Telecom Expense Management and Call Accounting Technology!
Are You Satisfying Your #1 Customer?
Employees are in the driver's seat these days. And not that you need a reminder, but they are your end users. And one of your most important customers. Are you doing all you can to make them happy? Here are a few stats you may find interesting:
- 46% of the workforce is relocating because they can now work remotely (Microsoft Work Trends Index)
- 42% say they lack essential office supplies/support at home. (Microsoft Work Trends Index)
- 35% would be more likely to search for a new job if they were required to return to the office full time. (Qualtrics Survey)
- Employees are 230% more engaged in their jobs if they feel they have technology that supports them at work. (Qualtrics Survey)
- 85% are more likely to stay with a company beyond 3 years if they have the technology that supports them at work. (Qualtrics Survey)
This puts IT in a central role as management accelerates efforts to fill staffing gaps and meet new demands. Which brings to mind an important question. Where do you fit within your organization's strategic plan to attract and retain talent? What should you be doing that you aren't doing now?
Here are five areas that you need to organize and tackle now to meet the needs of your end users. How many have you got covered?Network Now, more than ever, your backbone should be strong enough to support a hybrid work environment and, at a minimum, should include a VPN to ensure a secure communications channel and VoIP, which enables employees to access any calls coming in through the main corporate number on their mobile phones. Make sure your data back-up systems are doing the job as well. Having a secondary back-up methodology is a better idea.
Security We’ve written about the unprecedented exposure to hackers these days and the damage caused to organizations in the form of both monetary and productivity loss. We can’t over-emphasize the importance of protecting on-site and remote systems and networks from hackers.
Support/management That means laptops, tablets, printers, and headsets which ideally should be purchased, pre-loaded (when applicable) and maintained by your IT department.
Communications/collaboration Whether it’s Zoom, MS Teams, SharePoint, Slack, Asana, GoTo Meeting or any of the dozens of platforms and applications out there, standardize and make sure your users are trained. Otherwise, they’ll take matters into their own hands. They lose your support and you lose control. That’s a dangerous combination.
Expense management Technology costs. Not only in the acquisition but in the ongoing maintenance. Now more than ever you need a centralized way to keep track of invoices, contracts and services. If you haven’t used a TEM (Technology Expense Management) system yet, now is the time to get one. They typically save companies hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on their telecom spend.
If you are running an IT department there is a lot on your plate right now. It's time to embrace your challenges by creating a checklist and tackling it head on. This is no time to pull back or try to wait out the work from home trend. It's here to stay. By taking charge of your department, you will be securing your spot at the big table. Let us know how we can help.
About TeleManagement Technologies, Inc.
Since 1987, TTI has been designing software products that provide a better solution to managing corporate technology, inventory, expenses and services. For more information, visit www.telmantec.com.
