The Telecom Expense Management (TEM) Industry Has to Change Part 8: Message to Sellers
An 8-Part Series
The Telecom Expense Management (TEM) Industry Has to Change
Part Eight: Message to Sellers
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.
Message to Sellers
As we bring the Series to a close with Part 8 – Message to the Sellers, we want to wrap it up with a few recommendations to the vendors / sellers. If we are going to change the industry …
Here are our Top 5 Recommendations for Sellers:
1. Create Value Beyond Cost Savings
- Focus on creating value for departments and groups outside of the standard TEM group.
- Document and present five ways you can show non-savings value to groups outside the TEM group – what do these other groups care about?
- Build a value creation document to present every quarter that shows value beyond cost savings. Build a single document grouped by customer department to highlight value to different stakeholders.
- Shout your value from the roof-top to everyone who might possibly listen.
2. Talk About the Challenges with Customers
- Spend more time understanding the customer environment and particularly the challenges.
- Ask why other providers have not succeeded, but keep the conversation based on the customer environment, not the other providers. What challenges in the customer environment played a role in the issues?
- What are the top 5 challenges in the customer environment that would keep the relationship from being successful?
- Focus on a strategy to address each of the challenges and how you will work through them together.
3. Be Real
- Keep it real with what you can do and can’t do. Be up front and honest with prospects and customers. They appreciate honesty more than a vendor who says they can do everything.
- Address what reality looks like. What is really going to happen in the relationship? There are many influences, both controllable and non-controllable, that may impact the relationship and positive outcomes. Talk about them.
- Spend more time talking about how to address challenges that are likely to come up and how to eliminate the blame game. You know what comes up in other environments that impedes success. Address them with everyone you speak with.
4. Stop with the “Only One” and Deliver Results
- Stop with the “only one” pitch. You are not the “only one”. There are others doing the same thing.
- You kill your credibility when you pitch that you are the “only one” and the customer just heard from two other vendors that they do the same thing. We see it happen all the time.
- Instead of selling you are the “only one”, which most of the time is not credible, focus on results and outcomes … beyond cost savings of course.
- Results and outcomes will trump the “only one” pitch every time.
5. Innovate
- A constant focus on innovation is one of the most powerful assets you can bring to the table for your customers.
- Plan the future with your customers. Create and document the ideal environment and then work together to bring it to reality.
- Spend at least 20% of your customer time talking about non-tactical improvement opportunities. Talk value creation. Talk impacts you can jointly make for other groups.
- Create a customer journey map with an end-result in mind … and recognize there will be detours and bumps in the road … all of which are much easier to navigate if you keep the end in mind.
Help your customers imagine a different future and draw them into its creation.
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.
