eventually encompass all users of wireless services throughout the organization. ITS is also considering using the •Top 10% Report, which details the most active users and devices – both in charges and minutes of use. Especially useful for monitoring the highest-cost users, spotting potential misuse Procurement feature of the Solution that provides systems for automating the procurement of new users and equipment, or anomalies and evaluation potential for later optimizations or upgrades. as well as activation of new accounts. •User cost-per-minute, another revealing gauge of the overall effectiveness of the MCS platform, and the ongoing usage trends. Multi-Carrier Solution Advantages •Supports real-time management for mobile communications needs Most data and reports can also be viewed by department or unit for internal cost allocations and budgeting. •Provides ongoing visibility for usage, devices, providers and costs The Bottom Line Applying the Multi-Carrier Solutions management platform to this subset of lines resulted in significant costs savings, as well as a more •Organizes and analyzes billing details efficient use of the wireless assets. There was significant improvement in all key management and cost metrics for the lines managed by the MCS. •Finds the most cost-efficient solutions •Enhances employee productivity •Reduces costs About the Series This is one in a series of case studies aimed at sharing the lessons has learned within its own business about how next-generation networking solutions can pay off: enhancing productivity and reducing total cost of ownership (TCO). Our goal is to provide real world answers, based on real life experience, that help executives deal effectively with today’s business issues. Our own approach to enterprise networking is built on the principle that solutions must deliver value and enhance the performance of business applications. We begin with a vision to consolidate our network into a single, global, MPLS-enabled IP network with consolidated operating support systems. We hope that these papers will serve our customers as a practical networking roadmap. We have put this roadmap to the test inside our own business. faces the same business challenges as other enterprises, and we believe strongly that the solutions we provide our customers should be the same that we use across our own company. If a solution creates value for , it will for customers, as well.
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