How often do stability AND opportunity co-exist? And how often can they exist equally for multiple constituencies - simultaneously? What is so cool about our opportunity is the chance to build on a solid foundation. Some customers have been using our platform since early 2001. Imagine that, a software-as-a-service platform whose core has been around for 12 years. Keeping continuity for our customers is very important to us, but we need to expand new opportunities for them as well. I had a moment to reflect on the principles that guided Xigo’s team during our decision making process to become part of the Dimension Data family and it occurred to me that many are missing this real jewel of “stability and opportunity.” The guiding principles that informed our process and especially our final decision were threefold:

1. Good for employees
2. Good for customers
3. Good for shareholders

Easy to say, hard to do. We were presented with a challenge. The importance of international capabilities, a rapidly changing mobile landscape, and the need for continuous improvement to our core solution compelled our management team to critically assess our ability deliver what our customers needed in order to remain a leader in our industry. After much consideration, we concluded that we needed outside help. Our options generally fell into three categories:

1. Raise money from an entity that could help us;
2. Join one of our competitors in order to get more scale and resources; or
3. Find a strategic buyer that had the resources and business fit to succeed.

Continuing our conservative approach to growth and investing our own capital was an option, but in the end, this conservative approach was simply not in the overall best interests of our customers, employees and shareholders.

The basic thinking on the three alternatives went something like this:

1. Raise Money – The positives of having a large pool of investment capital and fresh thinking were outweighed by several factors. A truly global solution includes sales, account management, and service delivery in-region or in-country. Everything we discovered about when services businesses (and most B2B technology plays) should invest in global capabilities was concerning. The advice was all pointing towards being a much, much bigger company and then growing very, very slowly. We kept this as an option, but we weren’t sold on this as the winner.

2. Join a Competitor – This option is very much in vogue right now with rapid consolidation taking place in the TEM industry. I imagine this trend will continue. While the mainstream view is that consolidation in our industry is both good and necessary, we had concerns about our guiding principles. Namely, this was certainly not good for the almost 100 employees of Xigo. There would have to be large cuts in almost any merger with similar type of company. Many of our competitors embrace aggressive off-shoring. Our team had invested more than a decade with us. Would this be a win for our customers? That would certainly be the long-term intention, but to brush aside the short to mid-term pain and uncertainty they would experience would be willful ignorance. Which platform would prevail? Multiple platforms doing the same thing are a non-starter. For those of us old enough to remember the movie Highlander – “there can be only one” ring true. Our customers had invested years in us, trusted us, intentionally picked us over our competitors – pretty tough to see how this would be good for them.
   
3. Strategic Acquisition – Ultimately, this began to be the only real option for us. Ideally, the buyer would need us as an integral part of their broader plans. They would understand our fit into their core business and be excited about investing in improving our product, our service delivery and our global capabilities. Instead of cutting, they would be providing us with growth resources. They would be committed to a roadmap that would be positive to our customers and employees. Shareholders would be proud of the decision and be able to look customers and employees in the eyes and say this was the best possible outcome.

So this brings me to something that is truly rare – customers winning on two very important fronts at the same time – stability and opportunity. Stability from knowing that the platform that drives the solution is not changing – platform continuity. No migration. No retraining. No loss of favorite features. Stability from people continuity. Customers are dealing with the same teams as before. Clients get continuity that comes from financial stability and a strategic buyer that is committed to their IT and communication estate. But what about the opportunity? The opportunity is to leverage the resources of a multi-billion dollar organization operating directly in 51 countries and indirectly in 114. The opportunity to solidify and enhance a scalable, global platform that is extensible to meet the changing needs of a rapidly developing market. The opportunity to leverage over 14,000 employees focused on execution in the IT and communications industry. Our goal is to turn this opportunity into a big win for our customers and employees. Let’s all enjoy the journey.

As astounding as this is, it’s clear that many TEM providers still struggle to implement their clients in a timely and cost-efficient manner.

For many organizations, the process of gathering invoices, customer service records, service contracts etc., is an incredibly time-consuming process. In addition, the handful of invoices they receive represent only a limited view of an organization’s complete communications expense.

To help alleviate this problem, Xigo has invested in fully automated TEM technology, and is able to leverage these tools to offer Xigo Enterprise Quick Start, a new, accelerated implementation offering that’s designed to address a mid-market company (who might not have considered TEM in the past) with a completely frictionless implementation, and help them realize the benefits of TEM in just a few short weeks.

Quick Start provides the most common TEM features including Invoice Processing, Validation, Dispute Management, and Contract Management, for a fixed monthly price. With Quick Start, Xigo customers will have access to:

• Frictionless implementation with a high degree of automation;
• Wireline and wireless support;
• Full TEM invoice processing support including General Ledger (GL) allocation and automated AP interface;
• Up to 10 electronic invoices and up to $150K in spend per month;
• Rapid ROI with a 30-day savings guarantee;
• Unlimited Xigo Enterprise logins;
• Includes Xigo Enterprise Support for up to three named users

Customers will not be invoiced for Xigo’s services until enough savings have been identified to foot the bill. In addition, Xigo’s award-winning professional services team is available to help customers get the most out of Quick Start for Xigo Enterprise and help reap the full benefits of TEM in a significantly shorter amount of time. For more information, please visit: www.xigo.com.

And what a year it’s been! For us at Xigo it’s been a whirlwind—from the re-launch of the company as Xigo in April to our involvement in helping organizations understand the practice of cramming and how to be protected, it seems like only yesterday that we were first figuring out how to write one of these entries.

Last year we brought the telecom expense management (TEM) and mobile expense management (MEM) industries into the future with the launch of Xigo Now, the first true cloud computing platform for uploading bills and managing wireless expenses—oh, and we made it free.

Along the way, we’ve used our data research and analysis capabilities to identify trends around device usage that can help you make better decisions for your organization, as well as added features and capabilities that global companies need in today’s business environment, such as international carrier support.

But the one thing we’re most proud of is how much money we’ve saved our customers. That’s what expense management is all about at the end of the day—finding ways for companies and organizations to spend less on their needed services.

Xigo customers have saved 16.5% on their mobile expenses this year, or an average annual savings per customer of more than $5,500. Those savings filled a lot of stockings with holiday cheer.

No one can say for sure what the future of 2012 holds, but we are excited at what Xigo and its customers have accomplished this year—and are looking forward to continuing to work with you to change for the better how the TEM and MEM markets operate.
Have a happy and safe new year!

While this mandate will undoubtedly take some time to come to fruition, there are far-reaching implications that enterprises need to take into consideration.

Even though the growth of consumerization of IT and BYOD has made a significant impact on workplace productivity, many enterprises underestimate the liability they may be exposed to, and driving while texting/calling is just one of several potential risk factors. More than ever, enterprises need to review and understand their mobile policies to help manage risk and cost in the following areas:

• Using mobile devices while operating vehicles
• Having policies in place to limit company liability for inappropriate actions by employees
• Device, application and data security controls to prevent theft of enterprise information
• Excess expense driven by inadequate oversight

One important factor enterprises need to understand is the difference between a corporate-liable (CL) and an individual-liable (IL) device and the impact each has on increasing corporate risk. For many organizations subject to BLG, HIPAA or Sarbanes Oxley, employees are prohibited from using their personal laptops or smartphones at work, so their use of CL devices significantly reduces the firm’s liability and risk. While more and more employees are demanding the use of their own devices in the workplace, the bottom is line is that an IL device is an unmanaged device. A CL device can be well managed, eliminating excess risk and expense.

However, regardless of the type of device employers choose to use, telecom expense management (TEM) should be considered a critical component to an enterprise’s mobile program. Not only does it help organizations better understand and manage their mobile plans, but it helps companies put rules in place for the use of devices and to better manage those rules, so if an employee uses his or her device inappropriately, the company is less likely to be held liable because the employee was using the device against corporate policy. Linking device management together with expense management creates the financial incentives to help enforce enterprise mobile policies.

So, while we wait for the government to take action, enterprises should take steps now to put the best mobile policies in place to protect themselves and their employees from unnecessary risk and expense.

Take a look at this sample wireless bill below. Can you spot the potential cramming charges?

While this bill seems legitimate enough, you’d be surprised by how many of those services are costing this customer hundreds of dollars in unwanted recurring charges.

The reason why so many organizations are hit with these unexpected expenses is because cramming charges are actually pretty hard to define. In the case of mobility, they can be legitimate services but the catch is that most enterprise employees don’t realize they are recurring charges and never see their bill, so are completely caught unaware.

Figure it out yet? If you picked numbers 2, 3, and 5 you would be correct.

While it may be difficult to spot all cramming charges, there are lists available that can help identify potential offenders. For example, SMS Watchdog has provided a comprehensive list of the worst unsolicited texters, so keep a look out for these names on your next wireless bill.

The initial reaction of some may be to say “tough, this is company policy.” But this approach is not always possible. The reasons for allowing an employee to BYOD are numerous. The reasons for allowing a separate plan/separate bill are less so, but are no less valid. Perhaps the worker travels often and needs an international device/plan; perhaps he/she lives in a rural area and needs a carrier that reaches them. Regardless, you get the picture.

Outside of providing access and functionality, how can a company support these users? You could say “just pay the bills outright,” but that eliminates any control the business has over how much the company is willing to spend for this employee. Without any controls, he/she could download movies on the company dime.

Another approach would be to set up a monthly stipend, but this solution also comes with its own set of questions—namely how would you calculate that number without relying on the employee to tell you outright what you owe him (in which case it’d be easier to just pay his/her whole bill, movies or no movies).

Our research has shown that the average consumption of users is less than what most companies believe it is. In fact, in previous posts we discussed how 31% of monthly voice minutes go unused and how employees consume only 13% of their wireless data plan cap.

While it’s true that every employee and every company will have their own specific set of circumstances and that different positions have different usage rates, in taking a look at that research we can see that on average, the top half of an employee’s allotted data plan goes completely unused. For most employees, a $100+ unlimited data plan is not needed—and neither is the most common 2GB plan, retailing for around $40. On the voice side, research shows that only just over 600 minutes are used by each employee every month.

Translating this into dollars, a 1GB plan is typically $20/month on average, and by setting your voice plan lower, around the 600 minute mark, should allow you to keep individual costs around $80/month per employee—giving you a clear ballpark figure for your monthly stipend program.

We encourage anyone thinking of starting a stipend program to analyze their bills first, in order to see where their employees are spending their mobile time (voice vs. data) and what they are spending it on so you can make an accurate decision on what to offer any individual liability employees.

In addition to limiting the number of smartphones and devices issued to individual employees, the Government found that agencies have been spending millions on unused cell phone accounts. In response, the Department of Commerce has disconnected more than two thousand wireless lines with no activity – saving them close to $3 million.

While we certainly commend Obama on his efforts, he’s missing a critical component that could save the U.S. and the federal budget potentially millions of dollars per year on technology devices. Obama needs MEM!

Mobile Expense Management (MEM) solutions have been specifically developed over the years to help even the most complex organizations provide the critical tools needed to gain quick and easy control over their mobile services and expenses. Government agencies need greater access to all the details of their mobile expenditures (invoices, plans, devices), and MEM can help them more proactively adjust usage and billing waste, and can also apply critical policies to help ensure consistency across the government agencies and organizations.

Xigo has already helped a significant number of government agencies better understand and manage their mobile expenses, as well as prevent an increasingly common (yet illegal) practice, called cramming, which was the focal point of a Commerce Committee examination earlier this year Each year, telephone companies allow third party services to place approximately 300 million charges on their customers’ wire-line and wireless phone bills, amounting to more than $2 billion worth of unauthorized fees.

Unfortunately, even the Obama administration isn’t immune to cramming and bloated mobile phone-related costs. MEM practices not only protect the government against this mounting issue, but help manage the complex expenses associated with the onslaught of new smartphone devices, tablets and future mobile technologies that employees embrace to become more efficient in the workplace.

According to a recent report by ABI Research, by 2016, over 85% of employees will use enterprise issued smartphones and tablets. The consumerization of IT is here and there is no turning back. Smartphones ands tablets are the daily communication portal for your employees, your clients and your vendors. Now, it is up to you to make sure that the usage of these new technologies won’t break your budget. The key to keeping your costs down is a strategic mobile expense management strategy. Included below are a few best practices to consider for your 2012 and future budget planning:

• Ensure corporate alignment: In order to project a reasonable budget, you need to make a corporate decision on how to fund your employees’ devices. Will you pay for new devices? Will you only pay for the monthly plan? Will you provide a monthly stipend that covers a partial cost of the monthly plan? Having a corporate mobile policy in place will help ensure consistency – and savings – for your organization.
• One size doesn’t fit all: Not all providers and plans will be the right fit for your organization. Do the necessary due diligence understanding all the various providers and plans, and choose the one that will best support your organization’s specific needs. Do unlimited data plans make sense for your organization? Do the provider’s policies support your own corporate policies? These are important questions to consider in the research phase.
• Renegotiate your wireless contract: Wireless companies are constantly changing their data and phone plans, so make sure to review your plans on a regular basis to ensure you’re not paying for unused services and are fully maximizing on your mobile spend.
• Anticipate future technology needs: Tablet usage in the enterprise is growing as more and more business tablets are coming on the market, however tablets are just one example of the many new technologies that are becoming available for business use. Make sure to plan for the increase in mobile expenses to ensure you stay within budget.
• Install WiFi around the office: Most employees can operate perfectly well within 50% of their current data cap. Allowing employees to connect to a Wi-Fi server will decrease their monthly data needs and in turn save you money.
• MEM can help: With all of these smartphones and tablets, expenses can quickly get out of hand. There are many options for easy-to-use mobile expense management software that will help you manage these devices and service plans, track monthly expenses, budget for new devices and see real-time updates of your mobile expenses.

Regardless of the disappointment, the iPhone 4S has already set records with unprecedented sales figures. In just the first three days of availability, Apple sold a record 4 million 4S devices– and many enterprises are among those quickly jumping on the 4S bandwagon. In fact, during the recent iPhone launch event held in Cupertino, CA, Tim Cook stated that, “93% of the Fortune 500 are testing or deploying the iPhone.”

So, what can we expect from all of this? It’s quite simple: Record sales drives record usage, which drives record expenses.

With the onslaught of new iPhone users, many employees will want to leverage their own devices for corporate use. So, as enterprises continue to embrace the growing consumerization of IT trend, it will be as critical as ever for these organizations to get a solid handle on their mobile expenses.

With the availability of new options and enhancements and even new providers, enterprises will have a host of challenges as they look to adopt these state-of-the-art devices into their organizations. Not only will it be a challenge for IT departments in trying to keep up with Apple’s new offerings, but finance departments will also have their own struggles in managing the slew of new devices, as well as the services, rates and expenses associated with all the new smartphones.

Thanks to Mobile Expense Management (MEM) solutions, enterprises now have access to the critical tools needed to gain quick and easy control over their mobile services and expenses. With MEM, enterprises can access all the details they need with regard to their mobile expenditures (invoices, plans, devices), can adjust them as needed and can use this knowledge to establish and apply policies that will help ensure consistency across the organization.

Now that the iPhone 4S is officially available, here are a few best practices enterprises should keep in mind as they look to take advantage of the new device:

• Recent research has shown that the majority of employees come nowhere near using their full data plan allotment each month. While Sprint’s unlimited data plan helps prevent corporate over-usage, it may not be the best plan for your organization’s needs. Enterprises need to pay close attention to all providers’ offerings, rules and policies, to avoid getting charged for unwanted services or overages.
• Review and inspect carrier plans on a regular basis to ensure all mobile device service bills match the signed contracts and that you’re getting the best deals (free tools like Xigo Now automate the arduous process of reviewing and analyzing wireless bills, providing almost instant savings recommendations).
• In every office, there will always be an employee or two that is abusing the system and downloading movies over his phone while working on his desktop, for example. By regularly reviewing usage, you can mitigate these issues and keep costs down.
• Take advantage of Wi-Fi. As we know, carriers are never going to stand in the way of over-spending on data plans, so it is up to the smart organization to take matters into its own hands. With a greater use of Wi-Fi, most employees could operate perfectly well within 50% of their current data cap. A 2GB plan that costs, say $40 a month, could become a 1GB plan, costing $20 a month.

So, while we continue to hold our breath for the launch of the iPhone 5, enterprises have a great opportunity to leverage the iPhone 4S to significantly improve mobility across their organizations. By leveraging the right mobile expense management solution, enterprises can better manage their devices, plans and expenses—and this will result in significant savings and a direct impact on your bottom line.

A recent article reveals how the DoD has organized a Commercial Mobile Device Working Group encompassing the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, FBI and CIA, to ensure all mobile technology is being adopted cohesively across the organization and the devices are being used safely and securely.

While managing the use and security of mobile devices (better known as Mobile Device Management or MDM) is critical to organizations like the DoD, an important element they are overlooking is understanding and managing all of the costs involved with their mobile devices as well as handling all of the service provider relationships. With so many agencies and departments the DoD needs to consider, managing mobile expenses for all of them could quickly get out of control. This is where Mobile Expense Management (MEM) solutions can help.

MEM solutions have been specifically developed to help even the most complex organizations provide the critical tools needed to gain quick and easy control over their mobile services. With MEM, the DoD can access all the details they need in regards to their mobile expenditures (invoices, plans, devices), can adjust them as needed, and can even apply critical policies to help ensure consistency across the organization.

Giving widespread mobile access to all DoD employees will no doubt provide significant advantages and opportunities. However, incorporating the right MEM solutions to help better manage their expenses and services will be critical to the success of the organization’s mobile programs. Here are a few best practices the DoD and other government agencies should consider as they look to incorporate mobile into their organizations:

1. With large and complex organizations like the DoD, it is important to make sure all departments and agencies understand the mobile data usage guidelines and ensure they fall within the organization’s policies.
2. Review and inspect carrier plans on a regular basis to ensure all mobile device service bills match the signed contracts and to avoid paying for unused services. (Tools like Xigo Now automate the arduous process of reviewing and analyzing wireless bills, providing almost instant savings recommendations and MEM solutions.)
3. Even government organizations like the DoD are subject to getting crammed, so keeping a look out for unnecessary charges will be critical (The average monthly cram amount is approximately $18/month in excessive charges.)
4. Understand all of the service provider policies for adding new devices, replacing broken devices or upgrading. This will help avoid getting hit with large fees when more devices need to be added.
5. Re-negotiate wireless service plans often. This should not be a one-time negotiation; it must be done on a consistent basis to get the best rates.

Similar to major corporations, SMBs and start-ups, government agencies are constantly looking for ways to be innovative and leverage the latest technologies to help improve productivity in the workplace. The DoD is definitely leading the charge by offering smart phones and other mobile devices to their employees, but is it savvy enough to know how to save money while doing it? Only time will tell if these MEM solutions will be put to action...

• 40,000 instances of cramming in just three years
• The average monthly amount for a cram was approximately $18
• 71% of Xigo customers have experienced a cram charge during the past three years
• An estimated 80% of businesses today have experienced at least one cram charge
• More than 600 vendors are actively engaging in cramming

As we have seen lately, more and more companies are jumping on the bandwagon and equipping all of their employees with mobile devices to help make their jobs easier and more efficient. Unfortunately, the rise in the use of mobile devices in the corporate world will undoubtedly fuel an upswing of cramming occurrences. The good news here, however, is that these unauthorized charges are completely avoidable.

One important thing to understand about cramming is that it’s not the real problem – it’s only a symptom of a more serious underlying issue that can be eradicated quite easily. The real problem or “disease” is the lack of visibility most organizations have into the detailed elements of their mobile spend, as well as an inability to apply policy (or control) at the specific transaction level.

Mobile Expense Management (MEM) solutions have come a long way in the past few years, and have been specifically designed to help organizations quickly and easily gain that critical visibility and instill control over their mobile services, which significantly decreases the opportunity for cramming to occur. As a result, organizations will save hundreds, even thousands of dollars each year from unauthorized third-party charges.

Xigo provides a cure to the problem. Taking the cure puts more money in your pocket. Now, don’t you feel better?

According to Lowes’ CEO, Robert Niblock:

“Our goal is to make home improvement simple for customers and for our employees. Leveraging Apple’s iPhone technology, our employees will check inventory availability, access how-to videos and utilize lowes.com from the aisles of the store.”

Mobilizing a workforce is incredibly beneficial for employees and consumers, but how can you keep your expenses in check with 42,000 new smartphones on your bill? To provide some assistance, Xigo has provided below a few important tips that Lowe’s and other enterprises planning on extending their employees’ mobility can implement for successful Mobile Expense Management (MEM).

1. Understand group plans in order to optimize individual usage with price points and avoid overpaying for unused services.
2. Make sure your mobile device service bills actually match the contract you signed to avoid missing discounts.
3. Beware of unnecessary charges. Employees that are using mobile devices may be getting crammed. At Xigo, we have found that the average monthly cram amount is approximately $18/month in unnecessary charges (42,000 x $18 is a lot of unnecessary charges).
4. Make sure your mobile data usage policies are in-line with your corporate policies. Downloading movies and other entertainment can be a huge cost to your business.
5. Re-negotiate your wireless service plan often. This should not be a one-time negotiation; it must be done on a consistent basis to get the best rates. Using powerful analytics tools Xigo can be very helpful in automating this arduous process and keeping your costs down.
6. Understand your policy for adding new devices, replacing broken devices or upgrading. Work with your service provider to make sure you will not be hit with large fees when you need to add more devices to your plan.
7. Remember: Telecom Expense Management (TEM) is not the same as Mobile Expense Management (MEM). The traditional TEM rules do not apply to MEM.

To Lowe’s, Urban Outfitters, Home Depot, Nordstrom and all the others out there mobilizing your employees, congrats on making the move—and don’t forget these 7 tips as you begin your roll-out!

It’s a fact: Each year, telephone companies place approximately 300 million third-party charges on their customers’ wire-line and wireless phone bills, amounting to more than $2 billion worth of unauthorized fees. This illegal and increasingly common practice is called cramming. Don’t let cramming happen to you.

Android has seen tremendous growth already: in the 2nd quarter of 2010, it owned just 17% of the market share. Fast forward to the 2nd quarter of 2011 and Android owns 43.4% of the market share with over 150 million devices now in use. With today’s news, the sky is the limit.

But what does today’s news mean for your company? How will this deal affect your company’s wireless strategy? In simple terms, Mobile Expense Management (MEM) is more important today than it ever was. Here are some tips to ensure your company is prepared:

• Define a Mobile Expense Management Strategy. Your strategy should include tools that enable measurement and management of your expenses. You need to monitor who is using what platform, how much data they’re using and if the plan they are currently enrolled in is even the right plan for your company’s needs. No one should be caught paying more than they should because their plan or account fell in between the cracks.
• Prepare for Device Migrations. Between today’s announcement, AT&T/T-Mobile and the iPhone5’s anticipated release date of October 2011, these migrations are going to happen fast. Consumerization of the workplace is already a hotly-debated topic in IT departments, and we will see increased pressure on companies to support new and improved devices. The shift from BlackBerry to Android & iPhone for enterprise use will continue. In fact, non-RIM smartphone share among enterprise users has already grown 37% in the last 12 months. Do you have a policy for supporting these desired device swaps? Are you prepared for the increase in data usage that will coincide with these migrations?
• Re-Negotiate your Wireless Service. Carriers know that the ongoing migration from desktops to mobile phones to smartphones has a significant impact on their business. Prices and plans are going to change, as we’ve already seen this year with the elimination of unlimited data. You need to know how your staff is using mobile devices, and support their use without overspending. In addition, as market power consolidates to the device and OS part of the mobility equation, wireless carriers yield less power and will become even further commoditized. Based on the lessons learned from their copper wire history, carriers will start to hold prices versus trying to grab share. If you have not re-negotiated your wireless service in the last 12 months, you need to act now.

Many employers who were entertaining the idea of growing their workforce have abandoned their positive outlook like a turtle retreating to its shell. The market reflects revenue, and a tanking market is usually a good indicator that companies should steer clear of expansion. Except when it isn’t – like now.

At Xigo we tend to function anti-cyclically. We’re in the business of wireless and mobile expense management, and as economic times grow more uncertain, our ability to reduce telecom costs and curtail wasted spending sees ever greater demand. Despite domestic market turmoil, the adoption of mobile technology is increasing at a rapid rate. 83 percent of American adults have a mobile phone, and 35 percent own smartphones.

Additionally, we’ve found that when money is tight, luxuries like international business trips and conference attendance fall by the wayside. Long-distance video chat, VoIP and other types of interactive telecommunication (including good old-fashioned international phone calls) are cheaper options than physical travel, and therefore grow in popularity and usage during budget shortages.

With this being the case, Xigo is actually moving ahead at full steam. We’ve added hundreds of new customers and have more than 250,000 devices under management. We’ve introduced brand new on-demand solutions like Xigo Now and are seeing unprecedented demand for our Xigo Pro and Xigo Enterprise solutions. Our customers find that it is a rare moment in business when you can improve your work methods and process while at the same time reducing direct costs. As a result of this demand, we are adding software development and customer service professionals as quickly as we can find the right “A” players to join the Xigo team.

Will the strategy of hiring during a slowdown pay off for us? Yeah, we’re pretty sure it will. We believe the most intellectually competitive companies always prioritize R&D despite any external market conditions, and know that as soon as sales and customer demand return to normal, they’ll need to ramp up activity at a pace that a pared-down workforce cannot possibly accommodate. The best business investment we can make is in our own people, and the people looking for jobs right now are among the most skilled and talented group of individuals this country has ever seen.

We have faith that growing our staff in an atypical environment is both the best business decision and the best personal decision we can make, and we welcome applications to join our team for the following positions: http://www.xigo.com/about/careers.html.

Come see why Xigo is turning the TEM industry on its head. Work with us!

About the Verizon Strike

The two unions representing 45,000 Verizon employees called a strike Sunday, August 7, 2011 at midnight. The fallout happened after union representatives for the Communication Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) walked out of contract negotiations claiming that Verizon was trying to strip workers of hard-earned benefits. The strike involves wire-line workers and does not affect Verizon wireless customers or employees.

ABCnews.com: Verizon Strike 2011: A Sign of the Times as Americans Go Wireless

Below are some helpful hints on how to best manage your communications expenses through this work stoppage.

Potential Impacts to Xigo Customers

Verizon is responding to this strike by deploying Verizon core and Verizon business managers to fill in for CWA and IBEW workers. This will affect your Verizon ordering and billing services in the following ways:

• You may experience delays in processing orders.
• Billing disputes may take longer to resolve.
• Changes made to accounts to optimize your expenditures may take longer to implement.

How Xigo Can Help

• We will remain diligent in prioritizing issues that are in need of immediate attention.
• We will monitor every Verizon and Verizon Business billing issue to ensure that we receive a quick reply with a billing ticket number.
• We will continue to use the Verizon Enterprise Center (VEC), if applicable, to register billing disputes.
• We will provide additional oversight for disconnection orders.
• We will dispute any late disconnection orders back to 30 days from the date of order.
• We suggest that if you are not already using Xigo Enterprise order capabilities, you should copy your Xigo team on all service disconnection orders to Verizon/Verizon Business. In such cases, this will allow us to mark the service as disconnected with a date 30 days out.

Please feel free to contact your Xigo Professional Services team member with any additional questions about how we can help you during this work stoppage.

We look forward to supporting you.

Mobile expense management (MEM) was once considered a minor sub-set of larger enterprise-wide telecom expense management (TEM) solutions, but with 40% plus growth rates, MEM now has a more prominent place in a company’s overall telecommunications lifecycle management strategy. The “5 Steps to Successful Mobile Expense Management” webcast features a unique panel discussion that explores the challenges enterprises face as they confront the proliferation of mobile devices and services and details a groundbreaking self-service approach from Xigo. #successfulmobilemanagement

Listen to this webcast & learn how to successfully manage your mobile expenses.

Tune in live on Wednesday, July 13 at 10:00 a.m. to hear David’s Testimony

Hearing: Unauthorized Charges on Telephone Bills: Why Crammers Win and Consumers Lose

Witness Panel 1

Ms. Lisa Madigan
Attorney General
State of Illinois

Mr. Elliot Burg
Assistant Attorney General
Office of the Vermont Attorney General

Ms. Susan Eppley
Decatur, Georgia

Mr. David Spofford
Chief Executive Office
Xigo, LLC

Mr. Walter McCormick Jr.
President and CEO
U.S. Telecom Association

From the March 31, 2011 Commerce Committee release: “‘Cramming is a widespread problem,’ Rockefeller said. ‘It is likely harming millions of consumers, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and local, state, and federal governments. Telephone companies have allowed these unauthorized third-party charges to be placed on their customers’ telephone bills for far too long. The Committee will keep working until we put an end to cramming and stop the business outfits that profit from it.’”

However, the problem is that addressing these issues has usually meant an expensive and time-consuming telecommunications expense management (TEM) implementation was needed—and while value would eventually be seen—there would be nothing quick about the process.

But that was before Xigo changed the way consultants and agents could operate.

Xigo’s inexpensive, cloud-based mobile expense management (MEM) solutions can be used by corporate agents and consultants to analyze client invoices and see savings recommendations in a matter of minutes.

This saves you time and effort and saves your clients money, while enabling you to quickly make fixes that improve the bottom line—even while working on larger, more complex savings initiatives.

Xigo’s flexible platform is perfect for consultants and agents working with clients as small as five users all the way up to large global organizations with thousands of users and plans.

Here’s a brief explanation of Xigo’s three core solutions:

• Xigo Now: A free, instant, self-service, mobile focused expense management application that saves time and money in the management of companies’ mobile phone expenses.
• Xigo Pro:An inexpensive, self-service expense management application to manage the more complicated workflow automation tasks associated with mobile cost management.
• Xigo Enterprise: A complete set of global, expert capabilities on a unified platform covering everything from wireless to wire line.

How can you make Xigo work for you and your clients? It’s easy:

1. Upload: Using Xigo Now, send in your client’s mobile invoices. Your client’s data is secure and privacy is assured.
2. Optimize: You get a report back analyzing 7 different ways your client can save.
3. Save: Implement Xigo Now's recommended changes with your client. Clients save money on their mobile services, and also save a huge amount of time, since Xigo Now also automates internal accounting (including GL coding, cost center reporting, etc.).

If you or your clients need more complete analysis and reporting, then Xigo Pro is the way to go. Xigo Pro is also self-service (like Xigo Now) but requires a nominal monthly subscription to manage the more complicated workflow automation, bookkeeping, storage and reporting tasks associated with larger-scale mobile cost management.

Complex, complicated and drawn out expense management solutions are a thing of the past. Why waste time running analysis for your clients when Xigo can do it for you, allowing you to immediately make some improvements and spend your time solving bigger problems.

Air Cards, provided by mobile service operators, are mobile network access cards that can be used with PCs. Even with the growing prevalence of these data-hungry devices in the enterprise, it appears that the top half of an employee’s allotted data plan goes completely unused.

With a little finagling (and greater use of Wi-Fi), most employees could operate perfectly well within 50% of their current data cap. A 2GB plan ($40 a month on average) could become a 1GB plan ($20 a month on average). Combine that with a reduced voice plan for 2,000 employees and the savings in unused minutes/bytes alone would come to $840,000 annually, without denigrating productivity.

Is it time to reconsider your organization’s wireless data and voice plans?

That being said, it’s easy for employees to forget while they’re mobile that they’re tethered when surfing away on a big laptop screen as they would in the office. Some carriers still offer “unlimited” data plans, but are also known to warn heavy data consumers that they’re about to be charged for excessive use. Don’t ignore these warnings. Data hogs and their money are soon parted.

Tethering is often utilized with the best of intentions, such as ‘I already pay for smartphone data plan, so tethering must be included, right?’ However, when employees use tethering indiscriminately with the same expectations of bandwidth and billing as Ethernet or traditional wireless Internet, there will be blood.

We’ve seen examples of data usage gone horribly awry, including the following true stories.

Case 1 – “It’s Just My Job, Trust Me”

During an implementation last year a Fortune 500 company with 4,000 devices we discovered we had a single user that had used $10,000/month is domestic data services for at least 3 consecutive months (that was all the data we had visibility to for the implementation). The company had simply paid those charges as they had no visibility to the details of the carrier invoice. The user indicated he had no idea that his utilization of charges were so high, he claimed it was work-related, but really pretty hard believe that level of usage was all work related since his peers we are using less than 500 MB on average and he was using more the 15 GB).

In the 1^st month the Xigo platform identified this user. The wireless program manager educated the user and the $10,000 a month overage was immediately eliminated. The VP of Procurement said that “educating a single user more than paid for the Xigo platform.”

Case 2 – “Work – A Little Goes…Well, Not Very Far at All”

In the course of evaluating an existing landline customer’s mobile expenses last year, the Xigo platform identified a single user with mobile wireless data access via laptop (meant for occasional travel) that was using it to download movies to their company laptop while working in the office everyday. Once again the expenses were approximately $10,000/month. Upon identification the employee immediately terminated this practice (and/or was terminated). This case not only speaks to identifying excessive spend and inappropriate use, but also demands consideration of entitlement – who at your company should be allowed to tether? Having constant Web access while remote or traveling is a privilege that should be afforded only to employees who really need it to be effective. Using hotel Wi-Fi or browsing data on one’s mobile phone can easily suit the needs of the majority of the workforce.

Here at Xigo, we believe it’s far more effective to automate everything associated with managing wireless expenses in bulk. It takes the burden off of employees in the field so they can focus on their core responsibilities; it takes a burden off of your company’s billing personnel, so they can spend more quality time doing tasks with higher value to the company; and it provides savings opportunities at scale. The larger the number of devices under advisement, the greater value derived by the organization. Xigo Now offers companies a quick, easy and free tool that ingests invoices, analyzes them for possible efficiencies and instantly makes recommendations for ways companies can save money, either by carrier, cost center or down to the actual device level.

The fact of the matter is that 31% of average mobile voice plan minutes go unused every month. For the average voice plan – which includes 513 minutes on a monthly per-line basis – only 303 minutes are used. With a $50 plan, that’s just over $15. For companies with 2,000 employees, that’s $30,000 a month wasted, just on voice calling.

Ultimately, we all know how much money it takes just to stay afloat in the business world. Our advice to our customers and to everyone in charge of managing their organization’s mobile expenses is to inspect your carrier plans on a regular basis and vet them with tools like Xigo Now. You can save significantly more money than you think.

Despite today’s culture of constant emails, social networking and mobile video, Xigo finds that on average, employees consume only 13% of their wireless data plan cap (the most common plan being 2GB).

Meanwhile, carriers are reacting to the opposite extreme. AT&T recently axed its popular unlimited wireless data plans for the iPhone and iPad in favor of tablet device-smartphone tethering amid a growing shortage of wireless spectrum. The advantages of smartphones include more sophisticated capabilities than feature phones, and impressive screen resolution that makes viewing video and browsing the Web enjoyable on these smaller devices. Combining this functionality with unlimited data plans can, at least in the case of social media-connected communication mavens, lead to service latency and data buffering.

In other words, it’s to the advantage of companies and carriers to offer wireless plans that actually make sense for average use. Since that is unlikely to ever happen it’s up to us to take matters into our own hands. Solutions like Xigo Now can help your organization identify hidden charges and reduce the cost of needlessly large data and voice plans.

That said, I also heard comments from these same people regarding Xigo’s disruptive and free self-service offering – Xigo Now. Despite the fact that our solution brings real change to customers and exposes the way that the formerly secretive, behind-the-scenes TEM industry has operated—what I heard was that Xigo is ruining the industry’s economics.

Well, good.

This is what happens when there’s disruption in a market: the old guard gets upset and looks to shoot down those working to change the way things are done for the better. It made me think back to the early days of the Internet, when some experts predicted that crazy businesses like online book shopping would never survive, let alone become profitable.

Being able to give customers everything they need to prudently manage their wireless telecommunications expenses – and to do it for free – is a powerful thing. We’re not destroying the industry; we’re rebuilding it in a way that makes sense from the customer’s standpoint, which is the most important point-of-view for any business to recognize.

Bring on the ruffled feathers and old-school approaches. We’re in this for the long haul.

Soapbox aside, there were a couple of other important themes discussed last week that I wanted to share for those of you unable to attend:

• The wireless industry is truly different than the wireline space. Sure, some of the management philosophies and goals are similar—but one theme that repeatedly emerged at the show is that the path to savings does diverge at some point in the TEM process. In wireline systems, the majority of your savings come from managing inventory, correcting bills and signing up for long-term contracts with a carrier that saves you money over several years. In the Mobile Expense Management (MEM) space, long-term contracts aren’t nearly as important as managing usage, plans and policies. It’s a completely different center of gravity; one that needs to be recognized by your TEM partner or you’ll only be getting half the value from your engagement. In essence, MEM is not TEM.
• There was also a lot of discussion about managing invoices from other countries. The one point I kept asserting is that all of the plans and solutions bandied about truly don’t seem to be “ready for prime time” and need some more time to be developed properly. Perhaps that’s a topic for a future entry…

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is currently reviewing the details of the proposed “AT&T-Mobile” merger to determine if, as Hesse and others contend, the deal would create a duopoly of mobile service operator market share in this country, consisting of Verizon and what some are calling the reincarnation of Ma Bell.

Competition is critical to ensuring a high-quality customer experience, and enterprises growing tired of the “will they or won’t they?” drama of AT&T and T-Mobile may be justifiably looking for a change. T-Mobile, unlike AT&T, has a reputation for fantastic deals – especially at the enterprise level – and there’s no doubt that many corporate clients are mulling the financial consequences should this merger be approved.

That’s where Sprint re-enters the picture. Tech blog Spantechular recently uncovered an internal document from Sprint that is clearly an advertisement for impending release. The campaign document relates to a promotion that Sprint may or may not be running from today until July 23^rd, offering current T-Mobile customers a chance to transfer their existing phone numbers over to Sprint and receive credit for their early T-Mo termination fees. Should the merger not take place, Sprint will even waive its own termination fee and let customers switch back over to T-Mobile.

The campaign is genius, and it’s also a little desperate. Sprint knows that most enterprise customers are loath to make serious infrastructure changes only to go back to their original provider a few months later. By making the transition from T-Mobile to Sprint as easy as possible, Sprint is playing on the (potential) willingness of enterprise telecom/mobile expense managers to avoid risk and pursue a known commodity. But will it work?

Sprint already has a long and established market presence; its aggressive marketing and refutation tactics of late have presented them as a scrappy contender to two heavyweights when this is not the case. While we fully agree that thriving competition is essential to reducing mobile expenses and preventing the totalitarian ruin that was Ma Bell in the 1970s, we have to stop and wonder if we’re trying to force competition in the wrong way.

Our recommendation: Historically, both Sprint and T-Mobile have been the clear price leaders in the enterprise market. The disappearance of one or both of these companies could signal a true inflection point in terms of negotiation leverage for enterprises. Forward-thinking executives will leverage the highly competitive current environment to secure customized plans and leading edge prices to reduce their annual spend by millions before the consolidation diminishes the opportunity.

In environments where security and control are paramount (like healthcare & financial services) BlackBerry will enjoy continued strength. In other environments where user preference reigns supreme Android and Apple will continue to grow quickly.

Why does it matter to xigo?

It is very important to point out that the cost of data plans on some carriers are much more expensive for non BlackBerry devices. Keep in mind in the xigo universe the average Apple or Android devices uses 20x more data than a BlackBerry.

It is important that we advise our customers, that as users continue to push for “cool” devices their service costs will increase and additional investment will be required to provide any form of data security and management.

Identifying the Symptom: Caveat emptor– with telecommunications services, carriers leave assurance for proper billing to the client. One area which Xigo has found to be problematic is carrier billing for long distance Carrier Access Charge fees. This fee (sometimes called CAC or CLC) was created to recover charges that the Long Distance Company pays for interconnection to the local telephone company. The line-type determination is based upon customer certification or Local Exchange Carrier-provided information. These fees should not be applied to DID (Direct Inward Dial) telephone numbers that are pre-subscribed for long distance service. However, in some cases, unless the client specifically notifies the carrier that a block of numbers are DID, the long distance carrier automatically assumes that the numbers are ‘lines’ and charges CAC. These fees will continue to be applied until the Client contacts the carrier for certification.

Prescribing Treatment: It’s important to add CAC audits to your standard TEM process while ensuring that it’s a quick, repeatable step which doesn’t add to the workload of perpetually-stressed TEM managers. For example, Xigo’s Telecommunications Analysis performs one particular audit which quickly identifies large blocks of numbers with these CAC fees which may in fact be DID numbers. Within the supervision of our clients, Xigo’s solution identifies the DID numbers and removes the CAC charges associated with those numbers – it’s smooth and seamless because Xigo understands the ins and outs of how these processes work. Additionally, Xigo’s trained analysts can identify these opportunities, and based on our knowledge of the vendors, can apply for refunds to recover your past fees. Your company will not only see decreased monthly charges from carriers but may also receive an immediate cash return from refunds.

Getting Bottom-Line Healthy: In one recent instance, Xigo found several situations in which a legacy long distance company had erroneously billed an energy industry client for CAC fees associated with 12,904 DID lines; correcting this reduced monthly recurring fees by $26,453. In addition, the energy company received refunds in excess of $390,000.

Taking Action: Don’t overlook legacy long distance services, and don’t get overwhelmed by what can be a labyrinthine TEM process. Carriers and service providers benefit from ambiguity, and therefore use it liberally to hide unnecessary fees – hoping for the rubber-stamp payment approval for the lump-sum bill each month. However, understanding how to navigate these complex bills and make them more transparent will reap you and your company significant cost savings both immediately and over the long term.

We came out of the gate on Tuesday with MobileCrunch breaking our story. TechCrunch, too. NetworkWorld followed with some great insight on the TEM industry and why we think it needed to change so much, we went ahead and changed everything—our name, our solutions, even our pricing. Xigo Now offers 100 percent of what most companies need to prudently manage their wireless telecommunications expenses—for free. We like saying that because…well, no one else can.

That makes Xigo an innovator in an industry that sorely needs innovation. If you think that’s marketing puffery, you don’t have to take our word—Gartner thinks so, too. Here’s what Research Vice President Eric Goodness had to say about the current state of the TEM market:

“The Gartner TEM Magic Quadrant identified a pervasive lack of innovation in the Telecom Expense Management (TEM) industry. The observation directly addresses the service automation technology used by the TEM companies; moreover, the same lack of innovation is also manifest in their go-to-market packaging and bundling of service features,” said Eric Goodness, Research Vice President, Gartner, Inc. “In our customer reference surveys for the TEM MQ, nearly 40 percent of respondents were on their second or third TEM provider and 15 percent had used four or five TEM providers in their pursuit for a quality vendor. Given the opportunity costs associated with bid development and vendor selection and the switching costs if there is vendor dissatisfaction; users need to be able to reduce the risks associated with conducting due diligence for TEM solutions.”

Other analyst firms concur. AOTMP’s Tim Colwell released a Market Alert that called Xigo’s new solutions “one of the most compelling developments in the TEM market in a very long time and holds promise to be a true game-changer. Xigo addresses two obstacles to growth frequently encountered by competitors: (1) lengthy evaluation and supplier selection cycles by prospects and (2) wireless service pricing models anchored to device quantity and/or monthly spend. Xigo has eliminated these obstacles with its Xigo Now and Xigo Pro offerings. Xigo Now is a free-for-life wireless expense management solution delivered through a self-service portal. Enterprises may subscribe, load invoices and wireless details and begin to manage their wireless expenses immediately. Xigo touts features and functionality required to meet the majority of client needs with Xigo Now.”

And Forrester’s Onica King wrote yesterday that “There’s A New Name In The Telecom Expense Management Landscape.” She rightly calls out what’s been sorely missing in TEM – a solution for SMB’s, too: “It’s all about capturing the market. . . Today, most TEM vendors focus on enterprise-class customers with telecom spends of $1M per annum or more. The small-to-medium business (SMB) market has pretty much gone untapped. But these organizations also have to contend with managing increasingly expanding mobile spend. Xigo is counting on the attractiveness of a free platform that provides key, though basic mobile spend management features to pull in the SMB market today.”

We agree. And it looks like a lot of you agree, too.

Sure, there are a lot of options. But they all seem to say the same thing: global in scope, will cut communications costs up to 30 percent, secure, easy to use, etc. Ask around and colleagues in other companies will say there’s no easy way to buy one of these services. They’re big, have lots of options, and certainly are expensive. Oh, by the way, do they really work? Who will audit the auditor?

Hopefully that won’t be necessary, but how can you be sure? Will any of these players let you try their service to see how well it works before spending a large sum to get them into your organization? It’s unheard of….right? And how long will it take from the point you sign them on until they’re up and running? A year. What??! You need help now.

What if managing telecom costs was just easy? What if you didn’t have to think of wireless and wire line as two different types of costs? What if you never needed any software on site, and what if just about anyone in your organization could manage the process? Would that get you to step out of your comfort zone? What if all of that were free?

Xigo sees telecom expense management for what it is—managing wireless and wire line expenses, plans, devices and systems as one entity rather than multiple problems. The team at Xigo quickly realized that traditional TEM vendors had been pulling the wool over customers’ eyes; TEM isn’t hard, and doesn’t need to be. And it doesn’t have to be expensive. Technology has solved many of the problems that used to be associated with managing complex telecom environments.
Get it right. Now. Why not put it to use?