Case Study— Sharp Electronics reduces their Monthly telecoms by R 960 000.00 per annum

Description of business need

You do not know what you do not know. Without the correct guidance, monitoring, support, infrastructure and ongoing management, the typical organisation would almost certainly fail to achieve its strategic objectives. The same applies to the cost and infrastructure management of a customer’s telecommunications environment.

Technology in all segments of the market, does and will continue to advance at a rapid rate and as it does, so suppliers attempt to position themselves in such a way that they are most favourably aligned to on sell their solutions to their customers [often with no real business case that clearly and accurately defines the customer need].

The reality is that the majority of suppliers, however competent they may be in the marketing and selling of their products, falls short in the implementation, measurement and ongoing management of the customer’s infrastructure and telecoms expenses once the products are in place.

Sharp Electronics required a business partner who understood their unique business need, could identify the opportunities, would enable the company and its suppliers to manage costs and infrastructure efficiently and report on the objectives and results into the future on a national basis.

DataRoom provided Sharp and their suppliers with -

· An automated set of “Telecoms Report Suites” using a web based reporting engine
· The methodology, best practices and intelligent reporting required to reach their objective of optimal telecoms expenditure

DataRoom empowers its customers with the knowledge to make business decisions.

DataRoom ensures that all the roles players at both the vendor and the customer gain access to accurate reporting that ensures the objective of optimal telecoms costs and infrastructure is achieved.

Situation

In November 2005, Sharp was spending an average of R 220 000.00 per month on voice calls nationally. There were 3 incumbent suppliers of voice in the area of fixed line, Cell phones and LCR [least cost routing of cell phone calls].

Sharp was represented nationally by 14 branches with Johannesburg by far the biggest branch and a Cape Town head office.

Sharp had no single view into their call patterns nationally and apart from understanding that LCR was an option, they were unsure of the best option for their unique business need and wanted complete control of their costs, infrastructure and suppliers.

Furthermore Sharp had a requirement for a single view into their monthly telecoms environs.

Solution

Sharp chose DataRoom to deliver supplier independent telecoms reporting, the methodology and the best practices; to bring down monthly telecoms costs. More importantly the DataRoom offering was seen as a way to reduce time and resources required to deliver optimal telecoms.

Using supplier billing and call detailed records; a thorough analysis of all voice expenditure by supplier, branch and geographical region was undertaken using DataRoom’s Telecom Report Suite was performed. Once management had a thorough understanding of the current call patterns for total voice and infrastructure requirements; with DataRoom input suppliers were chosen who firstly could address their unique business requirement and secondly could deliver quality of service at the right price.

DataRoom recommended per second billing for all suppliers, low cost [free] interbranch calls, cheaper national calls, single supplier for national / GSM and inter-branch calls as a minimum requirement in choosing their supplier.

Benefits

Management at all branches and head office have a single view into their total voice expenditure every month. All regions and branches are held accountable for their own costs.

Expenditure reduced from a November 2005 high of R 223 000.00 to R 143 000.00 in June 2007. This reduction equates to an average reduction of 36% or R 80 000.00 per month less.

This equates to annual savings of 36% or R 960 000.00 per annum. Sharp now makes all their voice calls at the lowest possible rate for their specific business need and can effectively monitor these costs using the DataRoom Effective Rate report. Sharp has also integrated DataRoom's monthly reporting into their monthly business processes and sustained the savings to date [updated June 2008].

Peak and Off Peak rates for local / national / cell phone / national and interbranch calls are all down significantly in June 2007.

Sharp can now expect to reduce monthly costs further through the efficient configuration of infrastructure with service providers in conjunction with the “DataRoom Best Practices for optimal expenditure” guideline.