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November 12, 2009
Wireless Expense Management: Mobile Workforce Helps Companies Do More With Less
Due to the weakened economy, organizations have made 2009 the year of increasing efficiencies throughout the enterprise. The mobile workforce is an example of how organizations can do more with less.
An Aberdeen (News - Alert) Report from earlier this year showed that organizations increased their level of mobility spend even as their overall IT budgets decreased because of the productivity gains realized through effective mobility deployments.
“An increasingly mobile workforce is a reality. Data traffic carried over wireless carrier networks using smartphones, Blackberrys and broadband data cards is a major news item this year for enterprise mobility,” said Erik Eames, managing director of Danvers, Mass.-based Wireless Analytics
While IT budgets shrink, mobility spending is still strong. This means that spending on mobility represents an ever-growing share of the total IT budget.
“Enterprise productivity gains are impressive and come at a decreasing cost as technology improves, bandwidth grows and the wireless industry remains hyper-competitive,” Eames said. “For example, the cost to carry a Blackberry with unlimited e-mail, data and 1,000 voice minutes was approximately 20 percent higher just three years ago. So, if enterprise mobility spending is up, despite the fact that the ‘cost per minute’ or ‘cost per kilobyte’ is dropping, then the growth is even more significant than it looks in just dollars.”
And – according to Eames – what that means is the amount of activity surrounding enterprise mobility is enormous.
“More devices, applications, hardware, tracking, support are all needed in order to ensure that the productivity gains are realized,” he said. “But sometimes, the anticipated efficiencies that look good on a proposal from a vendor, or on a spreadsheet from the sourcing department, can prove to be unrealized if not managed properly.”
Wireless expense management plays a key factor not only in an organizations quest for reducing costs, but also in an organizations need to manage the process.
Outsourcing just invoice management or optimization services misses half of the battle. For example, Wireless Analytics offers wireless expense management services along with procurement, inventory and visibility tools. But, the company also offers fully outsourced wireless help desk support so the headcount and internal resources needed to manage the growing mobility workforce.
“It is the full-service holistic approach to total wireless management that will yield the highest productivity gains in today’s enterprise environments,” Eames said.
Erin Harrison is a senior editor with TMCnet, primarily covering telecom expense management, politics and technology and Web 2.0. She serves as senior editor for TMC's (News - Alert) print publications, including "Internet Telephony", "Customer Interaction Solutions", "Unified Communications" and "NGN" magazines. Erin also oversees production of TMCnet's weekly iPhone (News - Alert) e-Newsletter. To read more of Erin's articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Erin Harrison
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