Know Your Traffic

You’re putting your company into jeopardy if you’re entering into a telecom negotiation or a RFP and you don’t know your voice and data traffic.  Not just the amount you spend on telecom services is important; you need to know your inventory and the amount of traffic you transmit over your networks.

This is the second installment of CarrierBid’s eleven part series on the telecom procurement process.

You can’t rely on carriers, like CenturyLink, AT&T and Verizon, to inventory your services.  Relying on carrier estimates can lead to high commitments, little flexibility and short fall penalties.

It’s important to know what you have, what you need and where your company is headed.  Assuming that your business will grow is not wise.  External events could lead to business downturn.  The prevalence of wireless phones and ample bandwidth at home is leading to more telecommuting and end users spending less time on their desk phones.  You should be expecting lower pricing so you don’t want to rely on current spending levels either.

Your traffic determines what commitments you can fulfill and your commitments influence the pricing you can secure in a negotiation.

Lower commitments will allow for more flexibility.  Over estimating your traffic will lead to higher commitments and less flexibility.

Another reason you can’t rely on your current telecom carriers to provide traffic and inventory data is because they know the closer you get to contract expiration the less time you’ll have to conduct an effective RFP.  So your carriers will stall while your time and leverage evaporate.

Telecom and Wireless Expense Management, POTS (business phone lines) aggregation, converged networks are all methods to better manage and understand your traffic levels and service inventories.

Knowing your traffic is the first step in the procurement process, and ultimately, an effective telecom negotiation.

CarrierBid can help you with any step of the telecom procurement process.  We don’t charge a fee for our service or require a share of your savings.

If you would like to receive more information regarding CarrierBid telecom consulting services, please complete the web-form on the right side of this page.