01 Jan 1970
Are you noticing your mobile telecom costs creeping higher each month? Struggling to keep track of which employee has which device, or lacking visibility of usage and unsure if you are being billed correctly? A well-timed mobile fleet telecom audit can bring clarity, savings, and efficiency to your business.
Managing a mobile fleet can be overwhelming, especially when you’re trying to keep costs down and ensure smooth operations.
By knowing exactly when to perform an audit, you can keep your mobile fleet running smoothly and cost-effectively.
In this article, you’ll learn five key times when undertaking a mobile fleet telecom audit is essential. By the end, you’ll have a clear understanding of how to optimise your mobile fleet management and save your company money.
There are at least five issues that demand a mobile fleet audit. Let's get straight into the list.
#1. When telecommunications costs are increasing
If you've noticed your monthly telecom bills increasing, it’s time to take a closer look.
The most common causes of rising costs are misaligned plans, increases in usage, or billing errors.
It is easy for plans to become misaligned. Employees can be assigned a more expensive plan with inclusions they don't need or don't use. Alternatively, they may have a lower priced plan and then attract charges for items that are not included.
If your usage is increasing but your number of users is not, you may also have an issue. This could be related to unauthorised usage like streaming services or international IDD calls. It could be international roaming charges, or a change in job roles equating to a need for more data.
Finally, carrier billing errors are more common than you might think and difficult to catch. In 2023, Telstra was slapped with a $3 million fine for 11 years' of billing errors, while in 2021 Optus had to refund 994 small businesses for charging for services they did not receive. Perhaps you are not being charged at the rates you negotiated or being charged for something you have not received.
Conducting a mobile fleet telecom audit in this scenario can uncover hidden issues and provide a pathway to significant cost savings.
Scenario:
A logistics company with 200 employees observed a steady increase in their telecom expenses over six months. Despite having a fixed number of devices, their monthly bills had increased by 15%. They decided to perform a mobile fleet audit and discovered that they were being charged for multiple mobile services with zero usage. Additionally, they found some employees were subscribed to unauthorised premium services and others had incurred international call charges. By cancelling the redundant services, managing end user behaviour and barring international calls, the company reduced their monthly telecom costs by 20%.
#2. Before Contract Renewals with Telecom Providers
Contract renewals are a crucial time to perform a mobile fleet telecom audit. Telecom contracts are often complex, with various fees, rates, and service levels that can be challenging to understand. Without a clear picture of your current usage and needs, you risk overpaying for services you don't use or need.
An audit allows you to gain detailed insights into your mobile fleet's actual usage, identify any inefficiencies, and negotiate better terms that align with your business goals. This proactive approach ensures you avoid unnecessary costs and secure a contract that truly meets your operational requirements.
Scenario:
Your contract with your current provider is up for renewal, and you’re unsure if you’re getting the best deal. You are also considering going to market to compare offers from other carriers. You decide to conduct a telecom audit to get a clear picture of your usage and requirements. Through the audit, you uncover that you’ve been paying for far more data than is needed. Some employees use a large amount of data, but many more are not using much data at all. You could move some employees to a lower data plan and the data pool would still exceed your needs. You also identify several services included in the contract that your business doesn’t need. Armed with the knowledge of your specific usage patterns and eliminating unnecessary services, you are in a far better position to begin negotiations or design an RFQ.
#3. Before Upgrading Your Mobile Fleet
It is not uncommon for organisations to be unsure who has what devices. The continuous turnover of personnel and devices can quickly make a mess of your asset inventory register. Unless you have a robust process to update your asset register as changes occur, it will not take long for inefficiencies to creep in.
An audit can help you understand the make-up of your device portfolio. You can identify phones that are out of warranty or no longer supported by the manufacturer. You will discover devices that are unassigned to an owner and likely sitting in a drawer or worse have left the business.
You can benchmark the average lifespan of your devices and decide whether it would be more cost-effective to upgrade in bulk or drip-feed the upgrade a few devices at a time.
Before making significant changes to your mobile fleet, a device audit will ensure you make informed decisions that align with your actual needs and avoid unnecessary expenses.
Scenario:
A marketing firm planned to a bulk upgrade of their mobile devices. By performing an fleet audit before making any changes, they discovered a number of devices that were not assigned to a specific owner, and others devices that did not appear to be in use or were under-utilised. They also identified specific usage patterns for different types of employees such engineers sending large data files, field staff taking and sending video, and sales staff having high voice usage. As a result, they were able to tailor their device upgrade plan to fit actual usage patterns - not everyone needed the latest iPhone. They were able to reduce the total number of devices procured, saving 15% on new device costs.
#4: When Lacking Visibility into Usage
Visibility of usage keeps everyone honest.
If you don’t have a clear picture of your telecom usage, you will likely be overspending on services you don’t need.
It can, however, be challenging to track and manage telecom usage effectively. Without software to consolidate your carrier billing and deliver specific reporting, it is nigh impossible to wade through the terabytes of carrier billing data and gain an accurate understanding of usage.
A mobile fleet audit will provide a detailed breakdown of your telecom usage, highlighting areas where you can cut costs and improve efficiency.
You might discover data overages, or plans that don't fit your needs. Often you will discover unauthorised use like streaming services, gambling or premium subscriptions. Worse, and most common, you will find services with no usage at all!
With a clear view of your usage patterns, you can , adjust your plans, clarify unauthorised usage to employees, and make informed decisions about future usage
Gaining visibility into your usage also helps you plan for the future, ensuring that your telecom infrastructure supports your business without unnecessary expenses. It’s a proactive step to streamline operations and save money.
Scenario:
You are budgeting for the next year and need to account for any increase in your mobile fleet expenditure. You want to avoid any bill shock due to unexpected increases in usage. Going back over your monthly bills, you can see that usage has been tracking higher over the previous year but you are not sure why. Staff numbers have not increased and there has been minimal growth in the number of new connections. You decide to undertake a mobile fleet audit with particular emphasis on consumption of data, IDD, roaming, applications and other usage. The audit shows that 10 users are accounting for most of the growth in usage. All of the users are from the same cost centre and have gotten into the habit of streaming and sharing video content amongst the group. You also notice an increase in calls being made to overseas numbers. Now you know why data is increasing you can address the issue at source by raising awareness with employees and introducing data usage guidelines.
#5. Periodically, to Maintain Optimal Cost Control
Regularly conducting a mobile fleet telecom audit is essential to keep your fleet optimised and ensure you are not paying for inefficiencies in your telecom operations,
It used to be that most organisations completed a mobile fleet audit every second year when their carrier contract came up for renewal, however the introduction of no-lock-in, month-to-month contracts has disrupted this cadence.
By periodically reviewing your telecom usage, carrier billing, and device inventory, you can stay ahead of potential issues, ensure your services are always aligned with your business needs, and prevent unnecessary expenses from creeping up over time.
Scenario:
One of MobileCorp's clients decided to implement a mobile fleet audit prior to re-negotiating with their telco provider. Across the 8,000 strong fleet it was discovered that 200 services had incurred no usage in the previous six months. Cancelling these services provided a saving of $151,000 over a 12-month period. Two years later, a second mobile audit was carried out and uncovered a further 98 services with no usage. Cancelling these services meant a saving of $74,000 over 12-months. The client took these insights and established a process for checking for no usage devices on a monthly basis.
What are the key benefits of a Mobile Fleet Audit?
The true value of a mobile fleet audit is transparency.
An audit will apply a microscope to the corporate mobile fleet to identify cost control, cost saving, and productivity opportunities.
Almost universally, a mobile fleet audit will return a positive return on investment.
Key outcomes:
- You gain control over your expenditure and eliminate unnecessary costs.
- You make informed decisions about device upgrades and telco provider changes.
- You secure the best possible terms during Contract renewals.
- You know who has what device and uncover any unassigned devices.
- You understand what the current usage is andwhere it is being incurred.
- You are confident you are being charged correctly by your telco provider.
- You can be confident that your mobile fleet management is optimised and efficient.
Why undertake a Mobile Fleet Audit with MobileCorp
Outsourcing a mobile fleet audit makes sense as an independent critical eye is crucial to identifying threats, risks and gaps, as well as opportunities.
Internal resources may have a vested interest in the current set-up. They may not have the detailed knowledge of carrier plans, inclusions, or pricing which is required. Or they may simply have insufficient time to invest in the exercise.
MobileCorp offers a mobile fleet audit which can be customised to meet your business needs. It can include all or any of the following:
- audit of contracted mobile services, plans, rates, and allowances
- consumption audit – data, IDD, roaming, applications, unauthorised use
- carrier billing audit – identifying errors and obtaining credits
- analysis of fleet composition, device lifecycle health check
- end user digital experience – deployment, remote management, support
- endpoint security threat analysis
- carrier contract review of inclusions and allowances, spend commitment, loyalty fund
- reviews with key stakeholders in finance, procurement and IT; as well as end users from various roles across the business to uncover any related productivity issues
Having identified opportunities and made recommendations for action, MobileCorp will go one step further and implement many of these actions for you - whether it is cancelling services, re-aligning plans, or raising a credit request with your carrier.
Want to learn more?
If you’d like to do a bit more research check out the Mobile Expense Management section of our website.
You might also like to download our Telecom Expense Management brochure (no forms!)
About MobileCorp
MobileCorp is a Sydney-based communications technology company. We support enterprise and business by providing managed endpoints and ICT services including 5G for Business, mobility management, mobile device management, expense management and managed connectivity solutions. We are also a platinum Telstra Partner and the Telstra Mobility Partner of the Year.
Related Posts
