Staying Connected

When negotiating ICT deals, terms to address billing reviews and audit rights are often overlooked by enterprise buyers.  Yet, telecom billing is fraught with errors, and failing to include adequate time frames for disputing charges and auditing invoices could prevent you from recovering your money.

In this second part of our two-part podcast series, Theresa Knutson and Julie Gardner, leaders of TC2’s contract compliance and optimization practice, along with TC2’s Joe Schmidt, highlight some of the key contract provisions you need to facilitate billing disputes and audits to reclaim what you’re owed.

In this 7 minute podcast, Theresa Knutson and Julie Gardner, leaders of TC2’s contract compliance and optimization practice, discuss with TC2’s Joe Schmidt the contract terms that you can negotiate to help you save some money on your ICT services. 

This is part one of a two-part podcast series and in it, Theresa and Julie reveal contract terms that clients should seek to include in every carrier agreement.  These provisions include, how to stop billing commencement when only some of a service’s components are installed, how to prevent billing overlap, and how to deal with incomplete service disconnections.

On November 19, Calero and MDSL, two pretty significant Telecom Expense Management (TEM) companies, announced plans to merge.  The deal is being led by Oak Hill and Riverside Partners and is expected to close in late Q4 of this year or early Q1 of 2020.

Listen to this 6 minute podcast as TC2 Project Directors Theresa Knutson and Joe Schmidt discuss how this merger will reduce the number of pure play suppliers that deliver TEM services on a global scale from seven to six and what you need to consider if you’re a Calero or MDSL customer or looking to buy TEM services.

In this podcast, TC2’s Theresa Knutson and Julie Gardner, leaders of TC2’s contract compliance and optimization practice, continue their discussion with Joe Schmidt about some common problems and opportunities enterprises face with network transport expenses.

Listen to this 9 minute podcast as Theresa and Julie describe how billing disputes are taking longer to resolve, why transformation projects may cost you more if you don’t disconnect legacy services, and they offer some tips to help enterprises better manage network transport expenses.

Enterprises face many increasingly complex issues trying to manage network transport expenses.  The issues range from how to process credits, dispute charges, and manage internal Telecom Expense Management and Accounts Payable processes, and as service providers slash account teams the responsibility for resolving these issues has been pushed back to the enterprise. 

Listen to this 6 minute podcast, as Theresa Knutson and Julie Gardner, leaders of TC2’s contract compliance and optimization practice, discuss with Joe Schmidt how using a billing credit has become more difficult and what you can do to address the problem.

In part two of our podcast about optimizing the end-user experience, we take a look at the possible tools, technologies, and services that are now available to this end.  In particular, we examine the use of Cloud-Exchange service providers and Infrastructure Management solutions in the enterprise.

Listen to this 8 minute podcast as TC2’s David Lee and Joe Schmidt continue their discussion and highlight how Cloud-Exchange providers offer access to a variety of cloud service providers and deliver low latency that improves application performance, while Infrastructure Management solutions provide end-to-end cloud visibility and diagnostic capability.

IoT, or the Internet of Things, is an ecosystem of sensors, monitors, and smart devices that collect and share data wirelessly, without human intervention.  But IoT could also be an acronym for the Interdependence of Transactions because the IoT ecosystem involves numerous individual components that have to work together.

Listen to this 7 minute podcast as LB3 Partner Deb Boehling and TC2’s Joe Schmidt review the components of an IoT solution and discuss some of the factors an enterprise needs to consider when buying and negotiating a contract for an IoT solution.

An important question IT organizations have to ask when evaluating their network and ICT needs is - Should I outsource or am I better off doing it in-house?  Like so many questions with technology, the answer is … it depends.

Listen to this 9 minute podcast as TC2 Managing Director Ben Fox and Project Director Joe Schmidt provide their perspectives on the current state of play of IT outsourcing and managed services.  You’ll hear how enterprises balance the need for cost savings with the desire to receive best-in-class vendor support that integrates with internal service management procedures and tools.

With the rapid proliferation of cloud-based apps and use of cloud-based SaaS and UC solutions, optimizing the end-user experience in your enterprise can be a significant challenge. Corporate users expect the same fast and reliable experience every time they access company resources, regardless of where they are or how they access the network.

Listen to this 9 minute podcast as TC2’s David Lee and Joe Schmidt discuss how the cloud, 5G, and changing network traffic dynamics are forcing CIOs to think differently and adopt a new approach for building and managing their network services.

Enterprises often face a difficult choice – keep my incumbent supplier or migrate services to another provider.  Change can be risky and your incumbent provider knows it.  But sometimes, it makes sense to make a transition.  

Maybe your company is contemplating a network transformation, or you’re dissatisfied with the current supplier relationship, or perhaps your costs are just not competitive. 

Listen to this 10 minute podcast as TC2 Project Directors Pat Gilpatrick, Tony Mangino, and Joe Schmidt examine when a supplier transition makes sense.