• Approach BYOD Cautiously… If at All – BYOD emerged as one of the dominant technology trends in 2012; however, the cracks in the strategy have begun to show. For 2013, we predict that CYOD (Choose Your Own Device), BTRD (Bring the Right Device) or COPE (Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled)—which you may well have already heard of—will overtake BYOD. These variations, where employers retain control over devices and security but empower employees to use them as they see fit, overcome the support, security and liability concerns of BYOD.
• Shed Dead Mobile Weight – Unused mobile phones still cost you money. This isn’t a misprint. The State of Washington was looking for areas to eliminate costs and found 3,450 inactive phones (i.e., not in use and shut off, but not de-activated) belonging to government employees that cost the state $1.14 million annually. Gaining visibility into your company’s inactive, moderate and power users will help technology leaders tailor their mobile strategy to the unique needs of each employee in the workforce.
• Avoid Extraneous Mobile Activity While Traveling Abroad – Global travel is a regular function of business in the flat world. Unfortunately, outlandish mobile expenses tend to come along with the territory. Make sure employees know the repercussions of their actions while they are on the road. Something as simple as streaming Pandora for ten minutes can cost up to $583.68 in certain regions of the globe.
• Push for Data Pooling – Major telecom carriers have begun to offer consumers data pooling plans that allow groups – primarily families – to more effectively manage their mobile bandwidth. Why are these options not available to enterprises? Companies should work with their carriers to push for these offerings because it would allow organizations to purchase shared resources rather than buying a “one-size-fits-all” plan for their entire organization.

From everyone here at Dimension Data | Xigo, we hope you have a safe and happy holiday season. We’ll see you in the New Year.

As 2012 comes to a close, we though it was as good a time as any to recap some of the egregious instances of bill shock that made headlines this year – and share advice for how to prevent these massive charges from even being an issue next year.

The cost of sending 10 plain text emails is $6.65, which doesn’t seem like a great expense. Until you decide to go to Canada on a business trip and you send/receive 105 in a day (which is the average amount an employee sends/receives every day), at a cost of $69.83. Spend a whole week there working and you’ve spent almost $350.00.

Or say you’re on a family trip and wanted to get a movie for your family to watch. Well, if you’re visiting the pyramids in Egypt and are fans of Christopher Nolan’s “Batman” trilogy, you’re out of luck. If you streamed “The Dark Knight” from Egypt you’d have just rung up a $2,400.00 bill.

But there are ways to protect yourself and your company from these outrageous costs, short of deciding to never travel or never use a mobile device again. Using Wi-Fi is important – but maybe not as important as turning data roaming, email fetch and push notifications to the “off” setting, so your phone isn’t using data behind-the-scenes.

Simply understanding the ways that these mobile devices use data “in the background” and putting an end to it while traveling can dramatically decrease your bill.

So check out our latest infographic (below) and get informed. Share these tips for eliminating overages and let’s make 2013 the year that outrageous charges become a thing of the past.

http://www.xigo.com/outrageous-roaming

This same principle applies to telecom carriers offering expense management and related services.

Why would an enterprise enlist its mobile carrier’s services to manage mobility usage and spend, optimize rate plans and validate its invoices? Is it in a consumers’/enterprises’ best interest to work with its carrier on mobile management, as they’re the ones who have direct financial benefit from the charges on every monthly bill? The scenario presents a situation where the service provider “fox” is in the corporate IT “hen house.”

AT&T, Sprint and Verizon have each made a recent foray into the IT services market via expense management and related service offerings. In a recent piece on Channel Pro, “Mobile Carriers—Threat or Opportunity?,” Sandra Gittlen points out that “carriers will win on price because they can bundle services for existing customers or offer rock-bottom introductory offers to new customers.”

Cost is hardly the issue. Carriers will not be able to beat third-party expense management providers when it comes to objectivity and customer service surrounding mobility plans and spend. Experts quoted throughout the ChannelPro story are not convinced that national carriers have the bandwidth and expertise, as well as an understanding of its clients’ unique requirements, needed to make sound, customized recommendations.

The growing BYOD trend further confuses this move by carriers as a single enterprise would also have contracts across multiple carriers, which would make it more of an obstacle to try to work directly with carriers for value added services of this type. Even if it was effective, it would only shed light onto the mobile usage and cost of a segment of the workforce thus creating a complicated, fragmented expense management environment. There is value in looking at expense and usage across your entire network.

According to a McKinsey report [Winning in the SMB Cloud: Charting a Path to Success] published in the summer of 2011, “as companies [like the carriers] grow larger and more complex it becomes more difficult and more expensive to provide customized offerings through different segments of customers.”

While it is difficult to foresee the success of carriers’ expense management and related services, enterprises should assume the responsibility to monitor its mobile billing or to enlist a neutral third-party to help manage the process and safeguard against billing errors and employee abuse. This is the prudent way to keep the enterprise data “hen house” protected.

Whether you’re pro-BYOD or anti-BYOD, 2012 has taught us one lesson: employees want to use one device for home and work – and companies want to enable them to do so.

So, let’s sit back, have a cup of egg nog, turn on some holiday music, and take a look at some best practices and approaches that you and your company can take to make BYOD or similar approaches work for both employees and employers in the new year.

Understand and Accept that a Mobile Workforce is Good for the Company
An important trend came to light this year that cannot be ignored. Employees are working some 30 extra hours a month from home on mobile devices. That’s almost the equivalent of four extra work days a month, per employee. Employees send more emails, read more documents, and quickly respond to clients and co-workers at all times of the day – simply because they can. Naturally, leaders from every discipline are looking to fully leverage the extension of the workday to become more nimble and efficient.

Here’s some quick math a colleague of mine did: if you have 100 employees, roughly 80 of them are essential to your company. If those 80 each spend an extra 30 hours a month working, that’s 360 extra hours each a year. Across the company, that’s an astonishing 28,800 hours extra, due to mobility. You need to help this to happen, not stand in its way.

BYOD May Not be the Best Approach
We here at Dimension Data | Xigo were very interested in whether BYOD had caught on, or whether the stories we were seeing about security issues and the anecdotal evidence we were hearing about policy problems were true. So we conducted a survey and found that 67% of respondents using BYOD said their expenditures haven’t changed, while 24% actually saw an increase in costs after implementing BYOD. Security, end-user support, privacy and total cost of ownership (TCO) are often the most cited reasons that BYOD didn’t save money.

That shows another approach to enabling enterprise mobility is needed.

The two prevailing options throughout 2012 were “full BYOD” and “corporate-liable.” Typically, the lowest TCO and highest level of support can be in a corporate-liable model, where the employer purchases the devices, plans and software for employees. The other end of the spectrum in terms of both cost and support is true BYOD, where employees purchase a device of their choice and then connect to enterprise resources. Employees then receive either a recurring monthly stipend or are reimbursed for all or a portion of their mobile expenses.

As is true with most technological advances, best practices are developed by drawing from the strengths of what’s existing – and eliminating the negative. For 2013, we predict that CYOD (Choose Your Own Device), BTRD (Bring the Right Device) or one that’s gaining steam already, COPE (Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled) will overtake BYOD. These variations, where employers retain control over devices and security but empower employees to use them as they see fit, overcome the support, security and liability concerns of BYOD. Expenses are optimized, devices, operating systems and applications are all reviewed and approved by the employer, while employees gain the ability to have spreadsheets and Angry Birds on the same device.

Set Policies and Secure Enterprise Data
No matter what acronym you go with, this is of the utmost importance. It is critical to formally establish a standard company-wide policy that clearly outlines the employer’s rights and employees’ responsibilities to secure enterprise data, the right to lock and wipe the device and the employee’s right to privacy.

Usage and expense policies are critical as well – and go hand-in-hand. If you’re paying a stipend, then be sure to define possible exceptions (work travel, etc.). If the employee is submitting bills for reimbursement, make sure to define what can be submitted. Are you allowing submissions for work-from-home expenses, such as working from a daughter’s softball game, or is that just part of the employee doing their job? Every company is different. Work with HR to define it up front and prevent any conflicts before they arise.

If the company is paying the entire bill, make sure you set limits on data use, roaming, travel, etc. and that each employee knows what that limit is. There’s no easier way to ruin a COPE or CYOD mobile strategy than to have employees using too much data for non-work purposes – and having the finance department recognize and elevate this as a problem.

Update What’s Allowed
Define and frequently update a portfolio of supported devices, software and applications. It may be easy to think you only do this once a year, but if IT does not keep up with the latest and greatest – your employees will and will take steps to work around company policy until IT catches up.

Monitor Expenses and Make Adjustments
Enterprises should review mobile bills on a monthly basis to make sure employees aren’t consuming unreasonable amounts of data, voice or text when compared to others in a similar role. Even if the employees are getting the bills, employers should offer to assist with selecting the correct plan.

There are two major benefits to reviewing bills: (1) recognizing patterns and ensuring employees are on the correct plan. Do they consume too little? Are they consuming too much? Recognition of these patterns and resulting plan adjustments can save money and prevent overage charges; and (2) identifying any abuse, such as an employee watching movies on 4G every day.

Accept the Use of Second, Third and Fourth Screens
Enabling the productivity enhancements of mobility requires flexibility. While many organizations have not yet decided to include tablets in their corporate liable inventory, any attempt to prevent their use is extremely short-sighted. If employees are willing to work additional hours, at off-hour times, as the research above has shown, then you need to enable them to do so.

WiFi Needs to be Ubiquitous at Work and at Home
WiFi needs to be everywhere, even in offices where there are strong broadband connections. Common areas, bathrooms, elevators – everywhere an employee can take a device and work needs to be WiFi enabled. The point of mobility is doing things such as responding to email from the lunchroom.

But this also expands beyond the workplace. Drive the importance of WiFi into your employees’ heads and even offer a session on how to set it up at their houses. Help them help you. There’s no reason to use up data minutes when you don’t need to.

Well, we hope that has helped you create some resolutions for the new year to make this grand experiment (currently) known as BYOD and its more enterprise friendly successors work for your organization. At the end of the day, every company is different and you need to choose a program and related policies that work for your people and that make your company stronger and more efficient, whether they’re at the office, or home drinking egg nog.

Xigo recently completed a survey (co-sponsored by CCMI) of telecommunication professionals in North America that showed enterprises that allow BYOD have not reduced their mobile costs. 67 percent have seen no change, while 24 percent actually saw their expenditure increase.

Another approach that is gaining traction of late is called COPE (corporate owned personally enabled), where the organization purchases and owns the device, but allows the employee to use the device at home and work , including the downloading of applications (within reason), as they choose. Instead of making the device fit into the workplace, the workplace lets the employee tailor the issued device to his or her needs.

So, which program is better? Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of each, and you can decide what would work best for your company.

COPE

Pros:

• Companies can make purchases with corporate discounts
• OpEx savings
• IT can yank data back, regardless of regulations, and configure application management protocols before issuing devices to each employee
• The same set of hardware devices are issued to every employee, making support easier
• IT owns the devices, and can therefore ensure the security of issued devices

Cons:

• Employees feel like they have limited choice and might prefer a different device than what is available
• Lost or stolen devices may have to be paid for by the company versus the employee
• Employees may not be using the technology they are accustomed to, or most comfortable with, which could affect productivity

BYOD

Pros:

• CapEx Savings
• Hardware purchasing/upgrading is not the responsibility of the company
• Employees are using the devices they are most comfortable with and will be happier and potentially more productive as a result

Cons:

• Loss of visibility to usage and spend
• Companies may pay retail prices for device reimbursements
• The threat of malware-ridden, insecure devices accessing corporate networks

The premise behind the push for this new ‘holiday’ are simple: the prevalence of smart phones and other Internet-connected devices make it easier than ever for people to start their holiday shopping before reaching for seconds at the dinner table. According to Digitas, 40 percent of 18 – 34 year-olds indicated that they plan to use their mobile devices on Thanksgiving to do some form of holiday shopping and would rather skip Thanksgiving dinner than endure a two-hour smartphone blackout.

This trend is emblematic of an overall boost in mobile device usage during the holiday. There are a few other areas that will contribute to this usage surge beyond consumers striving to take advantage of the latest sales and marketing offers that retailers are making available this Thursday, including:

• Staying in Touch with Friends and Family – Perhaps more so than any other American holiday, Thanksgiving is about letting the family and friends you love know it. That is why a good portion of any Thanksgiving is now devoted to staying in touch with those that are not there to break bread with your family. Lengthy conversations, extensive postings on Facebook or even Instagram’d photos of the turkey and trimmings will increase voice and data traffic.
• Global Ties – Thanksgiving is an American institution, but it is business as usual throughout the rest of the globe. In fact, there may be more international communications made as transplants from around the world contact loved ones.
• Road Trip Data Usage – Long car rides to grandparents’, aunts and uncles’ or parents’ houses are a common occurrence for many families on Thanksgiving. Many parents download mobile apps or movies to help make the journey for their children more fun.

While conventional thinking would have enterprises believe that they would see a reduction in mobile expenses due to a national holiday, it’s likely that the opposite is true. From everyone here at Xigo and Dimension Data, we hope you have a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

The bug was caught as droves of iPhone 5 users contacted Apple at the same time, questioning why they were quickly hitting their caps, as compared with normal usage patterns.

In response to the bug, Apple pushed out a software update aimed at fixing it for customers on Verizon's network. For AT&T users, AT&T retroactively increased the data limit for affected users for the prior month to make up for the overage, which seemed to directly affect users who had completed an iOS 6 update.

In a statement to The Washington Post, Verizon Wireless said that it will not be charging users for “unwarranted cellular data usage.” Verizon spokesman Torod Neptune said, “Under certain circumstances, the iPhone 5 may use Verizon cellular data while the phone is connected to Wi-Fi network. Apple has a fix that is being delivered to Verizon customers’ right on their iPhone 5.”

Aside from discussing this important news item, we point it out for two reasons:

• It is a good reminder of how important it is to connect to WiFi when possible, in the workplace, while traveling and at home, so that your data allotment is not used up unnecessarily.
  
  In this day and age, every enterprise needs to have strong, secure WiFi networks in their offices—and need to make sure coverage extends to common areas, restrooms – and especially employees’ desks. Just because the hardline connection is there, doesn’t mean employees won’t use both their desktop and mobile at the same time.

• This is also a strong reminder for enterprises to closely monitor their mobile bills. Had Verizon and AT&T iPhone users not been monitoring their bills, they would not have noticed the overage charges and likely paid for data they didn’t intend to use.

It’s easier to spot discrepancies such as this on an individual bill, but when hundreds or thousands of mobile phones are billed to an enterprise, these overage charges may not be so obvious.

That said, as we head to the 4^th quarter of 2012, we wanted to make sure that our customers are aware of the latest, somewhat significant changes to the Universal Service Fund, or USF. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) just issued a new public notice describing the 4^th quarter 2012 contribution factor, so let’s take a look at what this says and what it means for your enterprise telecom expenses.

For some quick background, each quarter the FCC sets a target rate for contributions from telecommunications revenues to the USF. The USF was created by Congress to meet service goals mandated by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, such as the availability of telecommunications services to all, including rural and low income areas. At the end of 2011, a reorganization of the fund to support broadband development was approved, and the Connect America Fund (CAF) was born from the USF.

All telecommunications service providers and certain other providers of telecommunications must contribute to the federal USF based on a percentage of their interstate and international end-user telecommunications revenues.

This quarter, the contribution factor proposed by the FCC is proposed at 17.4%.

Each vendor determines how they will recover the USF contributions. In most cases, the fees are recovered as a percent of international and interstate charges. Some vendors will charge this fee on data access lines. Note that the fee is not applicable for enhanced services such as multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) ports.

Xigo’s oversight of your telecommunications program and expenses for our Professional Services Clients includes a regular review of USF charges to ensure that vendors are charging correctly. Any issues, inconsistencies or discrepancies will be identified by our service and brought to your attention.

If you have any questions about the USF, the CAF or your bills, please feel free to contact your Xigo Professional Services team member at any time.

Thanks, and now back to the regularly scheduled interesting blog posts.

Every employee, from executives to entry-level want the newest device to hit the market—and you want to provide it to them, but not if it means throwing the corporate mobile budget out of whack.

Despite being thinner and lighter and having a much better screen, the updated features that matter most to the enterprise are the speed, computing power and battery life of the phone. The new iPhone 5 uses LTE connectivity, meaning it will be much faster than the iPhone 4S. It supports all carrier standards (HSPA+, DC-HSDPA, LTE) and has dual-channel 5GHz WiFi (802.11N), which gives it a 150Mbps maximum speed.

Apple says the iPhone 5 also has a CPU that’s 2 times faster than the iPhone 4S, loading web pages 2.1 times faster. Topping this off, the new device’s battery gives users 8 hours of 3G talk time, 8 hours of LTE browsing, 10 hours of WiFi browsing, 30 hours of video and 225 hours of standby. Combining all of this gives you a fast, powerful device.

But what do these advances mean for the enterprise? Are companies prepared for this kind of speed?

The iPhone 5 will no doubt help employees work quicker, better and smarter from the road, from their homes, from wherever they are. Speed and power help employees access what they need, when they need it. That said, the other thing speed and power can do is to help employees do even more from their mobile devices than ever before. Which is, ironically, when problems start to arise.

People will use their devices as much as possible. If they can send more emails, read more documents, surf more web pages and watch more video than ever before, they will. The increased speed and power will make users do more, simply because they can.

Not to say that employees should be discouraged from working remotely on their own schedules—but there need to be rules and policies put in place so that devices are used effectively and without costing companies money for roaming, overage charges or abuse. No IT manager wants to provide the newest devices and then turn around and be shocked at the bill at the end of the month. Preparation is key.

Certain steps should be taken to prepare your company for the iPhone 5:

• WiFi – Even if you have the strongest, fastest landline network at the office, you should have WiFi at work. People use their phones to check email in between meetings, in the restroom—wherever they are. Make it easy for them and less costly for the company by making sure they’re not using a carrier network while sitting at their desks.

• Monitor Usage for Abuse – You should review your mobile bills every month to make sure there are not one or two employees that are downloading albums or videos from their office, destroying the bandwidth of the work network and driving up the mobile spending of the company, as they’ve just gone over the allotted data limits on their plans. With the huge amounts that carriers charge for overages, it is important to put a stop to anyone taking advantage of the company’s decision to foot the mobile bill.

• Monitor Usage and Change Voice and Data Plans if Needed – Every month, bills should be reviewed. In additional to abuse that leads to intentional allotment overages, there are plenty of recorded instances where enterprises regularly pay more than they planned on for mobile bills, simply because an employee’s data plan didn’t match their true usage. Recognize that those over the limit for a couple months may need a bigger plan, and that those consistently under may need lesser plans to operate.

• Set Policies for Home/Out-of-Office Use – We all live in a BYOD world; there is no way that your average employee will not use their work device at home or their home device at work. Employees these days have one device, period. That said, if you’re paying for the service, then you get to make some rules. First of all, dictate that employees need WiFi at home, so they’re not using the expensive carrier network to respond to an email in the middle of the night. In addition, put some restrictions in. No downloading movies over 3G, for example. You can’t prevent employees from using a single device for work and fun, but you can make sure you’re not subsidizing their out-of-office entertainment.

• Apps – As the IT manager, it should be part of your responsibilities to help employees find the right office apps to allow them to do their jobs quickly and efficiently, without blowing through minutes downloading a document. Investigate what is needed by your employees and research what will work best. Help them find and use the right applications.

Mobile devices will only continue to advance, becoming quicker and more powerful as technology and design improvements are made. Understanding this and taking the needed steps will help you be ready for the iPhone 5S, 6 and so on in the coming years. Negotiating the best plans, ensuring that your company policies are up-to-date and regularly monitoring usage and billing are important steps to make sure your company gets more out of the iPhone 5 than a larger bill.

Here is the original post, which includes a video of the discussion and here is the link to the video on YouTube.

The key takeaways from the conversation are:

• The next phase of mobility is being driven by the end user. If you try to stop that, people will find a way around it. Even in regulated industries, employers need to find a way to harness their employees’ enthusiasm for BYOD.

• CIOs seeking to drive innovation are seeing the productivity gains their employees are able to attain by using their own devices. This is a lifestyle change more so than a technology change. BYOD is allowing people to work the way they want to work versus the way the enterprise thinks they should work.

• BYOD does not necessarily introduce new risks, but rather exasperates pre-existing risks in the enterprise. With BYOD, there is a 50 percent increase in the number of end devices [smartphones and tablets], making the risks 2-3 times greater.

• Many corporations are trying to take a standard acceptable use policy and force it on the user and the device. Enterprises need to update acceptable usage policies to accommodate mobile devices brought into the organization. This protects the individual and the company.

• Today, people’s lives are contained on mobile devices. It is often difficult to delineate between work and personal information. As such, policies need to be put in place around data, such as IT’s ability to perform remote wipes of a device.

• Mobility will drive desktop virtualization, not the operating system itself. This will offer operating system independence.

At the end of the day, BYOD is largely about being able to access content and collaborate with co-workers, clients and partners, from anywhere, at anytime. As organizations look to safeguard their data, they will want to de-couple it from the operating system. In other words, containing the data in a data center, versus on the end device. That way, users can browse for and edit documents on the end device without storing them there. This not only makes the company’s data more secure, but can eliminate the need for employees to use unregulated public cloud services.

The fact of the matter is that CIOs’ view of the entire enterprise network now reaches well past the network infrastructure. Mobile services, VPNs and smart devices are irrevocably transforming the enterprise environment, with traditional offices blending with an increasingly mobile and distributed workplace. In many ways, this transformation is happening from the edge to the core because sophisticated mobile devices enable employees to access information from anywhere, at any time. Cloud computing puts critical corporate data into the hands of any authorized user with an Internet-connected device. A company is less defined by its physical ‘four walls’ and more by its ability to succeed, regardless of location.

CIOs are now empowering end-users with mission-critical applications both inside and outside of the firewall almost instantly. A transparent, unified view of voice and data costs are needed both locally and globally so enterprises can ensure they are making the best use of their entire enterprise infrastructure. Enterprise IT departments, looking to gain control over an enabled workforce need to balance employees’ fervor for new mobile devices with the technologies’ value to the company against real costs. This is where TEM’s enterprise benefits lie. Cost transparency throughout the entire IT infrastructure (not just phones) is the next step in TEM’s journey.

Through greater end-to-end communications intelligence, a growing enterprise can gain visibility into its devices, applications, and equipment and networking services. Sound TEM strategies dictate that enterprises account for costs from router to smartphone to enable effective decision-making around:

• Product/service utilization
• Cost management
• Service delivery

Mobile technologies are at the forefront of this corporate sea change and TEM companies like Xigo will empower enterprises with the information they need to gain control over the costs associated with an increasingly mobile corporate workplace. While we’re sure TEMIA’s “telecommunications management” label will receive a few iterations before a final term is agreed upon, we can certainly stand behind the notion of expanding TEM’s definition to show its full business value.

Despite my love of snacks, it looks like some of us may need to plan for a future company headquarters without free food, or without a kitchen…or even without an office?

Employees have been telecommuting for years now, but with the onset of reliable cloud computing and BYOD ushering in an acceptable blur between corporate and personal technologies, the next thing to be consumerized or downsized could be the corporate office itself. Following the same argument as BYOD, if employees are already comfortable working from the home offices they have, why then spend the money to have a corporate office? Why not eliminate the rent costs, supply costs and other various expenses and have employees work from home?

While I’m strongly against BYOS (bring your own snacks), when you look at the bottom line, the idea of eliminating a corporate office may seem attractive to certain types of companies, especially those where in-person contact is not a priority to be successful.

But what does that mean for these companies’ IT managers or CIOs? What will their position/role be in the brave, new, lack-of-an-office setup? IT managers can actually become even more important in instances where there is no centralized corporate office. Below you’ll find some points and advice for IT managers to keep in mind should their company decide that this setup is for them.

• Better Technologies at Home: Often, one of the reasons that push employees to want to work from home or telecommute is that they have better technologies and faster networks at home. If you have a completely mobile company, you can expect to eventually get questions about how employees can improve their home and mobile technologies.
• Living in the Clouds: Cloud services are what make remote working possible. To be a successful remote/mobile company, you’ll need to become an expert in either cloud-enabling your current IT systems and business software, or find vendors that are. If employees can’t access the technology and applications they need, when they need them, wherever they may be, then no one will be able to work effectively.
• Mobile Expenses: With the entire office being mobile/remote, being aware of what you’re sending on devices and mobile data use has never been more important. Are your employees using all of the MB on their plans, or are they over every month? Does every employee need the same plan? Are employees able to work effectively with the data plans they have now? Understanding what your workforce actually uses, actually needs and making changes to reflect those realities can save you money.
• Meetings: Meetings are still the backbone of any company. Even in a remote/mobile office setup, employees will want to be able to meet internally or with clients in a reliable, secure way. Your conference call and web meeting technology will need to be perfect – and on top of that, you’ll need to make sure you are measuring and controlling costs on these services.
• Ready to Make House Calls?: Employees will still need support. They may not be company-owned devices or networks, but you will still need to help your employees be efficient and troubleshoot any problems they may be having. It’s still your data and your business. Scenarios where you visit the boss to set up a new tablet are not out of the question.
• Establish Work vs. Personal Use Policies: Employers need to make sure employees aren’t abusing work-paid data plans. Create policies on what is acceptable and review bills each month to weed out abuse. No one wants to be paying for an employee’s Angry Birds addiction.

Technology has played a major role through the years in evolving how we work and where we work. Twenty years ago the idea of working efficiently outside of the office seemed like a far off dream. Before we know it the brick-and-mortar world of the corporate office could be left behind as well. Better start hoarding some of the free snacks just in case.

Where there are people, there’s a workforce, so we thought it would be fun to think about how companies would go about managing their mobile workforce on Mars. It’s never too early to prepare so here are a few areas you’ll want to consider:

Monthly Bills Will Double… At Least

This doesn’t have so much to do with an increase in your mobile workforce’s usage of devices; instead, it has more to do with the fact that the Martian 685-day year is almost double Earth’s. That’s roughly 27 added days a month to Earth’s calendar system. To complicate matters, the average day on Mars is a half hour longer than Earth’s so people will have an extra 30 minutes a day to use their mobile devices to speak to colleagues, friends and family.

Make sure employees take advantage of Wi-Fi whenever it is available (assuming they have that on Mars) and limit their ability to download apps, stream movies or otherwise eat up their data plan.

A Sedentary Population

I’m not sure if you’ve seen the Mars photos from Curiosity but let’s call a spade a spade: it looks pretty desolate. The planet has no ozone, so the surface of Mars is doused in high levels of radiation every morning and temperatures plummet to -191° Fahrenheit when the sun goes down. The planet isn’t necessarily conducive for a summertime stroll. This means that people will primarily be relegated indoors which will provide them with inordinate amounts of time with their smartphones and tablets. Recent research has shown that employees are working almost 30 extra hours a month from home on mobile devices – and these are people with a full range of activities and events that they could attend.

Interplanetary Roaming Charges

If you thought prices for roaming charges internationally were steep, there is no doubt that interplanetary charges will be even worse. I’m sure the major carriers are salivating over this very item as we speak.

These are just a few of the many troubles that will go into managing a mobile Martian workforce. Perhaps we’re getting ahead of ourselves – scientists do believe that Phobos, one of Mars’ moons, is on a collision course with the planet which could dramatically hinder our ability to colonize the planet – but we here at Xigo like to be prepared for every issue that may face our customers. Until then, we’ll keep our dreams among the stars and our eyes on your mobile bills.

We’ve put together an infographic to better explain what a gigabyte (GB) is—and have done so in terms of how you consume that data everyday (video, music, web pages, photos, etc.).

Check it out here: http://www.xigo.com/eatingupyourdataplan

Did you know that 1GB is equal to about 29,000 emails—or is just over 28 hours of streaming music on Pandora? Seems like a lot, huh? Well those seemingly generous allotments disappear quickly when you turn to video. For example, the average movie download is 2GB…and if you download that same movie in HD, you’re now looking at 4.8GB.

Why these data consumption rates are important to know and understand is that with the mobile plans offered by the major carriers there are specified data allotments each month (either per device, or per shared family/group plan). Once you hit that pre-determined number, you’re paying extra money—typically at a higher rate—for each megabyte or gigabyte of data you use from that point until the end of the month. This is where the term “bill shock” comes from—the shock that you just charged another 5GB over your monthly allotment, to the tune of an extra $50 you didn’t budget for.

There are many things you as the employee or the enterprise plan manager can do to prevent costly overages. These include: taking advantage of WiFi (and making the staff do as well); being aware of what apps do automatic updates or push information to you and turning those functions off; renting local country devices when employees travel; and making sure that you review your mobile bills monthly and adjust plans as necessary to make allotments fit employee need.

Understanding what you and your employees are using mobile devices for—and educating yourself and your company as to what each action relates to in gigabytes can go a long way to preventing any shocking bills at the end of the month.

Well, it looks like someone was listening—both AT&T and Verizon recently announced plans to offer shared data plans for up to 10 devices. However, neither is offering these plans for enterprises, focusing on consumers and the idea of families sharing a data allotment across all their devices.

Great idea; consumer bills, like those of the enterprise, have become increasingly complicated and hard to manage—and by pooling data across all of a consumer’s/family’s devices it will be easier to prevent bill shock.

That said, enterprise billing is ripe for this sort of pricing reform as well. Enterprises have lengthy, confusing phone bills that no one reads and plans that don’t allow for different employee usage needs, making it often impossible to keep costs down.

Maybe that’s their actual goal after all. Read on.

The interesting wrinkle that these shared family data/device plans bring to the forefront is how they affect BYOD policies. In an era where employees are bringing their own devices to work, how then can an organization properly manage data plans and usage if I’m on a family plan with my spouse and child?

These family data pooling plans, if they catch on, essentially eliminate the ability of companies to pay the service plans for their employees. No enterprise is going to pay fully for a family sharing plan, knowing that the majority of usage is personal.

These plans essentially force companies and consumers into practicing the form of BYOD where users receive a set stipend each month for mobile usage, or one where users submit reimbursement charges and a copy of their mobile bills each month…that is, if the bills are itemized enough by the carriers that each device’s charges can be clearly seen.

Enterprises paying 100% of a mobile bill effectively dies if these sharing plans catch on, unless we take a step back away from BYOD and start forcing employees to use certain devices on certain plans again.

And if the plans do catch on, then they’ll never be a need for carriers to revamp how they bill enterprise users—as a majority of users, especially those with teenagers, will want to use their own devices with the family data pooling plans instead.

Without limits or corporate restrictions, the thinking is that employees will use their personal devices more for both work and play, increasing data usage and costs over that of a work-monitored device.

As both BYOD and carrier plans mature, the lines between work and personal use continue to blur even more.

One other thing this gives mobile device users the ability to do? Inflate their company’s mobile device bills.

Direct in-app billing may be convenient if you’re looking to quickly play the next level of Angry Birds or get the latest cheat-code, but even $0.99 charges can quickly add up and hurt your organization’s bottom line.

If mobile direct billing gains in popularity it will force businesses to adapt their mobile use policies to reflect business use vs. personal use of devices. Companies will need to clearly lay out what is acceptable usage and what is not—and more importantly, take steps to back those policies up. They will need to do due diligence to make sure that their usage policies are not being taken advantage of.

Even in today’s BYOD-centric mobile device world, many companies will still find this to be an issue. Sure, some companies simply pass a regular monthly stipend on to employees, but other organizations pay the entire bills and are at risk of paying to help an employee or his/her children unlock new levels on a regular basis. Not to mention what will happen if direct billing truly catches on and becomes a way for users to purchase real-world goods, or if it operates as a variation of the mobile wallet idea.

The bottom line? This is another charge that can easily be added to corporate mobile expenses without any red flags going off. If your organization does not consistently review mobile bills and analyze what is being charged by who and when, then these micro-charges will almost always will sneak up on you.

A few things you can do to ensure employees are equipped to work remotely, but not charge you for entertainment costs:

1. Establish a Work vs. Personal Use Policy: BYOD or not, employers need to make sure employees aren’t abusing devices. Create a policy about what are acceptable uses and what aren’t—and then regularly review bills and ensure compliance. Abuses such as gaming add-ons or even watching streaming video on the weekend can add to the bottom line.

2. Separate Work and Personal Apps: Eliminate the question of whether a purchase is acceptable or not, and do it right from the start. Provide a list of approved apps or direct billing purchases, if you plan on allowing this at all. Track usage and anything outside of authorized use is the responsibility of the employee.

3. Review and Analyze: Are your employees using all of the MB on your plan? Are you constantly under? Over? Are people on the correct plans? Understanding what your workforce actually needs and making changes with your carriers to reflect that reality can save you money.

In reviewing the results a little deeper, I think there’s a few interesting conclusions that can be made about the state of enterprise mobile today—and what trends IT managers need to prepare themselves for in the near future.

The lead finding that over half of all enterprises are still in complete control of what devices their employees use and what service plans they are on is not surprising, despite all of the growth numbers that are publicized about BYOD. In our experiences, enterprises are open to the idea of BYOD, but it gets a bit trickier when it comes to implementing the policy. Between concerns about corporate data and user privacy—not to mention expense overruns and who pays for what—we’ve seen many companies try BYOD out on a trial program while continuing to maintain control.

That said, BYOD made a strong showing in our results as well. 22% of respondents run a hybrid of corporate-liable and BYOD models, while 10% said they were full BYOD shops that not only allowed users to use their own devices, but expected them to pay all monthly service charges themselves.

Another interesting finding was around what enterprises felt the goals of BYOD were. Only 12% moved to BYOD because of executive demands, while 19% did it to keep employees happy. While both valid reasons on some levels, these are not the types of reasons to base a corporate mobility policy around.

Policies such as BYOD affect every part of the workplace and need to be well thought-out and developed in unison with all executives, taking into account whether it will make the organization operate better.

That’s why seeing that 17% of enterprises saw BYOD as a way to improve productivity and 15% saw it as a way to reduce spending was much better. These numbers are far too low—as productivity and cost are two of the most relevant reasons in any corporate decision—but it’s a start. We expect as more companies research BYOD and really look into the cost/benefit analysis that these numbers will increase.

Whether BYOD can actually reduce expenses is a question that begs further research—67% of our respondents currently using BYOD said that their expenditures haven’t increased or decreased since changing policies. This means that device costs were quickly replaced by management costs—and is something companies should keep an eye on, because if management costs rise, BYOD may no longer be a valid choice.

One last finding that should be noted by every IT manager or executive that reads this—36% of enterprises feel that tablets will one day replace laptops. That means the possibility of even less control over what employees work on—and highlights the importance of policies and software to monitor and control usage, expenses and security.

BYOD is clearly taking hold, even if it’s not all the way there yet.

The full report, entitled “Mobility Temperature Check: Just How Hot Is BYOD?” is available to the public here: http://discover.xigo.com/BYOD-Survey-2012.html.

While your company decides when to move to BYOD or roll out tablet use, there are a few tips I can share that might help you get from one policy to the next:

1. WiFi: Make sure your entire company takes advantage of WiFi all the time, at work or at home. WiFi use can eliminate end-of-the month billing surprises.
2. Usage Policy: This has grown in importance this year—enterprises need to make sure employees aren’t abusing devices for personal use.
3. Expenses: Are you regularly reviewing your mobile bills? Are employees over their allotments? Under? Are there crazy charged that you and your employees are unaware of? If you don’t know the situation, you can’t work with your carrier to adjust and cut costs. They won’t do it for you.

A lot has happened over the course of the year, especially in regards to the growth of BYOD and the rise of smartphone and tablet use in the enterprise. However, cramming is still a major problem and is even expected to worsen given the massive surge in employee data usage.

In support of the anniversary of the Senate hearing, we thought an educational post about cramming was in order, to help organizations know what to look out for and ultimately avoid these charges in the future.

We have included below a sample wireless bill with a few cramming charges included. Can you spot them all?

The biggest issue with cramming is that it’s so hard to differentiate real charges from illegitimate charges. You may be surprised to know that #’s 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 11 could all be considered cramming charges. Not to mention, this particular customer is getting hit up twice for the Pictavision charge. Hard to imagine how many organizations are overlooking these avoidable expenses each year, isn’t it?

With summer just getting started and people starting to take extended vacations, businesses need to be more wary of their employees’ mobile use, especially those in BYOD environments. Employees are more likely to download consumer apps while lounging on the beach, not even knowing that they are single-handedly increasing their company’s mobile spend—and potentially agreeing to have their company billed for recurring unauthorized fees.

The best way to guard against any of these issues is to gain visibility into your telecom spending so you can control it. Without that insight, your business could be crammed without you ever knowing it until its too late.

For those interested in taking a look at the full cramming report produced by the U.S. Senate, please visit: Unauthorized Charges on Telephone Bills Report.

While we all love our new smartphones, they have also brought on the problem of the ‘non-working vacation.’ It has become an expectation that employees at all levels remain connected while out of the office. For those organizations that have implemented a BYOD policy, employees will use that iPhone they’re carrying to the beach as a way to stay in touch with the office, catch up on email or deal with any unforeseen crises.

In a perfect world, organizations would disconnect email when employees go on vacation, but we all know this will never happen. But what does need to happen is for companies to think about how their employees will be using that smartphone or tablet while outside the office.

Aside from checking email, they will most likely be taking and posting photos, downloading movies, allowing their children to use applications, dropping the device in the sand—all the while racking up some potentially data overage charges if they’re not careful about their use of Wi-Fi. Charges can add up quickly and without warning your company could be stuck with a huge bill.

With Telecom Expense Management (TEM) solutions, even the most complex organizations can quickly and easily get the critical tools needed to gain control over their company’s mobile services and expenses.

Companies of all sizes can benefit from greater access to all the details of their mobile expenditures (invoices, plans, devices)--and TEM can help you learn from those details. Knowing the patterns of your organization’s mobile use (in all seasons) helps you to adjust plans for actual use and weed out abuse—but most importantly, helps you create and apply critical policies to help establish consistency and ensure that your employee isn’t hosting company-paid movie marathons while on vacation.

As the first half of 2012 comes to a close, there will be a new surcharge on Verizon service bills for voice customers whose service is provided by a Verizon Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC). These charges will begin appearing on July 3, 2012.

This new surcharge is an interstate Federal Subscriber Line and Access Recovery Charge, or ARC, that was created to cover some of the costs associated with providing and maintaining customers' local phone networks.

This ARC is a new charge that carriers are permitted to assess because of changes to the federal rules for the rates charged between carriers to carry telecommunications traffic.

See—I warned you—no promises of excitement this time around.

For some background, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has directed the local phone companies to begin phasing out certain intercarrier access charges. As part of this transition, carriers are allowed to bill an additional charge to customers. The charge will help ILEC providers continue to operate and maintain local networks.

We’ve put together a brief Q&A that should answer some additional questions you may have about this charge:

Q: How much is the charge?

A: It varies per service:

• Centrex: 15 cents per line per month.

• Single Line Business: 36 cents per line per month

• Multi Line Business: 86 cents per line per month

• ISDN BRI: 36 cents per line per month

• ISDN PRI: $4.30 per line per month

• Flexpath: $20.64 per line per month

Q: Which services will be affected?

A: The Federal Subscriber Line and Access Recovery Charge will apply to the following service types:

• POTS

• Multi-line business

• Centrex (Custopak, Custoflex 2100, CentraNet, Intellipath)

• ISDN-BRI

• ISDN-PRI

• Flexpath

• Cyber DS1

• T1s (Flexgrow, DCS, Digital Handoff, PADA)

Q: Where will customers see the ARC charge on their bill?

A: Most customers will see the ARC under the "Taxes and Surcharges" section of their bill. The ARC will be combined with the Federal Subscriber Line charge as a single line item to be shown as Federal Subscriber Line Charge and Access Recovery Charge. "Classic" and "Revolution" billed customers will see separate line items for the Federal Subscriber Line and ARC.

Q: Are all U.S. ILECs required to bill for ARC?

A: ILECs are not required to bill for the ARC. ILECs are permitted by the FCC, but not mandated, to apply the charge.

Q: Will legacy MCI providers charge the ARC?

A: No. The ARC is only applicable to ILECs, since the charge addresses rate actions sanctioned by the FCC and only affects ILEC access revenues.

Q: Are there any exceptions to the ARC?

A: Residential customers in California, New York, and Virginia, as well as Lifeline customers, will not be billed the Access Recovery Charge due to state subscriber service and charge mandates.

If you have any questions about this new ARC charge, don’t hesitate to contact your Xigo Professional Services team member at any time. They’re there to answer any questions you may have about this or other items on your bill.

And we’ll remain dedicated to bringing you all the information you need…no matter how unexciting it may be.

The problem should not be user consumption. Some carriers are trying to make users “aware” that they are using too much data or have the gall to do something like want to watch video from a mobile device or send email while on a business trip to a foreign country.

Think about that for a moment. These should not be problems that the consumers of mobile devices should have to deal with. We buy these for business and personal use to both work and play harder, faster and from wherever we are. That is why 4G devices and networks exist—to do more, better, and while watching your daughter’s softball game.

There’s no turning back the clock. We’ve melded work and personal schedules together creating a business reality shaped around flex time and 24/7 availability. We’ve agreed to BYOD policies that enable mobile work.

Mobile carriers need to stop trying to make us all step backwards and deal with outdated pricing plans that punish consumers and businesses that use their devices and networks as intended.

The overage charges are ludicrous and will end up having a negative effect for carriers—turning all audiences off from mobile work and ultimately hurting their own earnings.

I’m not advocating for unlimited data use plans—those were nice, but they’re never coming back—especially when carriers see a way to monetize data use. But they shouldn’t be monetizing it in ways that dissuade people from using it in the first place.

The answer for consumers is a mix of awareness (how much have I used?/how much does this action take?) and tiers for overages. Instead of handing a consumer a $1,200 bill because they had an emergency while on vacation and needed to use their device, build some tiers into overage plans. Charge a certain amount for the first GB over and then increase the amount. Or do it in a first offense, second offense manner. These plans could be competitive differentiators carriers could use to attract more customers, i.e., “…are you often over your allotment? We offer tiered plans, alerts and one-time upgrade fees to make sure you don’t end up with a surprise $2,000 mobile bill.”

For businesses, the answer is even clearer: offer data pooling across your company. Pooling is an approach where regardless of the number of employees in an office, the company pays for a certain amount of data for all of its users. This isn’t a new idea---it’s long been a staple of corporate voice plans to make sure that the salesperson on the road balances out with the desk-bound HR representative. With so many different roles, responsibilities and schedules within each organization it is impossible to come up with a plan that fits everyone at the same time, and the variations in work schedules that change from month to month. Usage—and therefore expenses—would balance out better. Carriers could get businesses to sign long-term contracts and compete on who offered the better data pooling plan.

The industry needs to evolve at the same pace that devices and networks evolve. Making it easier for businesses and consumers to be cost-conscious and successful always wins out.

As anyone who’s worked for more than one business knows, every company is built differently—responsibilities differ from company to company and overall size and business goals play a major role in determining what an individual does on a day-to-day basis.

Those that work in purchasing are generally experts in finance and are driven to cut expenses and maximize profit. Those that work in IT, on the other hand, are technology experts that are driven by maintaining the company’s security, being on top of the latest technology advances and by solving business problems through technology.

Most businesses are far from a point where IT can recommend devices and hand it off to purchasing to complete. Or where purchasing can understand for sure why there is less of a need for texting minutes but a need for a plan with a large data allotment. In many companies, the responsibility most often falls on IT to make sure that employees have the right devices, the right plans and are using them most cost-effectively. And it falls to purchasing to make sure the carriers are billing what you expected and that they are not charging you for services you didn’t sign up for.

Clearly there has to be collaboration between both parties in order for mobile management to work properly. There are so many possibilities where problems could arise that would traditionally fall squarely between the two departments—overages by employees, cramming, abuse of the network, insufficient data plans, overseas roaming, being billed for destroyed devices. These problems, if not dealt with consistently, quickly and seamlessly, can combine to create a huge mobile bill.

Businesses should be set up so these issues are collaborated on by both groups (along with the executive team in some organizations). Companies that are best equipped to solve any of these problems have IT employees stretching into finance—and finance employees stretching into IT. Siloing the mobile expense management responsibilities helps no one succeed and can create confusion that results in bigger, more expensive bills.

With that in mind, it makes sense for IT managers and purchasing managers to do as much as they can to ensure that their mobile strategy or BYOD approach doesn’t crash and burn. Here are some steps to help control expenses from the start:

1. Take Advantage of WiFi and Demand Employees Do the Same: A greater use of WiFi can be the single, easiest and most effective way to curb crazy wireless charges and ensure costs stay in line. Employees need to use WiFi in the office, at home and while traveling.
2. Review Bills and Recognize Trends: Are your employees using all of the MB on your plan? Are you constantly under? Over? Being aware of your company's usage pattern and making needed adjustments sooner rather than later can save you money in the long run.
3. Cramming and Unwanted Charges: Pay close attention to all providers' offerings, rules and policies, to avoid getting charged for unwanted services or overages. Make sure you aren’t still paying for abandoned or destroyed devices. Learn to recognize cramming charges—third parties that charge small fees for services you never signed up for. The carriers will not look for and eliminate these charges themselves; it is the responsibility of the user to do so.
4. Be Ready to Change Plans and Re-Negotiate: With each new device you add, you also add new data/service plans to the mix and are forced to manage multiple contracts and invoices. This often means re-negotiating plans.
5. Create a Non-Work Use Policy: In today’s BYOD world employers now need to make sure employees aren’t abusing devices by downloading music at work and aren’t overspending by using their device to watch streaming video on the weekend. By regularly reviewing bills you can also identify any abusers before its too late.

While BYOD has become the acronym of choice (vs. BYOC), many of Chris’ key points still hold true. For example, it’s more important than ever for enterprises to develop acceptable use policies to not only protect their employees but also protect themselves against security issues and other unforeseeable risks.

In addition, in an employee-liable (EL) environment, BYOD is a significant cost benefit to organizations because they don’t have to replace new smartphones or tablets when the latest versions come to market or if technology issues impair the devices.

However, organizations in a corporate-liable (CL) environment need to be cognizant of mounting (yet avoidable) expenses which can make BYOD a rather expensive perk.

For example, organizations need to have plans in place for when employees are on a long holiday weekend and using up all of their wireless minutes surfing the web while lounging on the beach all day.

To learn more about the real costs associated with BYOD as well as tips on how to manage them, take a look at another one of our recent posts, and keep an eye out for our upcoming blog on managing BYOD expenses during the summer months.

Until then, have a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend!

What are companies doing to manage these devices and keep costs down? What policies are most popular? What best practices are worth sharing and repeating?

With those questions in mind, we partnered with the Center for Communications Management Information (CCMI) to develop the survey linked to below.

Please take a moment to fill out the survey, and feel free to send it along to any other managers you know who have something to say about managing mobility in the workplace.

The survey will be open until May 25

Survey link: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22FP46LLB7B

Once the survey is closed and the numbers are crunched, we promise to share the results—and any lessons learned—with you all.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Regardless of whether you view BYOD as a savior or a demon, there has been some great research put together on the trend. We here at Xigo decided to assemble that data and share some cold hard facts and figures around BYOD for all of you. And we decided to present it to you in an infographic. Because we’re nice like that.

For instance, did you know that by 2015, there will be more than 15 billion network connected devices? That equals more than two devices for every person on the planet! How will IT departments manage that—especially in a BYOD world?

Or how about how many employees and students would accept a lower-paying job as a trade-off to be able to use a device of their choice? You’ll be surprised at the numbers.

So read on and learn all about the numbers behind BYOD costs…and how best to manage it.

http://www.xigo.com/byod/

Results from a Dimension Data visual communications survey showed that 46.4% of polled organizations reported between 10 – 20% of their employees work remotely, and 21.3% of people are travelling 3-5 times per week.

To support this growing mobile workforce and to help stay competitive, it’s more critical than ever for enterprises to incorporate the latest technologies to help employees stay connected and be as successful as possible.

In this post, Ahmad provides some key considerations to help enterprises determine their mobile requirements and develop the most effective enterprise mobility strategy.

When you’re done with that one, take a look at one of our other recent posts that provides some good tips and best practices for managing mobile expenses in the enterprise.

4G is the fourth generation of mobile communications standards. 4G is the upgraded and faster version of its predecessor, third generation (3G) standards. A "G" is a generation of wireless technology. Each generation offers significantly faster Internet access than the previous generation. A 4G system provides mobile ultra-broadband Internet access, allowing things to download faster, reach receipts in a shorter time and potentially act as a replacement for home wired broadband.

Chief Mobility Officer (CMO) ‘CMO’ no longer just refers to the Chief Marketing Officer in organizations. These days, more and more corporations are seeing the value of a person dedicated to the management and implementation of smartphone and tablet strategies. A CMO will ensure that organizations are ahead of the latest mobile trends, manage the device choice and purchasing decisions and work to streamline mobile initiatives that occurring across a variety of departments.

Choose Your Own Device (CYOD) CYOD borrows from the best elements of BYOD. The CYOD model offers employees broad choices for devices, services and applications in a company-defined portfolio but provides a robust, scalable mobile infrastructure and predictable end-user support scenario, often at a lower cost and with less overhead than the BYOD model.

Mobile Application Management (MAM) is a software or service that supports internally-developed enterprise mobile applications. MAM solutions also have the ability to manage commercially available mobile apps that are used in business settings on both company-provided and BYdOD smartphones and tablet computers.

Mobile Security Management (MSM) Given the amount of smartphones in the workplace and the ease in which a device can be lost or stolen, IT departments must secure mobile devices that are connected to corporate networks. MSM is a service used by IT managers to track devices and ensure that company information isn’t being compromised if a mobile device is lost or stolen.

Mobile Worker Support (MWS) A mobile workforce is a powerful tool for reducing costs and creating efficiency, but what happens when a device is stolen, breaks, or if an employee is not able to access the corporate network? Companies often set up MWS as a central location to assist employees with mobile needs. MWS creates a central place in a corporation for all things mobile, helping to ensure that mobile polices remain consistent and security polices are being adhered to.

In addition to usage figures, Xigo’s quarterly research tracks the types of devices used and which carriers enterprises are subscribed to. It’s been well reported already that BlackBerry usage has decreased at the enterprise level. Among our users there was a decrease of 9% in 2011, dropping from 71% in January to 62% in December.

While this is not surprising, what is surprising is that the "other" category (which would include Android devices) was the biggest gainer, moving up over 6 points from 19% in January to 25% in December.

Despite the press and discussion of Apple devices driving BYOD situations, during the same time period iPhone use only increased from 10% in January to 13% in December.

Carrier subscription numbers also remained surprisingly consistent throughout 2011, with all of the major four carriers retaining their market share. Verizon ranged from 38%-40% market share and didn’t see a visible bump from the availability of the iPhone, at least not among our enterprise users.

AT&T also retained its numbers all year long, ranging from 38%-39% market share. Sprint remained at the low end at 10%-11%, as did T-Mobile with 9%-10% (amidst a failed merger) and the "other" category staying right around 3%.

These statistics show that enterprises are remaining loyal to their current carriers—but not their devices. We can expect these numbers to continue along this path as consumerization of the workplace continues to take hold and enterprises adopt additional BYOD and CoIT policies.

Despite many organizations’ best efforts to create tight security policies around the mingling of work and personal information, recent studies and anecdotal evidence have shown that it is still occurring. Along with enforcing HIPAA regulations and ensuring that patient data is not accessed outside of secure, approved systems, strong policies must also be put in place when healthcare professionals are using their own devices to manage the costs and risks associated.

Xigo has met with its clients and come up with a few additional rules (beyond HIPAA compliance and device/network security) for healthcare IT departments either deploying BYOD, such as Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, or being forced to consider it by employees.

Six rules to consider when it comes to managing BYOD in healthcare organizations:

1. Educate Doctors and Nurses About Appropriate Usage of Devices
   Ensure that smartphones and devices are set up properly so that personal and professional information is not mixed together. We’re not even talking about patient information here—that should never even be a possibility—but rather inter-office communication, timesheets, etc. This will ensure that important information is not lost and healthcare institutions are not incurring expenses when personal applications are used during work hours.

2. Manage Smartphone Applications—They Can be Distracting and Costly
   There are thousands of smartphone applications available for purchase these days. These apps can be very costly for healthcare organizations. Make sure your policies are set prior to launching BYOD programs. Certain applications may need to be turned off or blocked during work hours to avoid unnecessary distractions and costs.

3. Not all Providers Offer Appropriate Plans for Healthcare Organizations
   Healthcare institutions should do the necessary research to understand all the various providers and plans and choose the one that will best support their organization’s specific needs.

4. Renegotiate Wireless Contracts
   With the influx of tablets and smartphones, wireless companies are constantly changing their corporate service plans. Data and phone plans should be reviewed on a regular basis to ensure health organizations are not paying for unused services and are fully maximizing their mobile spend. Greater use of Wi-Fi in the healthcare facility can help to mitigate expenses.

5. Track Unused Devices
   More often than not, unused devices can go unnoticed but not canceled. It is essential to track hospital issued devices to ensure you are not paying for ones that are sitting in a drawer.

6. Have a mobile expense management (MEM) plan in place before implementing BYOD
   Mobile expense management software can help organizations manage these devices and service plans, track monthly expenses, budget for new devices and see real-time updates of your mobile expenses. This software can prevent waste, fraud and bill shock from being an issue in your organization.

The article discussed how more and more companies are investing in these devices, thinking that they’ll quickly and easily cut costs and improve productivity. However, while these devices can be incredibly valuable for those reasons, there are many ways in which they can go wrong.

Forrester research estimates that approximately 25% of computers used for work globally are tablets and smartphones, not PCs.

While that number is impressive, many organizations have no idea what they’re getting themselves into, because they don’t do the necessary leg work and research before adopting them, especially when it comes to upfront and ongoing expenses.

The article highlights the top five biggest mistakes companies have made and what those mistakes have taught them. They include:

• Neglecting to have a roll-out plan for the devices
• Not completely understanding what tablets are – what they’re good for and what their limitations are
• Having unrealistic expectations about being able to obtain all the apps employees need to do their jobs
• Overestimating tablets’ ease of security and support; and most importantly,
• Thinking tablets are less expensive and more cost-effective than laptops

Much like the recent mass adoption of smartphone use across enterprises, many companies don’t realize the costs involved with adopting and running these types of devices.

For example, the article highlights software giant SAP AG, who recently distributed 14,000 tablets to employees and says it plans to replace them every 18 months or so to take advantage of the latest software and hardware improvements.

While this will undoubtedly help SAP stay ahead of the curve, it will cost the company an astronomical amount of money, aside from just implementation and upgrade costs. Because tablets also change the enterprise IT cost structure, company and employee mobility costs are driven way up. Therefore, companies need to have the right plans in place to support the massive amounts of data that will be consumed and paid for on a monthly per device basis. And this can get complex and very costly if not handled correctly.

This is where Mobile Expense Management (MEM) can help not only manage these massive and complex wireless plans and bills, but more importantly, can help save a tremendous amount of money on expenses.

Here’s a recent post we wrote, providing some valuable tips and best practices for managing smartphone and tablet expenses, such as paying attention to all providers’ offerings, rules and policies, reviewing and inspecting carrier plans on a regular basis, and taking advantage of WiFi in the office to help save money.

Take a look and please let us know if you have any comments or feedback on the subject.

For specific tips on leveraging MEM to better manage expenses for the iPhone 4S, tablets and other devices, take a look at one of our recent posts on the subject.

Well, look they did—and they were amazed at what they found.

In a press release recently issued by the Governor’s office, it is reported that this directive has already led to the discovery of 6,416 cellular devices that could be better optimized by consolidating plans, taking unused devices out of service and pooling minutes. In fact, the governor’s office says 3,450 unused or unnecessary mobile devices have been eliminated, and nearly 3,000 more have been made cheaper by moving them to better plans. This simple act has already saved the taxpayers of Washington nearly $1.7 million.

Here is a breakdown of the mobile devices from the Governor’s report:

We would like to congratulate Governor Gregoire and her team for successfully identifying thousands of unused devices and optimizing the thousands of devices that are necessary to keep the State of Washington running efficiently.

More often than not, unused devices go unnoticed but not canceled. They end up in a desk drawer somewhere collecting dust—but still accruing expenses against the bottom line. Large organizations need to be aware of the solutions available that will help identify unused devices and protect you from the start from paying more than you should.

Mobile Expense Management (MEM) solutions help large organizations track mobile devices and their usage. If an employee leaves their job or receives a mobile device upgrade, MEM solutions have the capability of monitoring these devices to ensure organizations are not double paying for service plans or paying for unused devices.

With BYOD programs increasing among government organizations, it is even more important to know who’s using (or not using) what. More advanced devices cost organizations more, and its not inconceivable to think that in a BYOD world, employees might leave a job with their device in tow, but not their bills—and their former employers would be none the wiser.

Take a look at this sample wireless bill below. Name all the charges below that would most likely get you fired (hint: ignore the highlighted sections).

Is it:

1. 1, 7, 8, 9
2. 3, 4, 6, 7, 10
3. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11 –OR-
4. 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11

To win, tweet your response to @XigoNow and let us know what you think. The contest will end on Friday, April 13, at which time we’ll post the winning answer. Good luck!

Random cramming fact: Did you know that over $2 billion worth of unauthorized charges appear on phone bills each year? Be sure to follow @XigoNow to learn some great tips on how to avoid these types of charges.

*Xigo Pro is only available for companies that use U.S. mobile carriers.

Well, we’re happy to come back and report that the times, they are a changin’. It’s not “mission accomplished” or anything like that, but when one of the biggest carriers in the world—Verizon—agrees to do the right thing and stop allowing cramming charges on consumers’ landline bills, it’s a major, major step forward.

As we’ve said before, cramming is nothing more than carriers turning a blind eye to their customers being scammed. It’s a deceptive practice that costs consumers and businesses millions of dollars a year.

Hopefully we will soon see other carriers follow in Verizon’s footsteps in ending this practice—and we hope Verizon will take a serious look at extending this anti-cramming stance to mobile bills as well.

Here’s what mobile bills with cramming charges look like; you have to know your enemy in order to defeat it.

In fact, with new mobile devices being launched and adopted by businesses every day, the opportunity for cramming and other scams is constantly increasing. Cramming affects a lot of organizations for the simple reason that the charges are hard to find and define. On the mobile side, for example, the charges could come from legitimate companies, but because the bills aren’t reviewed on a regular basis, you’d have no idea the charges were recurring and that you needed to cancel.

The best way to guard against any of these issues is to gain visibility into your telecom spending so you can control it. Without that insight, you or your business could be crammed, scammed or something worse—you may never know it.

We here at Xigo will continue to do our part to end this practice. We’ll remain on guard for cramming and other unauthorized charges that might show up on our customer’s bills—and bring them to your attention ASAP.

During a series of CIO roundtable discussions hosted by Dimension Data, many attendees disagreed with the general industry consensus that BYOD implies a desktop replacement program. Instead, they pointed to the ongoing influx of “smart devices” as one of CIOs biggest concerns, especially in regards to safely and cost-effectively incorporating them into their organization. Here’s what David had to say: http://blog.dimensiondata.com/2011/09/byod-what-organisations-are-really-thinking/

For further insight and best practices on the subject of BYOD in the enterprise, take a look at a few of Xigo’s recent articles and blog posts:

BYOD: Who’s Afraid of New Devices?

Taking Care of Individual Liable Employees: Stipend or Not?

It's Budget Season: Don't Let the Smartphone Craze Affect Your Bottom Line

Each quarter, the FCC sets a target rate for contributions from telecommunications revenues to the Universal Service Fund, or USF. First, a little history. The USF was created by Congress to meet service goals mandated by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, namely to:

• promote the availability of quality services at just, reasonable and affordable rates for all consumers;
• increase nationwide access to advanced telecommunications services;
• advance the availability of such services to all consumers, including those in low income, rural, insular and high-cost areas at rates that are reasonably comparable to those charged in urban areas;
• increase access to telecommunications and advanced services in schools, libraries and rural health care facilities; and
• to provide equitable and non-discriminatory contributions from all providers of telecommunications services to the fund supporting universal service programs.

All telecommunications service providers and certain other providers of telecommunications must contribute to the federal USF based on a percentage of their interstate and international end-user telecommunications revenues. This quarter (2nd quarter, 2012), the contribution factor established by the FCC is 17.4%.

Each vendor determines how they will recover the USF contributions. In most cases, the fees are recovered as a percent of international and interstate charges. Some vendors will charge this fee on data access lines.

That said, this fee is not applicable to enhanced services such as multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) ports.

Xigo’s Professional Services oversight of your telecommunications costs includes a periodic review of USF to ensure that vendors are charging you correctly. If we identify issues, they will be brought to your attention as a part of our service.

If you have any questions about the USF, please feel free to contact your Xigo Professional Services team member at any time.

The good news? In October 2011, the FCC voted to overhaul the USF, refocusing the funding on broadband deployment throughout the nation. Plans are still being worked out, but most expect the USF to end by 2018 and the new fund to charge in a similar manner. More to come as committees are named and plans are rolled out.

Our list is just the beginning, however; we want to hear about the mobile acronyms you use on a daily basis.

Over the next week, we will be compiling a list of the top mobile acronyms and we need your help. Do you use a specific telecom or mobile acronym at your organization? If so, please tweet these terms to @xigonow #TEM

Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) is a measurement used primarily by consumer communications and networking companies, defined as the total revenue divided by the number of subscribers. This number is typically measured on a monthly basis.

At Xigo, we have found this number to be on average about $200/employee among our enterprise clients. ARPUis important for enterprises to map to as it helps with budgeting, planning for new hires, identifying trends in phone usage and overall tracking of their monthly mobile expense trends.

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is a phrase that has become widely associated with employees bringing their own mobile devices, smartphones, laptops, tablets, etc. for use in the workplace to help enhance connectivity and improve productivity. A "BYOD policy" is often implemented by IT departments to better manage the usage plans and costs of these devices, as well as ensure network security.

Consumerization of IT (CoIT) is used to describe the convergence of consumer electronics and IT, and the impact it has on large businesses. CoIT is a fast emerging trend in which a business' employees expect to be able to use personal devices to connect to corporate networks; this trend is also commonly referenced as BYOD (see above).

Mobile Device Management (MDM) is a software solution that monitors, manages and supports mobile devices deployed across mobile operators, service providers and enterprises. MDM functionality includes distribution of applications as well as data and configuration settings for all types of mobile devices, including mobile phones, smartphones, tablets, mobile printers, mobile POS devices, etc.

Mobile Expense Management (MEM) solutions have been specifically developed over the years to help even the most complex organizations, both large and small, provide the critical tools needed to gain quick and easy control over their mobile services and expenses. MEM allows enterprises access to all the details of their mobile expenditures (invoices, plans, devices) and helps them more proactively adjust usage and billing waste.

Mobile Risk Management (MRM) is an emerging technology category of that empowers organizations to identify, mitigate and manage the risks associated with mobile devices. MRM helps organizations exercise the full potential of mobility while protecting corporate data and ensuring regulatory compliance.

Telecom Expense Management (TEM) helps organizations analyze their telecommunications spending and make adjustments as needed. As more and more new and sophisticated communications technologies are introduced to the market, the role of TEM solutions are changing. Today, TEM has come to refer to a wide range of services, analytical tools and business intelligence solutions that help enterprises manage all aspects of their telecommunications expenses.

Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM) previously known as Wireless Multimedia Extensions,(WME), is a subset of the 802.11e wireless LAN (WLAN) specification that enhances quality of service on a network by prioritizing data packets according to specific categories. Network administrators can change priority levels as they see fit.

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!