If there’s anything you know as an Intelisys Sales Partner, it’s this: Today’s organizations have complicated IT infrastructures.
They didn’t plan it that way. But recent trends like “Work From Home” and “Bring Your Own Device” have forced businesses to create a patchwork of tech upgrades. In the resulting mess, understanding costs can feel practically impossible.
That’s where TEM comes in.
Technology expense management (TEM) solutions are designed to give organizations granular insights into their IT service inventory.
For the organization, this visibility allows for cost savings and optimization.
And for you, the Intelisys Sales Partner?
TEM is like an X-ray machine, giving you a clear view of the customer’s tech spend – which then opens the door to countless cross-selling opportunities.
Why TEM, Why Now?
The global market for TEM and expense management resources is expected to reach $7.9 billion by 2030.
Why are we seeing such rapid growth? Because organizations are struggling to understand where their IT budget is going – and they want to optimize their spending.
Take, for example, cloud computing. Businesses are sending workloads to a mix of private and public cloud environments – often without a Financial Operations (FinOps) team tracking expenses or considering optimization strategies. This leads to waste and operational inefficiencies.
We’re also witnessing a general increase in mobile communications since the COVID-19 pandemic. In a world where employees complete much of their work on personal devices, often with the assistance of a range of AI solutions, organizations are seeing their tech stacks grow more costly and more complex.
Without a comprehensive telecom audit, they may never gain genuine visibility into their IT spending.
Suppliers like Tangoe offer comprehensive Technology Expense Management (TEM) platforms to simplify, manage, and optimize client IT spending across telecom, mobile, and cloud technologies. These platforms help identify savings for other strategic projects with customers.
Benefits of TEM Solutions for End Customers
Technology Expense Management (TEM) can have a transformative effect on an organization’s IT budget and infrastructure.
Benefits of TEM include:
- Eliminating complexity by organizing expenses – which reduces the number of nasty “surprises” when technology bills arrive.
- Pinpointing the exact factors contributing to rising technology costs.
- Identifying opportunities for ongoing savings.
The end goal: An optimized tech stack that does a better job of helping the organization meet its core objectives.
TEM Benefits for Sales Partners (Hello, Cross-Selling)
TEM remains an underutilized segment of the Intelisys catalog – perhaps because Sales Partners still don’t recognize its true value.
When you help a customer with a TEM solution, you’re doing more than just solving the key problem of rising IT costs. You’re also giving yourself a remarkably clear view into their tech needs and capabilities.
What sorts of solutions would help them scale? Where do they have security vulnerabilities? If they’ve saved money by implementing a TEM solution, where might they reallocate that budget?
Through implementing TEM, you’ll know the answers to all those questions. You’ll also have made yourself a trusted consultant who’s already helped them escape a budgetary maze.
That puts you in the perfect position to guide them toward other valuable solutions in the Intelisys catalog.
Breakdown: TEM Subcategories and Related Solutions
Technology expense management (TEM) is part of a wider set of solutions with the same general purpose: to help organizations optimize the value of their tech spend.
Here are the types of expense management solutions you can offer customers.
IT Expense Management (ITEM)
IT Expense Management (ITEM) is an umbrella term for approaches and solutions designed to help organizations optimize the value of their tech spending. It’s essentially a synonym for TEM.
Cloud Expense Management (CEM)
Cloud Expense Management (CEM) solutions, also known as Cloud Expense Optimization (CEO) solutions, specifically focus on cloud spending. This is an especially critical need for many organizations. Why? Because as businesses leverage a mix of AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (CGP), their cloud-related costs are soaring.
FinOps
Financial Operations (FinOps) is a strategic framework created by the FinOps Foundation to help companies control cloud costs and make more efficient use of their cloud services. When you implement a purpose-built cloud cost management solution for a client from a premier member of the FinOps Foundation like Tangoe, you can improve collaboration and use data to achieve the greatest possible ROI – rather than just cutting costs. Tangoe is a FinOps Certified Platform, and you can confidently position Tangoe One Cloud to open doors to new conversations around AI, cloud governance, and cost optimization.
Mobility Expense Management (MEM)
Mobility Expense Management solutions aim to control and optimize an organization’s telecom-related spending. In many cases, MEM goes hand-in-hand with a larger Mobile Device Management (MDM) strategy.
Telecom Expense Management (TEM)
Sometimes the TEM acronym is used for Telecom Expense Management (rather than Technology Expense Management). In these cases, the strategy tends to be narrower – focusing specifically on telecom-related expenses.
Case Study – $150,000 in Monthly Savings After a Single Audit
How exactly can TEM transform a business’s technology spending? To get a clearer idea, let’s examine the case of a Canadian oil and gas producer that saved $150,000/month after a single telecom audit.
The Problem
Facing market volatility, the oil and gas producer landed on a simple objective: address rising telecom expenses.
But in order to cut costs, they first had to assess their assets. Unfortunately, the hodgepodge of cost allocations and general ledger (“GL”) cost codes made a thorough assessment difficult to achieve.
What they needed was a solution that would grant them financial visibility.
The Solution: TEM
To gain greater insight into their telecom spending, the oil and gas producer invested in a TEM solution – which began with a comprehensive telecom audit.
These types of audits examine both historical and real-time data. They tend to unearth wasteful spending, such as:
- Smartphones needlessly configured for international roaming
- Ex-employees whose devices remain on an organization’s data plan
- Ongoing payments for discontinued legacy services
- Suboptimal bandwidth allocated for switches, routers, and firewalls
In the case of the oil and gas producer, this single audit saved $150,000/month in telecom expenses – for a total of $1.8 million in savings after a year.
Lesson for Sales Partners: In-Cycle Optimization Is Essential
To avoid wasteful spending, organizations should regularly assess and “right-size” their connectivity plans. But IT professionals are often too busy using the tools to step back and assess their cost-effectiveness.
That’s where you can provide value as an Intelisys Sales Partner – by suggesting a 3rd-party telecom audit.
Starting the TEM Conversation
Ready to optimize your customers’ tech spend? Consider asking them the following discovery questions:
- When was the last time you reviewed your technology expenses?
- Could I review your current bills? ***This may require an LOA and NDA***
- Have you noticed your cloud application expenses increasing?
- Has your company acquired or merged with any new business?
- Is your company looking to divest any part of its business?
- Do you have a good grasp on contract end dates and total IT spend?
Once you learn more about the customer’s specific pain points, you can tell them about the benefits of leveraging a TEM solution.
More TEM Resources
To learn more about TEM, connect with your Intelisys Regional SE.
Also, check out our additional TEM resources, including: