Mobile networks, devices and budgets have always been challenging for businesses to control and support.
Mobile devices are with their users all of the time, they support both business and personal life through applications and the internet; and commonly they sit outside of secure, “ring-fenced” corporate IT networks. To compound matters further, they’re more prone to loss and damage than all other forms of IT hardware and they are easy to resell. Managing mobile IT is a complex business.
Unlike most IT expenditure, mobile costs are also highly sensitive to end user behaviour. Controlling that behaviour whilst also ensuring employees remain productive is both difficult to achieve and resource intensive. The way we use our mobile phones also varies dramatically from user to user, and with the advent of covid-19 we’ve seen many users migrate to Wi-Fi instead of cellular networks as a result of remote working leading to much lower levels of data usage for the majority.
Conversely, for those users struggling with home broadband connectivity, the use of tethering and mobile data has exploded to unprecedented levels, often creating unexpected invoices and leaving IT teams unable to effectively control costs. The roll out 5G services in 2021 and beyond will only serve to increase this challenge, forcing businesses to work hard to find the right balance between user productivity and usage controls. Smartphones also bring more technical complexity, and with this, new security and rapidly increasing support challenges – none of which are going to disappear anytime soon.
In this guide, we look at the challenges faced by businesses when negotiating the right mobile network agreement, and why flexible commercial terms are more important than ever to enable IT teams to effectively manage mobile services, costs and usage in these changing times.
Business Challenges When Negotiating Mobile Contracts
At Utelize, we are seeing a convergence of a number of significant mobile challenges that are already having a growing impact on mid-market and enterprise businesses. Challenges that are set to dramatically increase mobile administration and costs for businesses that fail to implement a proactive and strategic approach to mobile network, device and security management:
- Remote Working: Covid-19 has transformed the way we work, and our reliance on mobile and broadband services and collaboration tools has never been greater. However, our use of those services will change materially and require high levels of flexibility to enable businesses to adapt.
- Increasing mobile data consumption: Remote working, faster 4G and 5G networks and the exponential increase in video in the workplace will create vast increases in mobile data usage. In turn, creating greater management challenges and increased airtime costs with more frequent “bill shock” both domestically and abroad.
- Increasing mobile device costs that can no longer be subsidised by network “tech funds”
- BYOD programs failing to deliver expected savings driven by higher IT support costs coupled with lower BYOD adoption rates and device purchase savings than expected.
- Increasing mobile security, data leakage, GDPR and compliance risks leading to increased pressure to issue managed corporate devices, as well as increased security and support costs, especially in regulated markets and professional services firms.
How To Negotiate The Right-Fit Mobile Contract For Your Business
To effectively control mobile device and airtime spending, it’s essential that your Finance and IT teams work together to discuss your real business requirements, challenges and options for the future, before any engagement on contract renegotiations. All too often, businesses view negotiating a good tariff as the primary objective when reviewing mobile services; however without the right flexibility and commercial terms as well, then costs can quickly spiral out of control over the term of the agreement.
When looked at holistically, you’ll be able to put into place more flexible and cost-effective mobile solutions that offer the lowest overall total cost of ownership over the term of the agreement. Allowing your business to adapt to changing working practices and new business requirements. In this Mobile Best Practice Guide, we review a range of planning activities and recommended negotiation objectives; all of which will help you to deliver enhanced control over your mobile budget and service management.
Your own mobile procurement strategy will largely depend on what stage you are at in your current mobile network contract cycle. If your business is looking at renewing or even changing network in the next six months, then we would recommend a focus on creating a new and more flexible approach to mobile management and procurement covering both airtime and devices.
If, however, you are only part way through your existing mobile network agreement with an unused tech fund, then your focus will, for now, be on optimising your airtime spend and assessing any future device purchasing requirements if and when your available “tech fund” is used up. Alternatively; if you have already used your “tech fund” but you’re still tied into your mobile network contract for a significant period or have unachieved commitments, then you should focus on reviewing your mobile device purchasing options as well as optimising airtime usage.
Planning Your Mobile Requirements
Before we get into the detail of the contract negotiation objectives and review the available options, it’s important to note that your existing mobile network has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. As a result, it’s not uncommon for the mobile networks to initially resist any proposed changes, especially if you are in contract or looking to materially change your commercial terms at renewal. They may also initially suggest that it’s just not possible to achieve the things that you’ll ask for, and they’ll seek to bypass your negotiation teams and put pressure on senior decision makers.
This is a smoke screen – it is possible to achieve dramatic change. Each objective outlined in this guide has been achieved before with significant success; however, ultimately that may mean you have to consider changing suppliers or at minimum ensure that your incumbent vendor knows you are prepared to change.
However, it’s also important to be realistic and prioritise objectives. It may not be possible to achieve all outcomes simultaneously. For some businesses flexibility and ability to adapt to change may be more
Start Early
Commence your planning and market appraisal at least 6 months prior to the end of your existing contract and allow at least 3 months on top for a smooth network migration to provide you with the best chance on securing the right terms. For larger estates with more than 1,000 connections, we would recommend allowing a further three months in the planning and negotiation phase. If you allow the contract term to end before you have agreed a renewal contract or the ‘heads of terms’ with a new vendor, then you’ll be handing significant leverage to your incumbent mobile provider and you’ll feel under pressure to agree sub-optimal terms as the renewal date closes in.
Review “In Building” Mobile Coverage
Is there an existing signal enhancing solution that you have installed or was provided to your business with your current network? Have you tested that
other networks work at your locations without similar enhancements or will you need to plan for enhanced coverage? Are there any known signal/coverage issues to address that you are already aware of? Poor coverage can ruin the best commercial terms or create mayhem if not properly reviewed before changing network.
Review your options early and create the flexibility to change if required and be aware that new solutions like Wi-Fi calling and cheaper signal boosters are starting to significantly reduce the need for mobile ‘coverage schemes’, however they also need testing, and may not be suitable for larger volumes of users.
Additionally, there are now new services that will provide independent coverage to one or more networks in your offices, to deliver high availability and high-speed access to the mobile networks.
Never Allow Tech Fund To Build Up Unused
“Use or lose it” rules normally apply for mobile contracts and some even expire three months prior to the end of your agreement. Understandably, most businesses are reluctant to walk away from large amounts of unused tech funds; and so it’s not uncommon for businesses to be pressurised into resigning with the existing network, often on sub optimal terms to avoid losing their funds.
If you think that you’ll end up with a large unused tech fund, consider whether you could negotiate a conversion to use the fund against airtime, before you start negotiations. You may lose some of the face value of the fund, however you’ll then be clear to start your market review and improve long-term costs.
As an alternative it is also possible to use third parties to convert your tech funds. In these agreements, your business will purchase agreed devices using your unused tech fund, and the third party will purchase these devices directly from you at an agreed discount – effectively enabling you to convert the tech fund into cash. Whilst this is always going to result in a lower cash sum than the tech fund that it is converted from, it removes the barriers to change, and opens up the path for substantial long-term cost savings. Utelize has created a range of tech fund conversion options, so please get in touch if this is an area of interest.
Consider Mobile Network Resellers & Managed Service Providers
Mobile networks have a wide range of channels to market, from their own direct sales teams, through to fully branded consumer services like Sky Mobile and Tesco Mobile. Whilst historically, the networks have prevented Business Mobile Resellers and Managed Service Providers from competing in the corporate business market for mobile services, that is no longer the case and there are a wide range of business mobile suppliers (including Utelize) that can offer tailored or managed mobile services, based on their own contracts, billing and support wrap.
These service providers can often offer enhanced levels of support, more flexible terms and access to a wider range of networks and services under one agreement, for customers with over 100 connections.
Try And Align Negotiations With Major Device Refresh Plans
Whilst aligning contracts with the real need to upgrade devices is a challenge, where possible it will reduce the resources required to upgrade user devices and makes the change in airtime easier for suppliers if you combine the exercise. This is especially true if your existing devices are locked to your current network.
It will also make it much clearer to review the overall total cost of ownership (TCO). For clarity however this does not mean that your business needs to purchase mobile devices linked to an airtime contract or a tech fund (we’ll cover the challenges with tech funds later in this guide).
Understand Your Mobile Usage Profiles & Your Mobile Data Consumption
If you don’t have a very clear understanding of your current usage and costs, and you do not have the detail to compare the various proposals side by side then you’ll likely struggle to make a clear and informed decision. With covid-19, there have been enormous changes in mobile voice and data usage, and so more than ever it’s also important to look at usage trends and to be able to model different usage scenarios, for example with and without roaming usage.
The devil is always in the detail with mobile tariff analysis and relying on an oversimplified model will inaccurately overstate savings and lead to significant unplanned spending later. What’s more, you’ll be highly unlikely to secure the best “right-fit” terms for your business and usage profile.
There are no short cuts to evaluating the impact of different tariffs and proposals on your mobile budget, and so use a professional mobile analyst, if you can’t reasonably complete your own analysis. They’ll not only help you to understand the real costs; however they’ll also be able to identify additional savings from wastage and provide market intelligence that could materially reduce your mobile costs.
Estimate And Model Different Scenarios For Changing Mobile Data Consumption
Faster 4G and 5G networks, greater levels of remote and mobile working, higher use of video for work and content streaming will all have a material impact on data consumption over the next two to three years. Market experts like Cisco anticipate mobile data usage increasing 300% between 2019 and 2022.
Basing tariffs and modelling costs on today’s data usage, is likely to mean that your future costs are significantly underestimated. Mobile networks know this and often offer highly competitive headline terms to address today’s usage knowing that they will make significantly greater profits in the future as customers exceed their data plans and are forced to upgrade with no negotiation leverage.
However, don’t go overboard, it’s better to have the flexibility to quickly upgrade or downgrade data allowances, than it is to have a vast unused data pool that you pay for each month.
Build In Flexibility For Known Market And Business Changes
Brexit is going to have some impact on every business, and changes in working practices from Covid-19 are likely to impact nearly all businesses. Locking in connections or usage allowances may seem like a good way to secure cost
savings, however invariably those allowances will need to adapt. Flexibility is critical to your ability to manage mobile. If in doubt, build in clear scenarios to model the type of flexibility you’ll need to adapt to an increase or decrease connections without penalty during the term of your agreement.
Model The Impact Of BYoD
BYOD is going to have a wide impact on businesses and with the advent of eSim technology, we may see an increase in the use of devices with both a corporate and
personal profile and number. For some, it will materially decrease both demand for corporate devices and possibly connections. For others, the challenges of managing a large BYOD estate may lead to increased IT resource and security costs.
Whatever your own position on BYOD, we recommend building in sufficient flexibility to address any material changes in the size of your mobile estate.
Setting Clear Objectives For Your Contract Negotiations
With your requirements planning complete, you’ll have a much clearer understanding of business needs, the barriers that you’ll need to overcome, and you’ll possess a clear model of your current costs and usage. You’re now ready to start reviewing tariff and contract options with your current supplier and the wider market.
At Utelize, we work with ten core objectives in mind when helping our customers to create their own mobile contract negotiation strategy. The priority of these objectives will vary depending on your business requirements; however most will be relevant to your business in some form.
Separate Mobile Network & Device Purchasing
Prior to smartphones, when mobile phones cost around £100 and the typical airtime bill was £300 or more per annum, few UK businesses saw the benefit in buying their devices outside of their mobile network contract.
As the device component was such a small element of the overall mobile charges, it simply made sense to have one contract and to fund the device over 24 months via the network. Hence the “Tech Fund” concept was created, whereby mobile networks increased the tariffs to provide for the cost of these devices, spread over the term. However, with smartphones now costing between £150 and £1,500, it’s highly likely that your device costs could be at least as much as your airtime over a 24-month period (and probably will be higher), and so it makes little sense to try and hide these costs in the mobile network charges.
Our recommendation is to either have separate agreements for each of the network services and device ordering, or at minimum create clear sections in your contract that do not tie the purchasing of devices to the mobile network via the use of a “tech fund”. Where possible avoid tying your business to excessive minimum
spend commitments, that provide little room for change vs. the current costs.
Flexibility is the most important thing to keep in mind always. And remember no large business ever spent exactly their Target Spend over the term of their agreement. If you underspend, your get penalised, if you overspend then typically you don’t get rewarded, and so in either case it makes sense to minimise these target commitments, and removing the Tech Fund is the best way to achieve this.
For any mobile devices provided by your mobile provider, clarify whether devices will be provided “factory open”; meaning that Operating System (OS) updates and patches are provided by the manufacturer and not the network. And, whether the devices will be “locked” to the network; meaning they cannot be used with other networks until they are unlocked, normally at the end of the term and often with cost.
Aim For SIM Only Contracts
For many businesses with ad-hoc device purchasing requirements, there may be no commercial issues with buying devices from the network; however, it’s important to ensure that you are:
- Not obligated to buy devices
- The terms of the airtime service are distinct from the device purchasing
- Not committed to unreasonable minimum spend or minimum connection criteria
A SIM only or Airtime only contract, with the option to purchase devices, can be aligned to any reasonable term that aligns with your business strategy and needs from 30-day through to 12, 18 or 24-month contracts.
No Minimum Term Per Connection
With a SIM only agreement, there is no equipment to fund by the network and therefore no requirement to create term-based commitments at an individual connection level. The requirement for mobile connections changes regularly as people leave or join a business, or as roles and usage change. Having the flexibility to cancel individual connections without penalty will allow you to keep your mobile estate and costs optimised on an ongoing basis.
For governance reasons it is also much cleaner to always only provide a connection to one specific user. When they join provide a new connection and when they leave cancel the connection and recycle the device where appropriate. Avoid letting business managers “pass on” devices, as you will quickly lose control of
which users have the device and in many cases these devices end up outside of the business generating costs and creating security risks.
This model also suits BYOD where users provide their own device; but the business may choose to provide the SIM card/network connection. With a “Corporate SIM” model, you can allow users to port their numbers into the corporate plan, so the business can achieve better tariffs whilst removing the administration of BYOD airtime expense claims. Users can then also port numbers out when they leave the business without penalty.
Minimise Contract Commitments
Many mobile networks will seek to tie their customers into multiple overlapping commitments. The most common ones include:
- Minimum Holding Commitments: These set the minimum number of connections that the customer must maintain throughout the term of the agreement.
- Minimum Spend Commitments: These set the minimum spend levels or “Target Spend” that must be achieved during the term of the agreement.
- Minimum Term Commitments: Either applied at a connection and/or the contract level, these set the minimum term that connections must be held for.
By combining these various commitments, the mobile networks seek to leverage their negotiation position at renewal time, as often businesses fail to achieve one or more of the criteria or may have inadvertently created a “ragged edge” contract.
Ragged edge contracts are created when new connections are added during the term of the agreement; and the new connections each have a minimum term commitment that extends past the original end date of the agreement. This position forces the customer to either pay early termination penalties; or in some instances the network may agree to an average “co-terminus” arrangement. With an average co-terminus agreement, the remaining “in contract” period (normally expressed in remaining months) for the new connections is averaged across all connections. The customer will then remain with the network for the agreed average number of additional months (on the current tariffs and terms) and at that point all connections can then terminate on the same agreed date.
Whilst ideally your business would want to remove all commitments, in practice most providers and networks will want some form of commitment that is in line with the projected expenditure to offer their best pricing. As a result; we recommend that our customers target just one or two commitments, normally either a Minimum Holding for an agreed term or a Minimum Spend. Try to avoid Minimum Spend commitments that also have a minimum term for the agreement, unless you also negotiate very clear terms about pricing and flexibility once the Minimum Spend is achieved. For example, if the proposed term is 24 months and the Minimum Spend is achieved at month 18, clarify options to terminate without penalty or renegotiate enhanced terms once the commitment is achieved.
Under-Achievement Penalties Should Be Proportionate & Relevant To The Actual Losses Of The Network
Contracts that contain revenue-based commitments (e.g. a Target Spend) can often include shortfall penalties that are applied at a level equal to the shortfall in revenue – e.g. if a contract Target Spend is £100,000 and the customers has an Actual Spend of £80,000 over the term, then a £20,000 penalty shall apply. The revenue associated with your mobile services is however not the same as the profit or margin for the network or service provider.
Therefore if your business agrees to revenue-based commitments with your network, try to ensure that the penalties for failure are proportionate to the network’s actual lost profit and not the full revenue. By separating device and airtime as described earlier, then the penalty should be materially less than the lost revenue – better reflecting the gross margin loss for the network.
Use Shared Data Allowances Or Pooled Data Plans
Mobile data consumption is expected to increase significantly over the next five years, with Cisco predicting a three-fold increase by 2022 (from 2019 baseline consumption). As a result, domestic mobile data is likely to be one of the most significant and growing areas of mobile cost. It is therefore essential to ensure that you negotiate the right tariff and charging mechanism for mobile data and ensure that there is significant flexibility to adapt to future growth.
As a general guide, you will find that mobile data usage will vary from month to month and from user to user, and this is especially true with remote working.
Furthermore analysis of usage profiles will also typically highlight that a small group of high-volume users will account for a disproportionate level of data usage. Understanding these different usage profiles is therefore critical to negotiating the right type of data plan. For typical users with a corporate usage profile (e.g. a limited level of personal usage), then a shared data plan will normally be highly effective, however where there are significant variances in usage then consideration should be given to removing higher users and placing them on to their own individual plans (e.g. an Unlimited data plan). For most businesses, we would therefore recommend the use of either a shared data pool or aggregated user data.
Shared data pools are where a large pool of data is paid for each month and can be shared across multiple users; for example, a 500GB pool of data. In shared data pools the data allowance is fixed regardless of the number of connections; however normally a charge is applied per connection to allow access to the pool.
Aggregated data is where each user receives a defined amount of data (e.g. 1GB or 2GB) however the data is aggregated use across all users. For example, 500 users would share 500GB in the 1GB model. In aggregated data pools the data allowance rises, and falls based on the number of connections.
This approach helps to smooth out the fluctuations in usage between users each month and is typically much more efficient and cost effective than providing users with their own data plans. It also avoids the need to continuously optimise tariffs at a user level. As a word of warning however, the out of bundle charges that apply when the allowances are exceeded can often be more expensive with shared data, and so exceeding shared allowances can be costly and must be monitored regularly.
There are however, several rules to consider and review before agreeing to any data plan.
Look At Monthly Peaks In Data Usage, Not The Averages
When establishing the right data plan, you’ll need to understand the actual usage each month and establish the peak monthly usage as well as any clear underlying trends in usage. Many businesses fail to look at this level of detail and simply base their decisions on the monthly average usage over a specified period.
The networks then create a data pool based on that monthly average, which often is not significant enough to cover the peak usage. As a result, expensive out of bundle charges will apply when the data plan is exceeded. Understanding your trend on mobile data growth is also important, as this will provide a better insight into how quickly you’ll need to expand the data plan in the future.
Factor In “Roam Like Home” And Other Inclusive Or “Day Rate/Day Pass” Roaming
Many businesses fail to factor into account any roaming usage that draws down against the customer’s UK data pool. As a result, they can significantly underestimate their real data usage requirements and so more easily breach their inclusive data allowances.
With the changes to EU roaming in July 2017, EU data now comes out of inclusive domestic allowances and additionally many users are now using greater levels of data when roaming, and so this can be an important factor in determining real usage levels. This new additional usage should also be factored into projections if you have yet to see the impact on your existing contract.
Establish The Eaxt Policies & Charging Rules That Will Apply Should You Need To Change The Data Plan During The Agreement
Most customers fail to check how future tariff changes will be applied and this can become their long-term detriment. Our key questions for your mobile network include:
- Can shared data plans only be increased during the term or can they also be decreased?
- Are there minimum commitment terms for new data plan changes?
- Can tariff changes be implemented mid-month or will they have to be applied from the start of the next billing cycle/month?
- What is the SLA for implementing tariff changes?
- Where data plans are changed mid-month is the allowance pro-rated for that period or will the full allowance apply for the month?
- Will the network notify the business where the data allowance is being used at greater levels than expected or at pre-agreed usage levels?
- What charges will apply where the data allowance is exceeded?
- How will excess data charge be applied – to all users once the pool is exceeded or against a specific account?
- What increments can data pools be increased or decreased by? Often as usage levels increase so do the usage increments, which can lead to very large unplanned increases in charges.
- Can the services be used with 5G or will supplementary charges apply or new tariffs need to be invoked to allow 5G access?
As mobile data usage increases, your business may want to consider enhanced controls and policies to manage this usage. If you don’t have flexible terms, then you’ll either end up overspending on data plans that no longer align you’re your real business usage; or you’ll overspend on excess “out of bundle” data usage where data plans are exceeded.
Furthermore; as mobile and fixed line communications continue to converge and general data usage increases, your business may want to force more mobile data usage over Wi-Fi connections, at which point you’ll need to ensure you can flex down also.
Know Your Roaming Profile And Understand Proposed Roaming Tariffs
As with UK data, the concept of having shared data and voice pools for roaming usage is a sensible one and can help to avoid “roaming bill shock”; however, the same rules apply on flexibility and with understanding “out of bundle” charges. Equally however many businesses now prefer to use “daily plans” which offer
access to their UK allowances for a fixed daily charge – (e.g. Vodafone World Traveller plan is charged at £5 per day in c.100 countries outside of the EU)
Some of the specific elements to review include:
- Clarifying which countries are included in roaming day plans and to fully model how these align with your business usage profiles – each mobile network has different inclusive countries in their packages
- Ensure you know your usage profile both in terms of MB and Minute usage as well as the number of days spent in and outside of the EU (ideally by country and user)
- Clarify what charges apply for roaming in countries not included in the daily plans or the core plan – this is the area where material costs can be incurred (e.g. bill shock)
- For roaming bolt-ons – establish whether these will be retrospectively applied at the right level for actual usage or whether the business will need to apply them advance and remove them when they are no longer required
- Clarify what “in-month” alerting and reporting services the network provides to help identify excess usage and costs before the billing is produced, and whether alerts can be differentiated by regional and/or cost of data usage
Fully Understand Tariff Bolt-On Rules For UK And Roaming
If tariff bolt-ons need to be applied in advance, then it is highly likely that your business will suffer from overspending, as forecasting usage in advance is not an exact science. If bolt-ons need to be managed by the business, consider using shared voice and data pools as a first option where available, because:
- It’s almost impossible to know in advance how much data or voice usage will be required – leading to either excess charges for the bolt-on or excess usage charges when bolt-ons are breached
- It’s very time and resource intensive to add bolt-ons to react to roaming usage.
- Planning the addition of bolt-ons in advance requires a joined-up process for travel coordination
- Most bolt-ons cannot be applied retrospectively and so if a user is abroad any usage up to the point that the bolt-on is applied will be chargeable at standard rates
- Removing the bolt-on is necessary to avoid ongoing costs and is often forgotten
- 5G – what are the charges for adding 5G to your services (if required in the future)
Take Time To Understand The Proposed Reporting, Billing, Alerting & Support Capabilities Of Your Provider
Having the right mobile contract framework is the foundation for being able to continuously manage your mobile costs, however you’ll still need to manage “in-contract” usage and tariffs to deliver the benefits. Most providers only offer an “unmanaged” service – that means they’ll provide you with a connection, bill you for your usage and rentals and provide a support desk for queries. It is normally the customer’s role to proactively manage the cost, tariffs and usage.
Ensure that you know exactly what services and proactive support your network will provide you, to help control costs, billing and usage, and don’t assume that they will take any action unless it is written into their contract. Some pertinent questions include:
- Does the provider offer daily “unbilled” usage records during the month or only at billing time?
- What alerting capabilities can be provided to manage this in month usage?
- What barring options exist for voice and SMS calls?
- What barring and capping options exist for data usage both in the UK and when roaming?
- Does the provider actively monitor “in-month” usage and proactively address excess usage issues?
- Clarify whether billing will be calendar aligned?
- Does the provider offer cost centre billing and reporting?
- What options does the provider offer to re-allocate the costs of shared data pools?
- Can the provider create internal recharge reports at a “mark-up” for your shared IT services team?
- Does the provider offer mobile user statements and reporting to educate users and managers in mobile costs and usage?
- Does the provider offer a billing and reporting portal – what are the capabilities?
- What self-service or management options are available to the business?
- Does the provider offer a named support team that will know your specific needs?
- What are the support hours and what services are supported outside of these hours?
Ensure That Commercial Schedules & Tariffs Are Clear & Contain All The Negotiated Terms And Details Of All Charges
Many mobile networks only provide headline prices in their proposals and tariffs and many charges are only available by request. This practice is designed to obscure costs and many customers simply won’t think to ask about prices for destinations that are not specified in the proposal, leaving room for the network to charge highly inflated charges for these destinations. Ensure that your contract contains full details of all tariff charges and billing rules, including:
- Defining minimum billing increments – e.g. per second or per minute
- Ensure that any “zones” used for billing roaming and international calls are clearly defined
- For Non-geographic calls, ensure the “access charge” is clearly stated, this is the amount that the network can legally add to the cost of calling services numbers (e.g. 118/084X/087X)
- Clarify which countries are included in the roam like home allowances
- Clarify all out of bundle data charges and costs for 5G services
Conclusion
Negotiating the right mobile network contract for your business is one of the most important factors that determines how successfully your IT and Finance teams can manage mobile services and devices in the future. Take a short-term view, without truly understanding your usage profiles or considering future changes, and it’s likely that you’ll “bake-in” overspending and inflexibility, without realising until it’s too late.
For those businesses that are prepared to accept that it’s time to change the way they procure mobile services and have the commitment to walk away from the allure of mobile “tech funds”, then there will be significant long-term benefits. You’ll be able to proactively manage and control your mobile costs and budgets, source mobile devices effectively and have a wide choice of device finance models, however, when you need it most, you’ll be able to flexibly adapt to the meet the challenges and changes that will come your way in the future.
For more information and guidance on the many ways that your business can reduce mobile costs and free up budget and IT resource for more strategic work, then download our range of Mobile Best Practice Guides, or get in touch to arrange a discovery meeting, and challenge Utelize to demonstrate how we can help.
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