Taco Timeout!

Just a quick timeout from telecom to brag about some culinary accomplishments for a good cause. VDLc joined forces with our good friends at El Toro Barbecue last weekend to compete in the First Annual AZ Taco Festival & Competition. The all day event benefited Waste Not Arizona and featured live music, lucha libre wrestling, a tequila expo, a kid fun zone, a pepper eating contest and more. Thousands were in attendance.

I’m very proud to say our chicken taco tied for 1st place and we took 7^th overall! Considering we competed against some very good restaurants, it’s something to brag about.

Thanks to Sherri and Colin at El Toro Barbecue for including us, to KNCH Law Firm for sponsoring the team, and of course the festival organizers for a great event that benefits a great cause. Can’t wait to do it again next year!

http://www.eltorobbq.com/ • http://www.knchlaw.com/en/ • http://www.wastenotaz.org/

Video Post: TEM Superhero

Well, I thought I'd try something different to lighten things up. This is a typical conversation between a TEM consultant like me and a prospective client. It addresses common questions and misconceptions about what we do. I hope you find it informative and a bit humorous...

VOIP Basics: PVOIP vs. IVOIP

I attended a great presentation on VOIP* this week by James Gillespie, an industry expert and senior engineer with Trans-West Network Solutions (twns.com). He discussed a misunderstanding about VOIP services that I think explains why some people are scared away from the technology. These are my own acronyms, but his point was that there are two very different types of VOIP:

• Private VOIP (PVOIP): VOIP over private connection (WAN connectivity).
• Internet VOIP (IVOIP): VOIP over internet connection (public internet).

The key issue is latency (transmission delay), the enemy of VOIP. High latency causes poor quality voice calls. With PVOIP, you have your own private connection you can control to eliminate latency – calls don’t traverse the public internet. IVOIP calls do traverse the internet and, because it is public, nobody can control it. So when it’s crowded, there are traffic jams, i.e., latency. It’s like BMW trying to test cars on the autobahn rather than a test track. The autobahn is generally ok, but other cars are likely to get in the way at some point. On a private test track BMW has total control of the road and so can go as fast as they want.

Services like Vonage and Skype use IVOIP. These calls are sometimes poor quality because of latency that occurs on the internet. I think when people have one of these bad IVOIP calls, they get scared away from PVOIP because they assume it’s the same as IVOIP. Truth is, a properly designed PVOIP service consistently provides calls that are as clear as traditional voice services.

If you are considering VOIP, the key is to understand which service you are being offered, and then choose the one that meets your needs. IVOIP is more suitable for personal use where poor call quality might be tolerable. For most businesses, call quality is important, so PVOIP is a better solution.

* What is VOIP? It stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol, which really just means transmitting voice digitally, as opposed to analog. It’s CDs vs. vinyl records. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voip

4 Year Slam!

While auditing a phone bill recently for a new client, I discovered they had been slammed by an LD carrier (slamming is when your LD carrier is changed without your permission). As is typical, this carrier was charging very high rates. Normally I could get a refund for the client, but in researching the situation I discovered the slam had occurred four years ago. Four YEARS. That’s a long time to be overcharged for something without noticing. Since the FCC (Title 47, Sectn. 64) only requires carriers to retain authorization records for 2 years, the client could not get a refund.

In my client’s defense, it was well buried in the bill, but the point is this: Don’t get ripped off. You need to read your phone bills. Scrutinize every line on every page. If you see something you don’t understand, call the carrier and ask. Don’t stop asking until you are confident that you know what everything is and that you are paying what you should for it.

An easy way to validate a bill each month is to simply identify what the total monthly charge should be each month. Take a bill for any month you know to be correct. Subtract from the Total Current Charges any usage-based charges (like LD) and all Taxes and Surcharges. This is the portion of your bill that should be fixed month to month. Do this calculation every month to ensure the fixed portion doesn’t change. Thoroughly validating usage can be involved, but you can at least validate the rates being charged. Validate Taxes and Surcharges by ensuring they remain a consistent percentage of fixed plus usage charges.

DIY Telecom Cost Reduction?

Most companies are looking to cut costs these days. Telecom services are one area rife with savings opportunities. Stats show the average company can reduce costs by 1% of revenue. But before you embark on a hunt for savings, consider whether you should DIY or hire a consultant (a TEM or Telecom Optimization consultant).

First, be realistic about whether you really have the time/resources. Steven Covey would define a TEM project as “important” but “not urgent”, so it will tend to take a back seat to anything remotely urgent. This has a cost - every month of delay is another month of over-payment.

Second, do you have the expertise to wring the maximum savings out of the effort? This is the tougher question because you don’t know what you don’t know. I would just say, keep in mind there’s a reason why a billion dollar TEM industry exists, i.e., it requires expertise.

These formulas will help you think through it and analyze the costs:

DIY Cost =
+ Your Staff’s Hrs (time learning TEM, planning, executing)
+ Opportunity Cost (of delaying other projects in favor of TEM)
+ Un-captured Savings (due to lack of TEM expertise)
+ Cost of Delay (delayed start & longer duration will delay savings capture)
+ Financial Risk (potential for costs to exceed savings)

Consultant Cost =
+ Your Staff’s Hrs (time supporting the consultant - a small fraction of DIY staff hrs)
+ Share of Savings (consultant contingency fee)
Note:
o No Opportunity Cost (other projects not impacted)
o All savings opportunities will be captured
o No Cost of Delay (shorter project duration yields savings sooner)
o No Financial Risk (no fees unless there are savings)

In short, telecom consultants have the time and expertise required while eliminating any financial downside. However, if you happen to have the expertise on staff and that person has the time, it may indeed make sense to DIY. The key, of course, is to be realistic when evaluating the various factors.

Note: Wondering about ROI? Assume savings of 10-30% of your total telecom spend, keeping it the same for both the DIY and the Consultant scenarios – the savings will likely be lower for DIY, but that difference is accounted for in the cost equation.

Smartphone Security Risk?

I don’t meet many managers who think much about security when it comes to mobile devices. Here’s an example to illustrate why they should: Jane keeps her passwords on her Blackberry. Jane picks up some malware while surfing the mobile web. Jane’s passwords are now compromised, one of which is for your company network. Now your company network is compromised.

Keeping your Paypal password on your cell phone? Mobile phone security is something to think about personally, as well.

A good article with more info: http://tinyurl.com/22tlamc The company it mentions, SMobile, has solutions for both business and personal use. If you know of other good companies, please email me or post a Comment.

Mark

6 Key Questions re. Telecom Cost Mgt.

There is something about telecom that just causes it to not be managed well. Based on my experience, I estimate that 90% of medium sized companies and 95% of small companies mismanage, or should I say, don’t manage their telecom costs. I’m not exaggerating here. I talk to managers of all kinds all the time and I can’t remember one ever saying their company did a good job at it. People usually concede, “yes, we don’t REALLY know what we have and what we’re paying for”.

The reasons, I presume, are simply that nobody in the business has the knowledge or time to deal with it. Add to this the perception that there’s not a lot of money at stake and you have the formula for complacency. I get it. But what businesses need to understand is there is more money at stake than they realize. My clients are routinely surprised when they learn what they actually spend (yes, many businesses don’t know what they are actually spending).

So if you are concerned at all about the cost, there is a way to know how well it’s being managed without a lot of knowledge or spending much time. Ask the person currently responsible for telecom the following six questions. Common sense will tell you if their answers make sense. If they don’t, there are plenty of consultants out there (such as me) with knowledge and time who are happy to help:

1. What is the process for approving invoices and how do we ensure that everything on our bills is understood and billed at our contracted rates?

2. What is the process to track contract renewal dates and how does it ensure contracts won’t auto-renew unintentionally?

3. Do we maintain an inventory of services and track specifically what and who each individual line is for? Provide a sample of the inventory and a brief explanation of how it’s kept current.

4. Have we verified that all billed services are physically present and working? How did we do this and when?

5. Have we reviewed the number of lines we need relative to our business needs and eliminated any surplus? How did we do this and when?

6. Although current pricing may be contractually locked-in, do we know how competitive our rates are and what our plans are for when contracts end?

A worksheet with these questions can also be found at: www.VDLconsulting.com/Library

Mark