Why does your company need a reliable “supplier” independent 3rd party to partner with on telecoms expense management?

Ten years ago almost to the day, in November 1999, I sat with a guy called Franco Bossi in Cape Town and spoke to him about a dream I had of starting a company. I asked him if he would be prepared to put money into the idea. Apart from the fact that a mutual friend told Franco he could trust me and that I certainly had the drive, I also did a pretty good sales job on him, because here we are 10 years down the line, with a thriving business, albeit a business that morphed into one you would not recognise from that first year.

Today I was reading an article in Time Magazine on Malcolm Gladwell, the author of "The Tipping Point", "Blink" and now "Outliers". The article reminded me of the inspiration The Tipping Point gave me during some of the darkest hours of the last decade, whilst my partners and I were building DataRoom into the company it is today. We could not sell our solution to anyone. Businesses in South Africa did not understand what it was we did, and we were still learning to articulate what we did and translate it into tangible actions and benefits for our clients.

Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book is based on the belief that success has less to do with IQ and more to do with where you come from, how you interact with the people you meet and the time you put into your field of expertise. You cannot do it on your own and you cannot do it overnight, says Gladwell. It takes 10,000 hours or 10 years, no matter how smart you are.

I believe him. Our business is living proof of that. For 10 years we all put our hearts and souls into DataRoom. Along the way we lost some bodies and picked up new ones. We would not and could not have made it without the people at DataRoom, who all have their own particular skill set and value to add. And here we are, all a lot wiser from the journey, the lessons and the mistakes.

So what’s my point? I am often asked how we came up with the DataRoom idea, and why it is different to the other solutions, offerings and consultants available today. Why should we use you? What differentiates DataRoom from the other consultants out there?

Well as Gladwell says in “Outliers”, the fact is that it takes 10,000 hours, and we have put in those 10,000 hours. We have come out the other side with a knowledge and a thorough understanding of what our clients need. I would go as far as to say I believe our offering is unparalleled in its commercial form in South Africa today.

DataRoom’s vision is to understand voice and voice infrastructure better than anyone else and our strategy has been to commercialise the application of that hard-won knowledge into a solution your company can use to manage telecoms quickly and efficiently.

So what is the problem in business today?

The cost of communicating accounts for a substantial part of the operating expenses in any business. Since communicating is essential, those costs are unavoidable. But they are not unchangeable.

Most companies are spending way too much on their phone calls, infrastructure, internet usage and faxes. Few can boast of cutting back those costs by making smart use of best practices in telecoms optimisation. That is not surprising, because their core business is not managing telecoms suppliers or calling patterns.

Without intelligent automated telecoms expense-management technologies, you probably sit with problems such as these:

• Managing multiple suppliers including Telkom, the cell phone companies and their service providers. You pay them every month, but do you check each invoice? Are you aware that billing errors occur in 7 to 12% of all invoices? [Aberdeen 2007] Do you know what you are paying for? Do you notice the hidden costs? What about price increases? How do you keep track of all your bills from so many different suppliers? Do your suppliers have best-of-breed products and services?
• Employee misuse – are you aware of how much your company spends on personal calls versus business calls? Do you know cost-effective ways to save money on all telecoms usage in your business?
• High employee and resource costs – you may be spending too much on administration and management of telecoms that could easily be eliminated.
• Lack of cost-saving solutions and no advice from your suppliers - the fox in the hen house approach when suppliers offer advice and promote their own services is dangerous.
• Mismanaged infrastructure – you may be paying for services you don’t even use or require. How do you decide on infrastructure if you do not know what your business needs are?
• Negotiating with service providers when the suppliers know more than you, can be problematic and costly.

How does DataRoom provide solutions?

• We provide a supplier independent “intelligent single view” into all your company’s telecoms costs
• Using your own supplier billing and call records, we analyse both fixed and variable expenditure, call patterns and voice infrastructure.
• We use what we find to develop a documented strategy and project plan with a measurable scorecard to drive down both direct and indirect costs.
• We provide ongoing piece of mind for the management of calls, infrastructure and suppliers
• For a single monthly fee, dependent on how many lines you have, we provide the skills, knowledge, business intelligence, automated reporting, best practices and project management

Where do the savings come from?

The savings and simplicity come by having a single view into your telecoms; to manage your costs and your suppliers and to strengthen your decision-making processes.

Most of our customers already have cost initiatives in place by the time we get involved. Least Cost Routing (LCR) of cell phones calls, term and volume agreements and supplier discounts are good examples of this. However, without the knowledge, the single view business intelligence, best practices and tried and tested technologies, the next tier of savings is almost impossible to reach.

DataRoom’s customers typically reduce their direct costs by an additional 15 – 30% over and above the normal initiatives mentioned above.
Why choose Data Room?

• Apart from a 10 year track record in our field, we are experts in voice and voice infrastructure
• Our customers and our success stories speak volumes for our ability
• DataRoom are a “Best of Breed” solution offering
• DataRoom have the business intelligence, supplier independence, automated reporting, training and documented “telecoms best practices”; required to deliver optimal voice and voice infrastructure
• We do this cheaper and faster than you or your suppliers can do it
• DataRoom will embed the knowledge you require to manage telecoms efficiently into your company; whilst giving you the continuity and knowledge retention you require to make informed and ongoing decisions into the future
• All information is sourced directly from your networks and service providers.
• No ongoing lengthy photocopying exercises or installation costs
• SUPPLIER INDEPENDENCE

And if you are still undecided we will help you -

• Understand your business better than your suppliers. You cannot make decisions or negotiate on supplier proposals if they know more about your business needs than you do
• Understand technologies that are changing rapidly – it is DataRoom’s job to stay ahead of the game and cut through the confusion to know which are best for your business
• Retain knowledge in your business and provide continuity in managing telecoms
• Ensure
o a guaranteed lowest call rates for your business needs
o all the role players know what to do and where to start. This includes suppliers, management and employees
• Forecast and control all telecom budgets for your business
• Identify opportunities and shortfalls quickly and efficiently
• Deliver immediate savings on your current telecoms expenditure.

So here's to the next 10 years. I still have not lost my passion for this journey and am excited by the prospect of where we can be in 10 years from now.

Peter Walsh
JHB
30th November 2008