Category Spend Management Initiatives Supported by Information Technology Boost Returns by 7.5%, According to Aberdeen Report.BOSTON -- Aberdeen's benchmark report, "Spend Under Control Key to Cost Savings -- The Category Spend Management Report Series 2004: Telecom," revealed that telecommunications cost management initiatives leveraging technology provide 7.5% greater savings in overall telecom budgets than manual improvement efforts on average. "Companies seeking to control costs and reduce risk are increasingly turning to category spend management initiatives to monitor complex expense items like telecommunications, however manually managing spend can be expensive and less effective," said Christa Degnan, director, research at Aberdeen and author of the report. "Aberdeen benchmark survey respondents In the context of marketing research, a representative sample drawn from a larger population of people from whom information is collected and used to develop or confirm marketing strategy. clearly showed that augmenting personnel expertise with an information technology platform to provide spend visibility and automate routine compliance checks and significantly improve telecom cost management performance." The report identifies the successful strategies companies use to manage telecommunications costs in today's complicated environment of bankruptcies, mergers, and proliferation proliferation /pro·lif·er·a·tion/ (pro-lif?er-a´shun) the reproduction or multiplication of similar forms, especially of cells.prolif´erativeprolif´erous pro·lif·er·a·tion n. of new and varied services like mobile devices, digital subscriber line See DSL. (communications, protocol) Digital Subscriber Line - (DSL, or Digital Subscriber Loop, xDSL - see below) A family of digital telecommunications protocols designed to allow high speed data communication over the existing copper telephone lines between end-users and (DSL DSL in full Digital Subscriber Line Broadband digital communications connection that operates over standard copper telephone wires. It requires a DSL modem, which splits transmissions into two frequency bands: the lower frequencies for voice (ordinary ), and Voice Over Internet Protocol See Internet and TCP/IP. (networking) Internet Protocol - (IP) The network layer for the TCP/IP protocol suite widely used on Ethernet networks, defined in STD 5, RFC 791. IP is a connectionless, best-effort packet switching protocol. (VOIP (Voice Over IP) A digital telephone service that uses the public Internet as well as private backbones instead of the traditional telephone network. Many companies, including Vonage, 8x8 and AT&T (CallVantage), typically offer calling within the country for a ) networks. While the report showed companies with manual spend management initiatives in place seeing average savings of 18.8% in rates and 18.6% savings in overall telecom budgets on average, this rose to average savings of 23.4% rate reductions in companies that used a technology platform to support their efforts, and 26.1% overall telecom budget savings as well. Applying the 7.5% differential in overall telecommunications budget savings to the aver-age telecommunications expenditure of a large organization, large enterprises not lever-aging a systematic technology-enabled telecom spend management strategy are leaving $8.7 million on the table. Midsize companies are forsaking $1.95 million. For a copy of the full report, visit www.aberdeen.com/ab_company/hottopics/telecomspend/default.htm About Aberdeen Group Aberdeen Group is a provider of business-related research services. It has its headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts and belongs to the Harte-Hanks group. Founded in 1988, Aberdeen's research is used by over 2. Founded in 1988, Aberdeen Group is the trusted advisor to the Global 5000 for value chain strategies and technology advice. |
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