Rationalising communications and integrated billing

Ger Connery discusses Sentel’s mobile management bill back solution – used by some of Northern Ireland’s top organisations.

Mobile devices in the workplace are as commonplace as coffee. Trying to manage an organisation full of devices is a tough job. Is it time to call in the experts?

Companies can save as much as a third on their mobile bill through outsourcing the management process to Sentel. To take one example, a large, multi-national company with a fleet of some 3,000 mobile phones – in just one year – realised savings of £1.4 million. Through careful analysis, major reductions were achieved on call spend, private call spend recoup, redundant lines and billing.

We have not yet come across an organisation where Sentel was unable to demonstrate a significant improvement in existing management controls. Without a centralised view, achieving accurate and timely information, it can seem an impossible task. There are many levels of spend that have to be monitored as well as hand set distribution, redundant phones analysis, call charging, personal usage and VAT and text messages – the list goes on.

Another example of Sentel’s mobile work involves the Business Services Organisation (BSO). Following a period of transformation and the implementation of new Finance and HR systems, BSO found it a natural step to look to the mobile estate and implement a mobile communications solution.

After a competitive tendering process, Sentel secured the contract and implemented a rationalisation process towards the end of 2014 along with a bespoke billing solution to generate savings.

“Mobile comms are a large cost for most organisations and they have become increasingly complex to manage effectively,” comments Paddy Anderson, BSO’s Director of Finance. “The opportunity to optimise how we monitor and control the mobile estate was very attractive to BSO. Getting value for money is critical to us and Sentel helped us on many levels such as mobile spend analysis, carrier contract analysis, redundant phones, call charging, SMS data usage, personal usage, integrating with our payroll system etc.”

Sentel created a platform where all staff within the organisation issued mobile phones, logged on to its portal and allocated their calls, whether personal or business-approved. The user then submits their bill which follows an invoicing approvals workflow. Our platform then locks all submissions once completed and integrates with SAP to create a VAT audit trail.

We also gave live access to the individual managers so they could log in and access their own management reports on usage and spend. Our service team customised and created bespoke reports based on BSO’s specific KPIs. These reports were then scheduled and are emailed daily directly to the managers.

BSO now has a better understanding of its mobile estate in terms of zero usage handsets and individual levels of cost. BSO also uses the information generated by Sentel’s solution to recharge cost centres within their organisation as well as collecting vital statistics on call volume and handling across departments. The organisation is using Callmanager Pro to track and manage its calls and inventory on a daily basis. Sentel continues to provide BSO with ongoing maintenance, telephone and on-site support along with free training and free software updates.

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15 McKibbin House
Eastbank Road
Carryduff, Belfast, BT8 8BD
Tel: 028 9081 5555
Email: sales@sentel.co.uk
Web: www.sentel.co.uk