The Telecom Expense Management (TEM) Industry Has to Change Part 4: The Dichotomy of Savings
An 8-Part Series
The Telecom Expense Management (TEM) Industry Has to Change
Part Four: The Dichotomy of Savings
The TEM Industry has to Change An Eight-Part Article Series
We’ll be publishing these eight articles between September and December 2022. Be sure to subscribe to AOTMP® Insights to be notified of the latest releases.
- So much has changed and yet so much has stayed the same.
- $4+ trillion in products, services, and solutions … a huge industry.
- There is a reason we can’t get more than a handful of $50 million plus TEM providers.
- Why is it that many other industries have gone from nothing to billion-dollar industries … but not TEM?
- The service provider environment – carriers, mobility providers and others.
- Call it technology, cloud, SaaS, network, or anything else … it doesn’t fix the problem.
- Why is there so much churn in this industry?
- We’re stuck in the past – the hamster wheel
- The impact of private equity – what it has helped and what it has not.
- Opportunities are everywhere … for businesses, for vendors and for financial partners.
- Quotes, recommendations, or commitments from our sponsors.
- When will enterprises place value on other aspects of TEM, and not just cost savings?
- Is there value on just having an accurate inventory?
- Is there value on just getting your invoices processed and ready to pay on time?
- Is there value on leveraging the buyer knowledge with seller technology?
- How do vendors better demonstrate value other than hard-dollar cost savings?
- A great presentation with not one word of hard dollar cost savings … would a buyer buy it?
- How do organizations like Salesforce or ServiceNow sell without a focus on hard dollar savings?
- Quotes, recommendations, or commitments from our sponsors.
- What must change in the selling and buying process?
- Procurement has a role, but it’s not to stop all communications between the buyers and the sellers.
- Communications must change, be more transparent and open throughout the process.
- The fishing expedition – why do enterprises send out 300 question RFP’s, make the TEM vendors jump through hoops, when they plan to stick with what they have, or they don’t even have budget approval?
- What do the vendors gain by pitching smoke and mirrors and saying they can do everything, even when they can’t?
- You’re looking for your 4th, 5th, 6th or even 7th TEM provider. Isn’t it time to look in the mirror?
- You’re pitching to an organization on their 4th TEM provider? That should prompt a different discussion.
- Quotes, recommendations, or commitments from our sponsors.
- Say What? The $30 million annual spender who saves $1 million each year. Soon it should be free?
- The more spend I manage, the more I need to charge versus the more savings I create for my customer, the better I am.
- My TEM provider is no longer saving me any money and therefore I can’t justify the cost and need to change providers? Is the provider doing a poor job or a good job?
- Save Me Money? Yes, but not so much that it makes me look bad.
- What do you mean you found me $5 million in savings? That’s going to cost me my job.
- The CIO of a $100 million spender who said “if you save me more than $1 million a year, you will be fired”
- It’s Ground Hog Day. I keep saving the same money over and over again.
- What about the root cause? Where is the focus on the core challenges?
- Quotes, recommendations, or commitments from our sponsors.
- When will there be real partnerships created between buyers and sellers?
- Why is it that buyers and sellers can’t seem to communicate at the first sign of trouble … and it only gets worse from there?
- When will the enterprises realize that there is no perfect solution in this very complex and difficult industry?
- When does an accurate inventory become the most important discussion point?
- Everyone wants a great relationship, but enterprises oftentimes don’t let the vendors talk to the business owners during the initial sales process. How does that create a foundation for a successful relationship?
- The Quarterly Business Review (QBR) … the focus needs to change. It’s not about all the great things we have done. We just love to drive from the rear-view mirror and you know how that ends up.
- Quotes, recommendations, or commitments from our sponsors.
- What is a Telecom and Mobility Management Center of Excellence anyways?
- Vendors and business customers really can work together to build a world class telecom and mobility management environment.
- Who are the critical stakeholders on the vendor side and what role do they play?
- Who are the critical stakeholders on the enterprise / buyer side and what role do they play?
- Telecom and mobility management functions don’t need to be the support organization in your company – position it to be a driver of business results.
- How do all parties show more value and contributions to the business?
- Quotes, recommendations, or commitments from our sponsors.
- AOTMP®’s top five recommendations to buyers.
- Recommendations, or commitments from our sponsors.
- AOTMP®’s top five recommendations to sellers.
- Recommendations, or commitments from our sponsors.
Series Overview
AOTMP® is a 19-year-old company that has both vendor and business customers in the telecom, mobility, and IT management industry. We have been consultants and trusted advisors for all customers in the past. We have collected data from our database of over 100,000 emailable industry professionals. We know what works. We know what doesn’t. Today, AOTMP® is an information services company supporting telecom, mobility, and IT professionals across the globe through training, certifications, association memberships, events & programs, best practices, publications, resources, and professional development.
We see the great relationships. We see the churn. We hear about the great buyers and the unreasonable buyers. We hear about the effective and the ineffective vendors. We see the buyers who will never have a successful TEM program until they change internally. We see the sellers who will say anything and go beyond reasonable ethics to get a deal. We hear the vendors who say they have never lost a customer, yet we can easily dispute it. We see the enterprise buyers who put 100% of the blame on their vendor, yet the greatest challenge is within their own organization. We see the many happy relationships and we see the many relationships that just exist because it’s too painful to change. And we see the major investor wins along with huge investor losses in the tens of millions of dollars. We see it all.
As we watch many other industries become multi-billion-dollar industries, from the CRM industry to the bill payment industry to ITSM with ServiceNow growing to nearly $6 billion in 20 years, the TEM segment of our telecom, mobility, and IT management industry just continues to struggle. That’s concerning given the significant opportunities on both the buyer and seller side, which in turn drives the investor side. There are so many growth opportunities; however, they are offset by so many inhibitors. It all just says, as buyers and sellers, we just haven’t yet figured out how to execute. There is no reason we can’t work together and have billion-dollar telecom and mobility management vendors serving world-class telecom and mobility management Centers of Excellence, with both sides making a much more significant contribution to overall business results.
So, the question is how do we move the industry forward? How do we move to a new level? Or can we? If not, what happens to the industry? Does the waste and inefficiency just continue, and we live with it? Do we just continue to make marginal improvement? Do we continue in the very fast-moving hamster wheel we live in? After all, we do have a lot of great vendors and a lot of great buyer environments, but not enough to make an industry out of the huge opportunity sitting in front of our eyes.
Given the multi-billion-dollar industry opportunity, offset by the significant growth inhibitors, we had to do something. We had to start. It will be like moving a mountain, but for the good of the industry, we had to take the first step. We started with two articles, the first focused on vendor recommendations for buyers followed by buyers’ recommendations for vendors. Then, in July, we held our first Industry Solution Showcase where we re-imagined how buyers and sellers connect. It was a great success from both sides. Everyone is looking for something different.
Armed with all the insight and experience, and feedback from the first three initiatives, we decided to author this eight-part article series, not to just point out all the challenges, but to bring awareness to all the growth opportunities right in front of us if we can work together to affect change. It must start somewhere, and it starts with one vendor and one buyer, then two vendors and two buyers, and builds from there.
You can follow along with the eight-part series in our AOTMP® Insights publication. And you can be assured there will be more initiatives to follow. It doesn’t stop here. Already in planning are initiatives at our annual AOTMP® Engage conference, potential webinars, and promoting Industry Value Challenge submissions we mention and receive throughout the Series. And there will be plenty more.
Given what we have seen in the industry over the years, along with what we see and hear today, we believe the greatest opportunities for growth for both the vendors and the businesses lie in five core areas. You will see this theme throughout the Series.
We believe the greatest opportunities for growth for both the vendors and the businesses lie in five core areas.
Improving the buy and sell process.
Agree to open and transparent communications throughout the process, regardless of the issue.
Developing stronger vendor – customer partnerships.
Problems are going to happen; commit to focusing on solutions, not penalizing each other.
Focusing on value beyond cost savings.
Help each other identify, quantify, and realize value beyond cost savings.
Building world class telecom and mobility management Centers of Excellence.
Work together to build environments that contribute to overall strategic business results.
Accelerating buyer and seller growth opportunities.
Help each other identify opportunities for growth in their respective businesses.
In this Article...
What a Confusing World
Savings is one of the most used terms in our industry, yet there’s no consensus on the definition of savings. Savings is calculated so many different ways and means so many different things to so many different people it just makes our heads spin. And even though the industry was founded on savings, savings alone will not grow or sustain the industry.
What is savings? Is it recouping overcharges for errant billing? Is it stopping billing on services that were disconnected long ago? Is it the annualized value of what you would have paid if you had not identified and stopped billing errors? Is savings based on the past? Is it based on the future? Is it really savings or is it cost avoidance?
“I saved the company $1 million this year” is an example of a common statement made by TEM professionals, yet in many instances the expense line may have increased by, say, $2 million. If that’s the case, where’s the savings? How does that work?
Misperception – the more I save year over year the better I look. Really? This means that high inefficiency must exist perpetually in order to sustain high savings rates. What if productivity and operational efficiencies were created? How about new business value generated through technology and technology delivery. Wouldn’t that make you look better than relying on errors and inefficiencies to allow ‘more’ savings?
Then, think about the carriers. Never to be forgotten was the conversation more than 20 years ago with an upper management sales executive from one of the largest carriers in the world. He said, “we teach our teams to show the customers just enough savings to make them feel good, but never the total amount they could save, while ensuring we have the customer spending more with us over the term of the new contract”.
This savings-focused craziness has to stop for our industry to change and grow. The good news is there are so many other ways to articulate and show value that would be so much better for everyone.
A Gallon of Gas
Standard Math
- I bought 15 gallons of gas last week at $4.00 a gallon, so I paid $60
- This week I bought 15 gallons of gas at $3.00 a gallon, so I paid $45
- Savings of $15
TEM Math
- Four weeks ago, I bought 15 gallons of gas at $4.00 a gallon, so I paid $60
- Three weeks ago, I bought 10 gallons of gas at $4.50 a gallon, so I paid $45
- I saved $15
- Then, two weeks ago, I bought 20 gallons of gas at $4.00 per gallon for a savings of 50 cents per gallon
- I saved $10 more dollars for a running total of $25 dollars in savings
- Last week, I bought 15 gallons of gas at $4.00 per gallon. It only cost me $60, much less than last week.
- I saved $20 more dollars (savings are now up to $45)
- But wait, there’s more savings. I bought an additional 20 gallons of gas last week at $4.00 and this week I bought 20 gallons at $5.00. That was another savings of $1.00 per gallon last week for 20 gallons because now its $5.00.
- I saved $20 more dollars for a total savings of $65 which is $5 more savings than I paid 4 weeks ago for the initial 15 gallons of gas
- And so the savings calculation craziness goes …
What a great industry we work in. We can turn almost anything into savings. Poof, we have savings. We could be magicians on the side.
It's Groundhog Day
I keep saving the same money over and over again. It reminds us of the whack-a-mole game at the fair or carnival. Moles pop up, you hit them down and five more moles pop up faster than you can hit them down. In our world, savings are captured and errors recur so savings can be ‘found’ over and over again.
The movie “Groundhog Day” also comes to mind. We get out of bed and do the same thing over and over and over again each day and get the same results.
Something must change. Something must break. We spend way too much time fighting fires and working backwards, and very little time working forwards, or at least not enough time. Like we have said a number of times throughout this article series, it’s very difficult to drive forward by looking in the rear-view mirror.
How do we break this cycle as an industry? Who is going to start? What business is going to look at it differently and make change? What vendor is going to look at it differently and make change? That’s how change starts, one business and one vendor, then two and two and then you impact an industry. Who’s first?
The Conversations
The TEM Group Conversation
Great news, we saved over $5 million in our group this year.
Great accomplishment team. Let’s go have a special lunch and celebrate.
Great job Mary and Tom, that $5 million in savings you found from our carrier really bailed us out. That was huge. Nice work.
Later that day … Tom and Mary, you need to hurry up and find something to invest the $5 million in. If not, finance will take it from our budget. It might already be too late. And by the way team, is this really cost savings or cost avoidance or is it just credits for overpayments?
The IT Leader Conversation
I think we need to make a change in our TEM group, either with the TEM provider or the team. Seems we are very inefficient in how we are managing things.
Providers are making mistakes and we don’t catch them until after the fact.
I’m confused and troubled. Did we look good because we saved a lot of money? Or did we look bad because we saved a lot of money because we weren’t managing it effectively?
What should we do? Do we need to change, or do we stay the course? The pain to change is significant.
The Finance Conversation
Great news. The TEM Group found over $5 million in savings this year.
Looks like we will be able to cut their budget from $50 million to $45 million.
And they say they expect to save another $3 or $4 million next year.
Let’s give them a $40 million budget as their starting point. They have $5 million already saved, expect to find another $3 or $4 million so that’s already $9 million A $40 million budget sounds perfect.
No, wait a minute. They saved $5 million but the overall line item went up to $55 million. I am confused. How does that work again?
The Executive Conversation
Why is our overall communications spend going up every year?
I heard one of those teams saved us over $5 million dollars.
I can’t see how that is possible. We went from $42 million in expense to nearly $50 million. How can they say they saved us money when we went up by $8 million? That makes no sense to me.
And speaking of communications our network is a lot slower this year than ever before. Do you think we have a bandwidth problem due to all the cloud-based apps we now have? We are going to kill employee productivity if we don’t get on top of it … all while our expenses are skyrocketing each year.
The More I Save...
How many times has AOTMP® heard … my TEM provider is no longer saving me any money and therefore I can’t justify the cost and need to change providers? Hundreds of times.
So, what’s the issue? The industry issue is this. Many decisions to buy TEM solutions are based on the cost savings component. The TEM provider says, “we will save you 10% to 20% and that will pay for the cost of our solution.” True story. But what happens when the TEM provider gets to year 3 and the savings are only 5%, not enough to pay for the solution? Many times, the business starts looking for a new TEM provider.
Wait a minute. The TEM provider did a great job and got the environment cleaned up to where there is not a lot of savings and now, they are fired. Say what? Or was it that the TEM provider was not doing a good job and only picking up the leftover low hanging fruit? Is the provider doing a poor job or a good job?
And that’s not all. The more spend I manage as a TEM provider, the more I need to charge. The more I save the better I look. The lower the spend, the lower my price should be and the lower my revenues. Little savings means I am doing a great job and have it cleaned up. The less I save, the more risk I have of losing the contract. The more I save the worse the environment is being managed. I am so confused.
Then there is the CEO conversation we had with one of the largest TEM providers at the time who told us, “There is only one way to manage this. You find just enough to cover your costs and not anymore. You look the other way on additional savings as you need it the next year to justify that years’ TEM solution cost. Otherwise, you will be out.”
What a “jacked up” industry thought process. (That’s a technical term.)
It’s no wonder we can’t grow our industry and take advantage of what is really a multi-billion-dollar revenue opportunity. As we said in the first overview / introduction, there is over $4 trillion to be managed and we only have a handful of $100 million plus vendors and very few telecom, mobility, and IT environments that could be considered efficient “Centers of Excellence”. Again, there is opportunity everywhere if we can just start to change our thinking and our approach. Get rid of so much emphasis on savings and start focusing on business value and impact.
You're Fired!
Story #1 What TEM did to an IT leader…
“What do you mean you found me $5 million in savings? That’s going to cost me my job!”
And it did. This really happened at a U.S. based Fortune 100 company.
Story #2 The CIO Redirect...
“Well Mr. CIO, we saved you nearly $10 million.”
“No, you did not save me $10 million. If you did finance will take it from my budget. I never want to hear again how much you saved me if it’s over $1 million. Instead, you are going to tell me, then document that you transformed our environment and reallocated $9 million to the transformation project and saved me $1 million.”
Where are the Root Cause Conversations?
Savings, savings, savings. Those discussions have consumed us as an industry. They have consumed so many of our conversations and our reasons to exist. Is that a reason we can’t move our industry forward? We just can’t get past it. We can’t seem to change it. AOTMP® would argue it is one of the biggest reasons we just keep running in our industry hamster wheel. We would also argue that root cause should be the main conversation instead.
Root cause is where we should be. What is causing all these issues we have in our industry? What is causing us not to grow, to always be fighting fires instead of focusing on solutions? We need to be focusing on what is causing the issues and then getting those fixed. And while many would argue we can’t control what the service providers do, we would argue there is so much we can control, that we don’t. If we spent more time talking about root cause, we could spend less time looking in the rear-view mirror and more time looking at solutions.
While outside factors have a significant impact on what we can and can’t control, we would argue that more than 75% of it is in our control. There are many things we could do to improve the opportunities to grow our environments, our customer relationships, and the value we provide to our organizations. What we have seen over the years is largely under our control. Most of the time, it’s a broken process that could be handled with the TEM provider or a process that could have been changed internally.
We would go so far as to say that efficiency, outcomes, and contributions to business results could be improved by as much 75% just by focusing on the root cause issues and their solutions.
This industry will not change until we:
- Get to the root cause issues identified and what’s causing them.
- Focus on process improvement, leveraging automation of course.
- Illustrate the business value of TEM beyond cost savings.
Where Do We Go from Here?
The conversations and focus must change. Period. The discussion, from all sides, should be:
- Of course, we are going to have savings, but let’s focus on improving the environment, not just saving money. Savings is a given. Let’s focus on what really matters.
- Let’s talk about root cause, what’s causing the issues in the environment and then how we can fix those through automation.
- What measurements, beyond cost savings, are important to you, your department, and your company leadership?
The AOTMP® View
Efficiency First® Performance Index
In looking at the industry from the perspective our AOTMP® Efficiency First® Performance Index, which is a measure of maturity of telecom, mobility, and IT environments, there is plenty of room for improvement.
Legend
0 to 5,999 Points indicates low to moderate Center of Excellence performance and maturity: high to moderate-high opportunity for improvement.
6,000 to 7,999 Points indicates moderate Center of Excellence performance and maturity: moderate-high to moderate opportunity for improvement.
8,000 to 10,000 Points indicates moderate to high Center of Excellence performance and maturity: low to moderate opportunity for improvement.
> 9,000 Points required to certify Telecom / Mobility / IT practice as a Center of Excellence
Average Environment – 4,500 – 5,500
Low Seen – 1,175
High Seen – 6,335
Background
AOTMP University delivers online training and certifications to the Telecom, Mobility, and Cloud / IT management industry.
After 20 years in business, w know what works and what doesn’t. We see the great relationships. We see the churn. We hear about the great buyers and the unreasonable buyers. We hear about the effective and the ineffective vendors. We see the buyers who will never have a successful TEM program until they change internally. We see the sellers who will say anything and go beyond reasonable ethics to get a deal. We hear the vendors who say they have never lost a customer, yet we can easily dispute it. We see the enterprise buyers who put 100% of the blame on their vendor, yet the greatest challenge is within their own organization. We see the many happy relationships and we see the many relationships that just exist because it’s too painful to change. And we see the investor wins along with huge investor losses in the tens of millions. We see it all.
Armed with this experience, we have decided to author this eight-part series, not to just point out all the challenges, but to bring awareness to all the growth opportunities right in front of us if we can work together to affect change. It must start, and it starts with one vendor and one buyer, then two vendors and two buyers and builds from there.
