DataRoom / Consultants and TMS - clarity on the differences

I get so many requests for more information on what DataRoom does that is different to other companies. So I thought I would provide a precis thereof.

There are many consultants out there who do parts of what we do, but none do exactly what we do or to the same extent. DataRoom’s biggest advantage over these types of companies is that -

1. DataRoom do all fixed and variable costs
2. DataRoom have a really strong web based reporting engine and they do not
3. DataRoom are SUPPLIER INDEPENDENT
4. DataRoom manage
- product
- call patterns
- infrastructure optimisation and tracking
- all TYPES of expenditure
5. DataRoom provide the best practices, methodology, resources and reporting
6. DataRoom performs for a fixed price with no sharing in the savings – typically our costs are between 1 and 2 % of what the customer is spending every month as a benchmark across our customer base
7. DataRoom ensure that there is a significant reduction in time and resources required to manage telecoms, whereas consultants sell time
7. PRICE, PRICE, PRICE, PRICE – for what we do we have to be the cheapest in the market place
8. DataRoom are a South African brand, we own our IP and we have developed our offering around the unique requirements of convergence and the SA market place

Furthermore consultants sell hours whereas DataRoom sells knowledge, best practices and reporting for a fixed price per line. Meaning every time you need more knowledge or benchmarking or reporting you have to repeat the entire exercise with the consultants before you can make a decision on anything.

One of our clients recently indicated that DataRoom costs for the entire year were cheaper than the costs they incurred for a few months with a consultant performing the same scope of a voice project – namely reporting / optimisation and consulting.

Some examples of consulting houses in SA are -

1. Nebula
2. Torch

Then there are also many players out there in the TMS [telephone management system] field. However TMS measures extension usage and does not provide best practices / methodology / reporting and product knowledge. More than 80 % of all DataRoom’s customers use both a TMS and DataRoom’s product offering.

The major players in TMS in SA are –

1. Telesa
2. Aspivia
3. Teletracer
4. Multimatics

Lastly there are so called savings analysis reports many suppliers use to market and sell there own product. These reports are focused on their own products and ARE NOT SUPPLIER INDEPENDENT.

So the information they provide does not reflect what is available in the entire market place, only on what they are selling into your customers. The fox running the hen house with this approach is NOT A BEST BUSINESS PRACTICE but typically does not cover all TYPE’s of voice in a business. Also in most if not all cases the reporting and IP is nowhere near what is on offer from DataRoom.

Examples of this type of organisation would be –

1. Huge Telecoms / Telepassport – using TMS solution from Multimatics / extension reporting based
2. VodaManage / Vodacom VSP – using their own web based software and reporting on their traffic only
3. Autopage – using their own web based software and reporting on their traffic only
4. MTN – using their own web based software and reporting on their traffic only
5. Orion - using their own software and managing only traffic that affects them

Hope this provides clarity for those of you out there that are asking me the same question. Any questions to peter.walsh@dataroom.co.za.