By Cara Sievers

Recent research from Aberdeen Group found that multinational companies are slashing their telecom and network costs by 25 percent or more. The report, “Global Telecom Lifecycle Management: Cost-Cutting Solutions for Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of the World,” encountered the top two reasons that best-in-class companies sought to control their telecom environments were a) demand from inside the corporation to control spend; and b) the desire to improve consistency within the telecom environment.

“As companies have become more global and more geographically dispersed, communications tools and deployments have become vital to the health of the enterprise,” said Hyoun Park, telecom and unified communications research analyst, Aberdeen. “To afford the increasing need for collaboration during a global recession, these firms have had to balance cost, compliance, and visibility concerns with the need to maintain employee productivity and uptime all over the world. Through a mature Telecom Lifecycle Management solution, these companies can improve employee communications while reducing their expenses.”

Aberdeen Group found that the top three reasons for a company seeking a TLM solution were: a) to centralize management of the telecom environment; b) to eliminate duplicate assets and services; and c) to minimize inside resources devoted to telecom overhead. Of course, each of these reasons is exacerbated by the increasing adoption of mobility, bringing a whole separate set of details and accounting into the mix. In fact, according to Aberdeen Group, on average, 34 percent of total network and telecom spend is made up of wireless expenses. Additionally, 69 percent of best-in-class companies surveyed had implemented a Mobile Device Management solution as part of their TLM solution.