Matsch Systems - Providing Telemanagement Solutions

As a person who strives to help employers manage their telecommunication services and spending, I find it somewhat frustrating that so much effort is spent trying to avoid managing cell phones.  Employers recognize that some employees require employer provided cell phones as part of their job and therefore have procedures and policies in place for providing cellular devices.  Typically an individual or group is designated to manage and enforce such a policy.  It is that person or group’s responsibility to make sure that the cell phone services that the employer is paying for meet the needs of the employer.  Is what we are paying reasonable?  Are we being properly billed?  Are there efficiencies that could be gained?  Is there employee abuse?  Are there ways to improve our operation and/or reduce our costs?  There is an excellent article in No Jitter (http://nojitter.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=211601136&pgno=1) that highlights what you could be doing to manage your employer provided cell phones.  Please do yourself a favor and take a moment to read this.

Having just returned from VoiceCon 2010 in Orlando, (known as ‘Enterprise Connect’ going forward) we are attempting to digest the vast amount of information presented during the conference.  As this was our first visit to VoiceCon, we were unsure of the audience the show would attract.  It became clear almost immediately that the show is targeted to large enterprises with corresponding IT budgets!  The following represent some of the ‘takeaways’ from Matsch’s perspective.

• Most of the prominent exhibitors are touting what we would refer to as ‘Complete Solutions’ to enterprise communications needs, voice being just one of the communication platforms.
• There was an abundance of ‘Telepresence’ (aka ‘video conferencing’) providers.  Can you say ‘Bandwidth’?
• Avaya, Cisco, IBM and Siemens each provided demonstrations of their UC (unified communications) solutions.  Though all claimed to integrate with existing components of enterprise’s communications platform, only IBM successfully persuaded us of their willingness to act as an actual integrator.
• SIP trunking is a hot topic these days, with many of the attendees trying to get their arms around this apparently complex technology.  We question the validity of SIP in enterprise communications, as nearly all those we talked to spoke of the complexities involved.  As we all know, those complexities seem to have a way of ‘eating’ much (and in some cases ALL) of the savings that some technologies promise.  Full disclosure: We don’t fully understand SIP currently.  As with any new technology, it will undoubtedly make sense for some and not for others.

Keeping abreast of developments in telecommunications is part of our ongoing commitment to our customers.  Feel free to drop us a line with any questions pertaining to the above.  We’d be happy to help you in any way we can!

As a person who strives to help employers manage their telecommunication services and spending, I find it somewhat frustrating that so much effort is spent trying to avoid managing cell phones.  Employers recognize the need for some employees to have cell phones in order to do their jobs effectively.  Most employers have procedures and policies in place for providing these devices and many have placed an individual or group in charge of fulfilling this need and enforcing the associated policies.  What seems to be missing is any meaningful analysis of this set of resources.  Most other assets within an organization are constantly monitored or measured so leaders within the organization can make decisions about the efficiency and value of the resources.  Questions like “is this resource meeting our needs?” and  “Is what we are paying reasonable?” are just a couple of questions we believe employers should be asking about the service they receive from wireless carriers.  Others, like “Are we being billed correctly?” and “Are there more efficiencies that could be gained?” and “Is there any employee abuse of these resources?” seem to be overlooked routinely.  There is an excellent article in No Jitter that highlights what you could be doing to manage your employer provided cell phones.  Please do yourself a favor and take a moment to read it.  As concerns quality of service, this WSJ article has some interesting facts.

Bob Matthews and Steve Schafer will be in attendance at the 2010 VoiceCon tradeshow in Orlando March 22nd-24th.

It is essential that we keep abreast of where the industry is moving, and try to determine how best to meet the developing needs of telecom professionals nationwide.  We’ll be talking with representatives with diverse perspectives on technology and hope to deepen our knowledge about unified communications, with an eye toward guiding our customers, both present and future.