Session Title

State of the TEIM Market 2008: The Forrester Report

Lisa Pierce
Vice President
Principal Analyst
Forrester Research

There are literally hundreds of companies that claim to be telecom expense and inventory management (TEIM) suppliers, offering products and services designed to save money and improve ongoing operational efficiencies. Many are attempting to gain better market share by refining their portfolios and expanding their offerings. But beware. The TEIM industry looks to be highly volatile for the next three to five years. It’s essential your enterprise perform proper due diligence before agreeing to any extensive relationships. Benefit from the evaluation criteria developed and used by telecom research giant. And discover what our highly respected analyst, with 20 years of experience in leading-edge, enterprise-class telecom services, learned when she talked with 17 of TEIM’s most prominent providers.

Making the Case for TEM Before & After Implementation: 8 Challenges Overcome

Welcome to Artie Graham’s world. Working with a TEM vendor and a team of 30 communications technology veterans deployed globally, this 23-year telecom professional has led efforts to reduce Bloomberg’s nine-figure annual telecom spend by more than 10% even while its network bandwidth was expanding by 100%. But such TEM-related success doesn’t come without its challenges. To get management buy in you need a thorough ROI analysis, SMART goals and a plan delivered in the language your CEO, CFO and/or CIO speak. You need buy in from support groups. You’ve got to figure out your accounting structure and how to tie it together with your TEM-related charges/payments. How is Graham’s team tackling these and other challenges? Find out by attending this can’t-miss presentation.

TEM RFPs, SLAs, Ts & Cs

Would you give your TEM vendor the power to raise its prices in the middle of a contract if your demand set increased? Are you prepared to have already overworked employees spend several weeks working on a TEM transition that you thought the vendor was supposed to handle? These are just a few of the ways your enterprise could get burned by a weak agreement with a TEM firm, and there are dozens more. Just as you wouldn’t enter a big-dollar relationship with a carrier for mission-critical services without first going through an extensive RFP process or a rock-solid contract, neither should you with a TEM vendor. Benefit from the extensive experience gained by telecom’s leading law firm. Our presenter will share the 3 SLAs he requires in practically every TEM deal and 5 vendor clauses he routinely advises his clients to reject.

All Aboard the TEM Express: 6 Practices to Stay on Track, Save Money

Head straight to big telecom savings with no stops along the way. Get the results of TEM firm MBG’s 400-enterprise study, which identifies the six most important elements of a successful TEM deployment and the percentage of your peers taking the right steps. Then hear how Rocky Perkins, a 28-year telecom pro at one of the nation’s largest transportation companies, accomplished each of these tasks over a three-year period to find $1 million in one-time telecom savings and another $700,000 annually.

What To Do About TEM As the Wireless World Turns Upside Down

The 700-MHz auction, Google’s plan to generate revenue from mobile advertising, the opening of Verizon Wireless’ network, the explosion of e-mail-equipped smart devices, the movement toward one worldwide wireless standard… What’s the wireless TEM world going to look like after all of these changes, and what strategic steps should your enterprise be taking right now? Listen to what highly regarded, 14-year wireless industry expert Michael Voellinger has to say. His firm has managed telecom spend for 35% of the world’s Fortune 500 companies, and nobody is following the evolution of the wireless market more closely.

How EDS Solves the International TEM Conundrum

You told us at the last TEM Summit that you needed help managing international telecom expenses. As one of the world’s largest technology outsourcing vendors, EDS promises its global enterprise clients material yearly savings — a task that’s nearly impossible without containing international communication costs. Additionally, the $22 billion, Plano, Texas-based company employs its own workforce of 130,000 employees living and communicating internationally. That’s why EDS took nearly all of 2007 to identify international telecom expense-reducing strategies and submitted RFIs to 17 TEM companies, sending comprehensive RFPs to six finalists.

Creating a TEM Center

Leading a successful TEM effort is a big enough task for any communication technology manager without the added challenge of doing it for an enterprise with a decentralized budget. But that’s just what Brenda Adkisson recently did for a Fortune-100 health care company, slashing her enterprise’s annual telecom spend by more than $22 million – a 34% reduction! Discover how our 20-year telecom and finance pro collected telecom inventory from all of her enterprises’ 300+ locations and transformed her enterprise’s multitude of carrier invoices into one standard platform.

Don’t be fooled by carriers telling you that Sarbanes Oxley is an excuse for further delaying your reimbursement of incorrect charges. Discover channels to receiving compensation while you wait. Verizon’s former Executive Director of Enterprise Billing returns this year to deliver additional strategies for obtaining better service. Arocho, a former 20-year telecom billing veteran who turned independent consultant just a year ago, knows the carrier culture and where the likelihood of mistakes exist on your bills. You’ll leave this session with the ability to eliminate unnecessary charges, resolve invoice disputes more quickly and make the changes necessary at your enterprise to reduce telecom billing-related hassles as well as costs.

The Power of E-Bonding

TEM providers continue to line up at Verizon Business since the carrier opened its TEM partnership program in late 2006. The big attraction: e-Bonding. It gives enterprises the ability to automate order management, get current (rather than 40-day-old) pictures of their inventory and more quickly identify bad provisioning. There are also “access configuration reports,” which give enterprises the ability to better identify excess capacity in existing lines before purchasing more inventory. Attend this session to see what’s involved in signing up for Verizon Business’s e-Bonding service, the pitfalls to avoid, and take home the questions you should be asking your TEM vendor.

e-Bonding is just one way that enterprises are leveraging state-of-the-art technology to drive exceptional telecom deals and improve their TEM approach. Attend this session to learn how our presenter’s firm has involved reverse auctions and other e-sourcing platforms in more than 20 deals over the past two years to cut time off of the procurement process while creating a more competitive vendor environment. He’ll share the pitfalls and lessons learned, such as carriers not making realistic bids and when a reverse auction isn’t your best approach.