How many different systems are you using to manage your wireless fleet?

Most organizations employ multiple systems to manage their mobility properly. To get clear insight into the health of your wireless ecosystem, you need to source data from these disparate systems. Some systems are managed by your IT department, while others are provided by your vendor. Telecom managers tell us that collecting mobility data each month is one of the most frustrating aspects of their job. This is because these systems require a manual process to stitch the mobility story together. Mobility reconciliation and the time involved costs organizations significant time. It’s incredible to see how complicated the wireless process, reporting and governance have become.

LEARN HOW WE SOLVE THIS CHALLENGE

The Carriers' SYSTEMS

Billing Portals

Billing Portals

A six-inch-thick paper bill from your wireless provider is not a reasonable way to process and reconcile wireless usage each month. Therefore, carriers provide their business customers with an electronic billing portal. When a customer encounters a surprise charge, it often stems from a breakdown in the day-to-day process.

The user and department information contained in the billing details derives from the requests you made to your wireless provider. Often, these requests are a desk-swivel process requiring an agent to rekey information from an email or phone call. For this data to be accurate, you must communicate to the wireless provider the user and department information 100% of the time, which often doesn’t happen. SimplifyWireless ensures accurate user and department information 100% of the time.

Purchase Portals

Purchase Portals

Whether you purchase your hardware and accessories from an independent dealer or directly from the wireless provider, they typically provide a purchasing portal. Procurement of new devices only represents the first three to five days of the life cycle of the device and phone number. An average device life cycle lasts well over 1,000 days. SimplifyWireless includes procurement processes that mirror the way you would process changes with your wireless provider, allowing you to track and associate every purchase to an employee and department in the platform.

Self-service Portals

Self-service Portals

Most wireless carriers provide business customers with a portal to make account changes. The challenge with these portals is that the wireless provider only gives customers a select few change types that can be processed, while there are many other changes that cannot be processed such as rate plan changes, account transfers, or escalations. This forces your organization to manually contact the wireless provider via email or phone to process these changes. SimplifyWireless provides business customers with the ability to request all possible changes to your wireless subscribers. Furthermore, it takes a request and automatically updates the inventory in the system.

Technical Support Portals

Technical Support Portals

Occasionally, a user will experience a technical issue with their wireless device or network. The wireless providers will connect you with a technical support agent to assist in troubleshooting the problem. These agents use a portal to track your issue, but this portal is exclusive to the wireless provider. Rarely does the business customer receive any reporting. Perhaps you purchased a device model that has had many defects over the years, which is critical information when you need to purchase thousands of the same wireless device. SimplifyWireless tracks and processes any technical support issues, providing complete transparency on the quality of the device models you have purchased.

YOUR SYSTEMS

IT Service Management Software (ITSM)

ITSM (IT Service Management Software)

One of the biggest pitfalls business customers create is when they integrate their ITSM procurement process with the wireless carrier. This is very expensive to deploy and unfortunately only represents about 5% to 10% of the transactions that exist in mobility lifecycle management. Compounding on this exercise is that you are even more tied to your wireless provider, making it harder to shop for the best price. SimplifyWireless is designed to coexist with your ITSM system, saving you countless hours trying to develop inside rigid software solutions like ITSM.

Mobile Device Management Software (MDM)

MDM (Mobile Device Management Software)

MDM technology controls device security, policy, and applications according to the role of the employee. When a new device is purchased, the IT department will provision the MDM onto the device. This technology is a vital aspect of the mobility process, but it does not manage all the other aspects such as cost tracking or inventory assignments, plus your organization may own many more devices than provisioned for on your MDM. SimplifyWireless notifies the IT department when it is their turn to onboard or offboard a device onto the MDM.

Finance & Procurement

Finance & Procurement Systems 

At the heart of any organization is a system that tracks all financial activity and invoicing for the various departments. A finance system will process hardware invoices from the dealer and the monthly airtime bills from the wireless provider. The challenge occurs when processing the monthly airtime bill against departmental coding for each mobility subscriber. Often, this data needs to be reorganized so your finance department can properly allocate expenses. SimplifyWireless manages the day-to-day process while collecting the appropriate cost codes associated with the monthly subscription and device. When the monthly bill is delivered, there is no need to fix the data, which drastically reduces your reconciliation processing time.

Employee Directory

Employee Directory

The employee directory is often the most under-utilized system in a wireless ecosystem. Everything begins, changes, and ends with this employee's on-boarding/off-boarding information. The biggest challenge facing telecom managers is their ability to reconcile their monthly airtime charges with the “real” people in the organization. This gap is apparent in the mobility bill just by reviewing the username and organization data you provided the carrier during the activation process. How do you reconcile that with the employee directory? SimplifyWireless solves this disconnect with your mobility providers and offers a clear line of sight into what needs to be activated and what needs to be cancelled or re-used.

Is it up to you to develop a process to manage all these people and systems? It’s a lot to process!

CONSIDER THIS

Integrating your systems with your vendor is not the solution

There are a lot of systems you need to consider when undergoing an integration. Some wireless vendors in Canada offer APIs to their customers to reduce manual processes, but the truth is you’re only saving time for the wireless provider, not your organization. Choosing to integrate an ITSM into a vendor's procurement portal only addresses a small part of the process. Most of the mobility process is still manual for your administrators. Meanwhile, integration is costly and only ties you to your wireless provider even more. SimplifyWireless works with all Canadian wireless provider systems so you don't have to. The platform accommodates a standard change management process, regardless of the mobile operator, and there’s no need to use any of your vendor portals – saving time and money for everyone.

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