At Utelize we meet a wide range of businesses and hear a lot about their mobile challenges and aspirations. We are regularly asked questions like “which is the best mobile network?”, “which tariff offers the best value for money?” or “who’s the best overall provider?”. The answer, in our experience, is that it is different for every business. Instead, we encourage our customers to try and paint a picture of how their mobile services would ideally look like if their mobile provider tailored their services to meet their business’ needs.
Consistently we have heard the same recurring themes. In fact, so common are these themes, that we now use these at Utelize as part of our key objectives when creating and delivering our own Utelize managed mobile services, when we support our large enterprise customers to negotiate their mobile service agreements with the mobile networks directly.
Here’s what our customers have shared with us:
We want to embrace mobile working and free our people to work productively. Our business users should be able to use their mobile devices productively anywhere they need to (including internationally) without the business being punished with unreasonable excess data and roaming charges. We are tired of not being alerted to excess spend and usage when it’s actually happening and only finding out long after the event when a large bill hits our accounts payable team.
We want to release our IT team to focus on business transformation not mobile administration. We understand that mobile device and network admin is a necessary part of delivering an effective mobile service to our users, however it’s preventing our limited IT resource from focusing on more strategic projects. We don’t need full time dedicated resources on site, but we do want some occasional additional resource (sometimes at short notice) to help with ordering, preparing and managing phones in a more streamlined processes with support and better tools for managing mobile orders and service requests.
We want mobile contracts that are simple, flexible and transparent. So we know exactly what we’re paying for and how we’ll be supported. We also want the peace of mind that our business will be able to quickly and cost effectively adapt to unforeseen events and benefit from future technology & market changes. We are tired of being forced to re sign on less than optimum terms when our needs change or if we need to refresh our mobile devices before the end of the current contract term.
We need to get long term control of our mobile device inventory, costs and usage. We know having the right tariffs and contract is only part of the challenge when it comes to managing our mobile costs, and we are always spending more than our network projected. We would like to have an accurate device and connection inventory with effective reporting on mobile usage to help us better manage usage and costs. We definitely need to get more control over our monthly mobile budget as it simply varies too much and we’re tired of paying for services we do not use but can’t disconnect.
We need robust device management, security & protection for our mobile devices & data, without compromising productivity or the end user experience. We’d also like much better control and visibility over data and application usage, in as close to real time as is possible.
What this tells us, is that the best Mobile Network and service is one that has been tailored to a customer’s individual business. A service based on the “right-fit” commercial model. A well thought through device and BYOD strategy with a flexible and proactive support service. Importantly, the service needs to work in the customer’s interests, not just the mobile network’s.
In our experience, too many businesses continue to tolerate poor service from their mobile providers because they are over fearful about the impact of changing vendor or they don’t believe that it’s possible to address these issues head on with their mobile network.
As a result, only about 1 in 4 businesses change network or service provider at contract renewal time for these reasons, much to their detriment. The mobile networks know this, and that’s why they never change their behaviour.
It doesn’t need to be this way however, and changing supplier is not a challenge with the right support for your team and with clearly defined processes. If your network isn’t adapting to your needs by tailoring their services and commercials to meet your changing needs then maybe they don’t deserve your business.
Ready for change? Get in touch to find out more.
