More businesses are becoming familiar with the concept of a shared data plan. Instead of managing mobile data plans individually, with separate billing, invoicing, and usage, multiple users can share a pool of data. On the surface, this sounds great. Sharing the data plan allows for simplified administration, reduces the risk of individual users incurring excessive data charges and provides predictable monthly costs when usage remains stable.
Before making the switch from individual to shared data plans, there are six key challenges businesses should consider to ensure the model is right for their requirements.
Before making the switch from individual to shared data plans, there are six key challenges businesses should consider to ensure the model is right for their requirements.
Challenge 1: Underestimating Data Requirements
The simplest and most common mistake that we see is customers who base their new data allowances on the average rather than peaks. Data usage can vary from month to month; therefore, basing decisions on the average can result in extra charges during peak months.
Challenge 2: Cost Allocation
With shared data plans, the entire charge for the data is charged to the “Leader Account”; think of this like an admin account for the shared data plan. This can make it difficult to attribute costs accurately to individual users, departments, or cost centres.
Many businesses don’t bill data centrally and instead charge to individual business units or departments. Shared data plans can result in administrative and financial challenges when using this model.
Many businesses don’t bill data centrally and instead charge to individual business units or departments. Shared data plans can result in administrative and financial challenges when using this model.
Challenge 3: Lack of Accountability
Perhaps the biggest impact of implementing a shared data plan is that individual usage becomes separated from the real-world cost. When data costs are pooled, users and managers lose visibility of the true cost of individual usage. As a result, excessive consumption can go unnoticed until it begins to impact the overall allowance and monthly spend.
Typically, a small proportion of heavy users drive the majority of overall usage, increasing costs for the entire business. This can result in businesses having to increase allowances across the entire shared data plan to allow for a small group of heavy users, potentially driving up costs.
Typically, a small proportion of heavy users drive the majority of overall usage, increasing costs for the entire business. This can result in businesses having to increase allowances across the entire shared data plan to allow for a small group of heavy users, potentially driving up costs.
Challenge 4: Flexibility
It’s worth knowing before agreeing to a shared data plan that many operators include “upward only” contract clauses. Meaning that you can only ever increase allowances, rather than reducing it if requirements change. Shared data plans often feature large incremental jumps in allowance, incurring significant cost increases.
Challenge 5: Higher Cost per GB
Shared data is typically more expensive per GB than individual plans. Organisations with a small number of consistently high-usage employees may find it more cost-effective to assign those users individual plans rather than include them within a shared data pool.
Challenge 6: Over Provisioning of Allowances
Businesses will often purchase larger-than-needed allowances; the reasoning for this is to allow for future growth. While this makes sense on the surface, you are just paying for unused capacity.
The Utelize Recommendation
Ultimately, the largest savings are rarely made by just choosing a shared data plan. Instead, it comes from an ongoing view of your mobile data usage, including regular reviews, user-level analysis and contract optimisation to avoid unnecessary costs and complexity. A shared data plan may be part of that, but it might not be right for your business.
This is where specialist mobile management can add value by helping organisations continually optimise mobile usage, control costs and reduce the administrative burden placed on IT teams.
This is where specialist mobile management can add value by helping organisations continually optimise mobile usage, control costs and reduce the administrative burden placed on IT teams.
