New Programs Ease Entry into TEM
TELECOM EXPENSE MANAGEMENT,
or TEM, is such a hot opportunity that master agencies and providers alike are rolling out software and programs to their channels, which, in some cases, are completely new. At this springs Channel Partners Conference & Expo in Las Vegas, three companies Intelisys Communications Inc., Integrexx and TeleBright Corp. announced new TEM offers.
Master agency Intelisys has taken advantage of its merger with Resource Communications LLC, a provider of a hosted management system for inventory, contracts and expenses, and formed a new division, Intelisys Resource Customer Solutions, to provide a TEM system called CommAdvisor. Designed by telecom agents for telecom agents, says Jay Bradley, vice president of marketing and business development, CommAdvisor lets users see across all carriers and agencies. The application provides realtime, on-demand information on billing, inventory, provisioning and contract management issues. Among its many features, the system compares billing to contracted rates and alerts agents if any information is amiss, or lets the charges go through if everything is correct. CommAdvisor is designed for accounts with $250,000 or more per month in telecom spend; Bradley says Intelisys wants to create another version for accounts that spend as little as $5,000- $10,000 per month.
Integrexx, meanwhile, debuted its partner program at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo. The startup company run by TEM veteran Rob Fortino offers a subscription-based TEM service targeting midmarket companies, or those spending a minimum of $250,000 per year and up to $4 million. Our sweet spot is going to be $750,000 to $2 million, says Fortino, president of Integrexx. Agents earn 20 percent commission on all re curring and nonrecurring revenue from their accounts, Fortino says.
Integrexxs TEM service is hosted, so there are no installation requirements, but there are fees for getting a customer into the system. The company licenses software from an undisclosed vendor that specializes in invoice processing. The software has been customized for Integrexx to handle telecommunications expenses. Also, because the invoice processing platform was not made exclusively for telecom, agents are not limited to helping customers manage telecom-related expenses. We can do any invoice processing whether its utilities or logistics or pencils. Thats the beauty of having a generic processing platform; there is tremendous upsell opportunity for the agents, Fortino explains.
The company primarily is recruiting agents that sell network services. I look at TEM as a way for them to augment their revenue stream that the carriers are taking away, Fortino says.
Finally, TEM software developer TeleBright Corp. introduced its agent program. The company aims to leverage agents relationships with midmarket companies, says Dan Hannah, director of sales and marketing. So agents can now offer telecom expense management in a Web-based application environment, and its quick to market for them because we do all the software for them.
TeleBright populates its Web-based application by first building an inventory of all client locations, their cost structures and telecom assets (including internal and external equipment and services), so it can perform functions such as amortize a switch across all departments that use it; manage contracts and maintenance agreements with telecom service suppliers; and check that financial information relating to communications costs is consistent among different data.
TeleBright offers big agents who want to own the client and manage its infrastructure the ability to license its software on a per-seat basis. Medium agents may license on a per-seat basis or work directly with TeleBright. And smaller agents can create a referral relationship with TeleBright, says Hannah.
Links |
Integrexx www.integrexx.com Intelisys Communications Inc. www.intelisyscorp.com TeleBright Corp. www.telebright.com |