Who Can Provision Your Telecom Environment Better – In or Out Sourced?
You may ask, how can an outsourcing company help project manage provisioning for your Telephony network better than your internal IT team? We have a lot of experience but don’t want to sway your vote here – we know your team is likely full of smart folks too, and that’s why it’s not such a clear-cut decision. That’s why we have created a helpful guide, so you can ensure that your provisioning is done effectively, whether you decide to insource or outsource. Your resources are super valuable and have a lot of priorities to keep your telecom environment running like clockwork.
First question: do you have the resources to get it done right and on time?
If your team is focused on the day-to-day, then provisioning can seem like an extra burden that gets added to the pile, especially if you’ve got a one-time project. And if you don’t already have a large team with diverse experience, then this can be overwhelming. Often provisioning is out of scope of the day to day, when there is an occasional new office or new technology that needs to be handled. When you don’t do provisioning every day, the nuances and access to the right contacts aren’t always at hand.
What should you look for when seeking help?
Whether you are looking to completely offload provisioning management, or are looking for some supplemental support, it’s important to find the right outsourcer.
When looking for an outsourced Telecom consulting partner, look for ones whose teams are have diverse specializations that can support support all telephony needs from billing, procurements of wireline services, to wireless needs. Each team should have experienced employees who specialize in each area to help review and assist with the management of your network. Additionally, working with an outsourced company will free up your internal IT team for them to support the needs of your employees and customers with also the protentional of saving your company money!
Good project management starts with knowing what you have and are being billed for and determining if the services are still required to efficiently run your business. Telcom Billing specialists have a trained eye to make sure the invoices match your carrier contracts and enjoy finding ways to dispute charges with carriers to put money back in your pocket!
Where do you start?
Once you decide to outsource, the first step is to Audit all your services and determine the following:
- Each type of Services billing for each of your office locations
- Obtain Customer Service Records (CSR’s) from each service provider
- Confirm Billing is accurate based from your service contract rates
- If service is being used
- Provide you with results for your review to help us confirm how to best move forward with Project Managing your account
Once the audit has been completed, you can start the procurements of your network. This is the critical part to help you save money and ensure you are getting the best carrier service to support your company network needs. For tips on procurement, read our Guide: 10 Steps to Procurement.
10 Steps to Procurement
The following 10 Procurement steps should be taken:
- Submit disconnects on any services no longer being used and out of contract to save $$$
- Review services still in use to see if upgrades and or optimization can be done
- Work with Carriers to provide you will options to best serve your needs going forward
- Obtain Carrier Quote and Negotiate best pricing and Service Level Agreements (SLA’s)
- Provisioning /Project Management – Site surveys, EUCR forms and FOC dates
- Compile Project Tracker with all pertinent carrier order info
- Coordinate activations
- Participate in Weekly Calls with Carrier as needed
- Work with local contacts to coordinate installations
- Ensure any equipment is returned so additional charges are not incurred