Staying Connected

Last month, Verizon announced that they are targeting to reduce their workforce by as much as 25% by offering a voluntary severance package - that’s about 44,000 employees.  Verizon also hopes to transfer thousands of employees to Indian outsourcer Infosys.  This significant reduction in workforce will surely have some impact on enterprise customers that rely on network services from Verizon.  

Listen to this 10 minute podcast as TC2’s Brent Knight and Bryan Carriker, who each spent more than a decade working at Verizon before joining TC2, share their industry perspective with Joe Schmidt.

Historically, resolving billing issues with service providers used to take a few months and were handled directly by an enterprise’s assigned account team.  The account teams knew you, knew your company, and most importantly, knew your specific contract terms and conditions.  

But things have changed.  Today that timeframe has grown to anywhere from six months to two years or longer depending upon the size and nature of the dispute.  Service providers now require multiple levels of approval before anything can be resolved, especially if you have issues of significant size.

Listen to this 14 minute podcast as Theresa Knutson and Julie Gardner, leaders of TC2’s contract compliance and optimization practice, discuss with Joe Schmidt how changes in service provider billing dispute processes are affecting enterprises and what you can do about it.

It’s surprising, but big cost savings continue to be available by optimizing U.S. wireless rate plans, features, and other services.  As rate plans have changed, the days of optimizing voice pools have given way to analyzing data pools, international roaming plans, and the numerous add-ons and features that drive up a wireless subscriber’s costs.

Listen to this 8 minute podcast as TC2’s Kim Olson and Ben Fox discuss with Joe Schmidt why wireless optimization continues to be a necessary activity.  Kim and Ben highlight areas of focus that will save enterprises big money and describe steps you can take to make optimization easier and less of a burden.

One of the most hotly contested subjects when negotiating telecom and IT master agreements is a service provider’s obligations to protect its customer’s data, particularly highly sensitive data like Personally Identifiable Information, or “PII.”  Stakes are high, as seen by the Equifax breach or the SONY hack, so these issues are particularly challenging for both providers and customers.

Listen to this 12 minute podcast as Kevin DiLallo, a Senior Partner at LB3, and Sara Crifasi, an LB3 Associate, discuss with TC2’s Joe Schmidt the importance of understanding what an enterprise really needs, what risks its data is facing, and what a reasonable and fair allocation of responsibility to the service provider would be.  

In this final installment in our Staying Connected series "Staying Ahead of the Demand for Network Cost Savings," we discuss the value and benefits that enterprises realize by engaging outside help for their cost reduction efforts.

Listen to this 12 minute podcast as Jack Deal, one of TC2's Managing Directors, and Laura McDonald, a partner with LB3, discuss with TC2's Joe Schmidt how enterprises gain access to specialized skills and expertise, engage additional resources to enable and accelerate strategic projects, gain access to unique market information and tools, and so much more by engaging outside experts.

The “Internet of Things”, or IoT, is the newest term for machine-to-machine service, which once was known as “telemetry.”  Regardless of the name, it refers to the use of wireless data service to communicate automatically, without human intervention.  While private and commercial Internet of Things solutions are being used today in many industries, including utilities, critical infrastructure, and healthcare, is it ready for prime time in the enterprise?

Listen to this 14 minute podcast as two of LB3’s Senior Attorneys, Jeff Sheldon and Kevin DiLallo, discuss with TC2’s Joe Schmidt the key operational, commercial, and legal considerations of deploying an IoT solution in the enterprise.

Telecom Expense Management (TEM) services are a valuable tool that touches all aspects of an enterprise’s telecommunications lifecycle.  While TEM traditionally meant telecommunications only, it is emerging as a platform that encompasses other IT services and technology such as managed services, maintenance, hosting, and cloud services.  

Listen to this 12 minute podcast as TC2 Project Director Theresa Knutson and LB3 Partner Steve Rosen discuss with TC2’s Joe Schmidt why buying TEM services should be approached in the same way you purchase other technology services - including doing market research and then competitively sourcing the services in order to get the best deal.

Continual optimization of the services you purchase and diligent reviews of your network bills are critical processes for keeping your network costs as low as they can be.  TEM services play a role, but are only part of the solution for the complex deals and diverse range of network services that large enterprises have in place.

Listen to this 15 minute podcast as two of TC2's experts in this area, Project Director Theresa Knutson and Senior Consultant Julie Gardner, discuss with Joe Schmidt some best practices for undertaking service optimizations and deep dive billing audits.  Theresa and Julie provide real world audit and optimization examples that have saved TC2 clients millions of dollars, and they also share several audit and optimization tips that your company can use to improve its bottom line.

Contract compliance and the continual optimization of the telecom services you purchase are critical processes for keeping an enterprise's network costs as low as they can be.  In many large companies, the strategies for these functions include the use of telecom expense management (TEM) services.  However, these TEM services should be only part of your toolkit, and need to be combined with a range of other activities and processes.

Listen to this 10 minute podcast as TC2's Theresa Knutson, a Project Director, and Senior Consultant Bryan Carriker, discuss with Joe Schmidt some of the cost management functions that should be integrated with TEM services to make them the most effective.

Enterprise customers are eager to lock in cost savings from wide scale deployment of broadband connection in their Wide Area Networks.  As a result, purchasing access connections from broadband aggregators is quickly growing in popularity as a network sourcing strategy, going hand in hand with deployment of SD-WAN solutions.  Broadband aggregation isn't new, but a new generation of providers has changed the aggregation market in ways that open real opportunities for enterprise customers.

Listen to this 9 minute podcast as TC2 Project Director Tony Mangino and Andrew Brown, Managing Partner of LB3 and Chairman of TC2, discuss broadband aggregation with TC2's Joe Schmidt.  They reveal the benefits of broadband aggregation and explain how to effectively include broadband aggregation in your overall network sourcing strategy.