While most employers accept that company mobile phones or blackberries will also be used for personal calls, choosing the right contract can prevent businesses being hit in the pocket, avoiding problematic staff monitoring and ultimately keeping the workforce happy. Add to this say ttMobiles, typically 14% mobile devices that are unaccounted for including 4% still being used by past employees, and it seems businesses need to look more closely at avoiding unnecessary costs.
Staff telecom expenses are a responsibility for a number of departments from IT, procurement, HR and finance. Whatever the company size having telecom expenses effectively managed can minimise costs and increase time-efficiency, as less time and resource is needed to perform tax compliance and general expense management.
ttMobiles co-founder and director, Peter Readman, explains, “Managing corporate mobiles and the billing process can be a headache that impacts a number of departments. Cost cutting exercises are rife across UK corporates but the issue of how mobiles phone costs are managed often ends up being the elephant in the room that no one talks about. Research indicates that a colossal sum is being wasted every day through personal use of mobiles devices, but there are simple solutions that allow businesses to stem the flow of money leaking from the company.
ttMobiles has a suite of solutions that allow a business to regain control of its corporate mobiles phone fleet:
Wireless Expense Manager is an interactive, web-based service that enables organisations to view and manage mobile spend. End users can verify their bills online, make personal call declarations and have deductions made directly from their salary, eliminating paperwork. For ease of use bills use names, rather than numbers, wherever possible. ttMobiles’ support desk assists with end-user queries, user and cost centre updates, and follows up personal call declarations.
Audit Manager includes a bespoke online survey site to capture information from mobile users. A dedicated project manager handles the survey, follow up and collation of results. This can result in cost saving from fleet reduction by identifying unused handsets, past employees, etc.
Mobile Universe is a complete, outsourced mobile management service that covers all aspects of mobile fleet administration. It removes the need to engage internal resource in managing mobiles and their users. Mobile Universe gives enhanced visibility and control of all elements of cost, such as airtime and hardware purchases, so as to reduce the total cost of the mobile fleet.
Personal Use Report. ttMobiles’ experience is that a third of mobile spend is personal calls.
Besides extra costs, without processes to monitor personal use organisations are exposed to difficulties complying with VAT requirements and users’ benefit in kind tax. This one off report defines the value of personal usage, calculates the apportionment figure for a VAT reclaim, highlights areas of abuse in mobile usage, identifies areas for cost control and provides understanding of use of new applications.
* based on research by Quocirca