A beginner’s guide to Mobile Expense Management

We’re in the telecoms expense and lifecycle management (TEM) business. Combining our extensive telecoms expertise and our premier TEM solution, OneView, we’ve helped many businesses take their telecoms management to the next level. As a starting point, business leaders need to understand all the different components that make up their telecoms environment – from fixed-line and wireless to mobile and data usage.

Given the fact that South Africa has some 21-million Internet users – the vast majority of which are going online using their mobile devices – savvy businesses should be thinking about how mobile may impact their bottom line. As such, today, we’re focusing on mobile. And mobile expense management, more specifically.

A subset of TEM, a Mobile Expense Management system helps a company monitor and control data and voice costs in real time. This tracking is done for individual users, teams and even entire departments and helps a business keep tabs on their mobile spend.

The need for MEM is the result of tremendous growth of mobile technology used within enterprises. While mobile creates a variety of opportunities to improve productivity, and up worker satisfaction, the use of these technologies can add complexity, which business leaders and IT teams need to control and have visibility over.

So, what are some of the main benefits of MEM? Keep reading.

Streamline operations: As a starting point, a comprehensive MEM solution will track the inventory of all mobile assets across the enterprise. This makes it easier to spot billing irregularities, monitor contract expiration and eliminate unused mobile connections.

Enable workforce: Beyond the obvious cost savings, MEM actually expands the possibilities of your workforce. Offsite and remote work is easier to execute and any expense-related processes can proceed regardless of the employee’s location. This includes adding of data bundles and sending of notifications when employees are approaching usage limits.

Boosts efficiency: Gone are the days when tracking usage and allocating spend was a time-consuming, manual process. With MEM, your HR and administrative staff will see a drastic decrease in the amount of time needed to handle these processes, freeing them up to focus on more important things.

Enforce policies: It can be tricky to enforce policies on employees working remotely. But not with MEM. With real-time monitoring and use of mobile devices, your IT department can track mobile device behaviour and ensure workers are adhering to company policies and industry regulations wherever they go.

While the benefits of MEM are obvious, securing employee buy-in is critical. Business leaders need to emphasise the time savings, increased productivity and the simplicity of tracking and managing expenses enabled by using MEM. Want some help on your mobile expense management journey? We’re the partner you need. Complete the form below and we’ll be in touch.