Managing Telecom Providers: Top 3 Challenges to Overcome

Many CIOs view telecom costs as burdens with too many choices, contracts, and headaches.

Fremont, CA: Conventional telecom carriers are undergoing massive consolidations and reorganizations and disturbance, compromising quality customer service and sales support and creating sweeping insecurity about the future of carrier strategies.

The complexity of telecom services drives CIOs to use outsourced telecom management.

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Many CIOs view telecom costs as burdens with too many choices, contracts, and headaches. Contracts may be left unchecked, and dear technology resources may be spent on commoditized services rather than strategic projects, leaving CIOs unsatisfied.

1. Wide Array of Telecom Choices

Even with the integration among major telecom carriers, many providers and services remain. Naturally, some telcos are powerful in some areas and may have varying geographic coverage, which can be a huge distinguishing factor in offering service to organizations with multiple locations.

CIOs may rapidly become overwhelmed when waiting to transform or supplement telecommunications services in the wake of the pandemic with mixed work environments, cloud computing, and ongoing high use of video conferencing. They may outbid for services they don't need or, worse, find themselves locked into a contract with a provider that doesn't meet their demands.

Learning your organization's structure and work environment, strategic growth plans, infrastructure, and current telecom services will lay the foundation for carrier discussions. Understanding an organization's present telecom lineup can be complicated for an organization's technology employees. Contracts may have been signed under various leadership, and service add-ons may have occurred at different times for unknown reasons.

Telecommunications, like numerous industries, has a high salesperson turnover. Contacting a resource to trace contracts or update information can trigger unwanted sales calls and pitches. Some organizations find it beneficial to collect information on services by reviewing bills and services paid for and working backward, evaluating whether all services are used and/or are still needed. This evaluation would also include reviewing pain points, customer service interactions, geographic coverage, and responsiveness for all providers.

After you learn what you have, what you need, how much you're paying, and how your present provider is meeting your customer service demands, you will be in a much better position to enter carrier discussions about technologies, updates, and preferences to collect competitive bids.

Certainly, knowledge of real market rates and actual net fees customers pay for similar services is immensely helpful. Therefore engaging with a telecom consultant with extensive experience in bargaining contracts is advantageous.

2. Complexity of Contracts

Managing service problems and renewals under difficult telecom contracts is also a time-consuming but necessary task.

To manage a telecom contract effectively, an organization must have a solid knowledge of the contract terms and language for all vendors, service level agreements (SLAs) as well as the targets of the organization. Contract management should incorporate noting and tracking contract end dates and notification requirements.

One major error organizations make just looking for the lowest bid for telecom. But disregarding what happens after a contract is signed is shortsighted. Execution can drain resources and extend timelines without proper provider or telecommunication manager support. There may be wide variations in pricing based on whether or not the vendor incorporates implementation support and how much they provide.

3. Insufficient telecom resources and expertise within the organization

Telecommunications projects extend resources within IT teams above capacity. Few organizations can afford to devote the time and expense needed to provide their IT professionals with in-depth telecom knowledge, and technology remains to evolve.

Frequently telecom projects have specific timelines associated. Projects with critical timelines incorporate fixing issues, renewing contracts, or addressing one component of a larger project like a business move or merger.

Organizations with confined IT resources and knowledge may require help managing strategic engagements and implementations, enhancing carrier relationships, and balancing telecom, among other obligations.

As we have covered, organizations outsource telecom contract renewals and management for various reasons. Help is readily available.

A skilled third-party telecom management partner will secure the best lineup of carriers and services for the organization's particular needs, provide continuous support and manage contracts. Third-party telecom managers also have more influence with several carriers in negotiating for services and support.