Corporate mobiles

CMA Articles

Posted on: 10/06/2010

What are some of the pitfalls to avoid when managing costs?

A 'tweet' I noticed on twitter recently read as follows:

'There's a guy on my train using a mobile without a touch screen, how last century!'

The tweet was sent via a mobile, no doubt from the latest touch screen device and a number of people on twitter then added their own vitriolic critique of this 'Last century' person who remained oblivious to the fact that his failure to keep up with mobile trends was sparking an entertaining online debate.

Mobile technology continues to develop at lightning speed; using your phone to simply make a voice call no longer seems to be acceptable social behaviour. Texting is also becoming outmoded with an increasing number of applications available that allow the user to update their social networking pages and deal with multiple email inputs at once now becoming the preferred mode of communication. What was once a device that enabled people to remain contactable when away from the office or occasionally annoy everyone on the journey home by shouting loudly, 'I'm on the train', is now a mechanism for taking photos, uploading information to websites, making purchases and even used as a virtual train ticket to pass through ticket barriers.

But what are the implications if the phone in question is a corporate mobile?

As a high percentage of people in your organisation probably have a business mobile and depending upon your mobile usage policy, the task of analysing mobile bills and assessing what is corporate telecoms spend, travel and subsistence or personal expenditure can be time consuming and complex.

With factors such as allocation of charges to the appropriate cost centre, identification of non-VATable items and the isolation of personal expenditure; telecoms, IT and billing managers must have a clear policy for the appropriation of mobile charges. The ability to top-up an oyster card for example needs to be identified against personal usage criteria and also because travel and subsistence items cannot be claimed in a VAT return.

I have worked with many organisations that face issues like this every day when managing their total expenditure and my advice is to start at the beginning. Thorough and detailed analysis of all your telecoms bills and the creation of a single telecoms inventory will not only increase the level of control you have over your telecoms budget but will also almost certainly deliver costs savings within your current expenditure. Furthermore it can minimise the number of bills received and assist with allocating expenditure to the appropriate cost centre.

It is a certainty that mobile technology will continue to progress at speed and management of telecoms spend will increase in complexity but it is possible with the correct processes and expertise to remain in control of your organisation's telecom spend and ensure that all of that spend is compliant. A big tick for the bottom line of any company.

Paul Fegan chairs the CMA's Telecoms Cost Management Forum.