New Business Trend: Outsourced Management of Corporate Wireless Phones With Dramatic Results

March 25, 2004 -- New Business Trend: Outsourced Management of Corporate Wireless Phones With Dramatic Results

Would your company ask a new employee to buy a computer at a local technology store, set up their own internet service, and have it ready for their first week at the office? No, and why not? Because the Information Technology department is staffed with specialists in this area who purchase equipment and service to match the internal requirements, taking advantage of corporate contracts, and provide a working environment which is more efficient, stable, and cost effective.

Interestingly, cell phones are purchased and managed very differently in most organizations, large and small. Typically, cell phones and the associated rate plans are selected by the employee. As wireless phones are becoming more standard and necessary in the work place, a new trend is emerging among Information Technology and Telecom department, the outsourcing of wireless procurement and billing management.

While most large organizations have already negotiated corporate discounts with wireless carriers, managing the hundreds of billing options, which are continually changing, becomes impossible. Whether its rate plans, pool plans, share plans, walkie-talkie plans, data plans, bulk minutes, or mobile-to-mobile options, finding the right plan for each individual becomes an unmanageable struggle.

That's where the outsourcing of wireless billing management originated. Kevin Whitehurst with mindWireless states "4 years ago, wireless carriers couldn't consistently provide the data necessary for large organizations to effectively manage wireless billing. Now through the growth of wireless carrier data capabilities, enormous volumes of data are provided monthly. One thousand corporate phones will produce over 10 million data points monthly." Complexity in understanding rate plans as well as the large amounts of data is more than most companies wish or are able to effectively manage.

Companies looking at cost savings are turning to specialists, like Houston-based mindWireless, which focus on monthly billing analysis optimizing costs based on unique individual or group trends. Why? Detailed billing management can save 20% to 50% of current wireless costs, provide an organized program to implement data solutions and increase an organization's knowledge of usage patters for future vendor negotiations.

For the past 4 years mindWireless, through sophisticated analytical models, has identified usage patterns at a call detail level and matched those unique patterns to the hundreds of billing options provided by wireless carriers. Savings for their clients often exceeds 30% of current costs. Whitehurst says "It's both a simple and complex process. Picking a rate plan for a single user can be straightforward, but optimizing hundreds or thousands of users on a monthly basis while accounting for the numerous possible rate plan combinations available to a corporation is highly complex."

mindWireless's clients generally have 1,000 to 10,000 wireless phones and are located across the nation. Considering the rate of business use, savings add up fast. A company with 3,000 wireless phones could expect to save $700K annually. And in today's corporate environment, that might even cover the CEO's bonus.

As cost-cutting continues to hold its priority with the executive office, businesses are expected to continue to take advantage of outsourced wireless billing management.

mindWireless is a privately held company based in Houston with branch offices in Dallas and Chicago. We work with companies nationwide, representing customers in 22 of the top 25 wireless markets. Our proprietary software and expertise in mobile service plans and providers combined with our strategic focus on the wireless marketplace positions us uniquely within a rapidly growing industry. Our focus on analytical modeling and our dedication to implementing the best solutions have elevated mindWireless to the forefront of our industry of wireless cost savings. Our Fortune 500 clients are leaders in their fields, as well, and represent a broad array of enterprises.

Contacts:
mindWireless:   
Media Contact:    David Wise     713.895.9060




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