As the recession tears into margins, reassessing costs and investigating the market for better tariffs and improved services will help the business community stay afloat.
Glasgow firm The Taxi Centre made the move in December and is on course to save almost £2500 in its first 12 months with new telecom partner abica.
Director Allan McGinness said: “We make a lot of outbound calls and were previously paying around £1000 a month. That has come down by about 20% and we are delighted.”
He added: “This saving goes right on to our bottom line. We previously viewed our phone bill as a fixed cost, so cutting it by 20% has been amazing.”
The abica service also allows firms to view their account online, enabling them to identify popular numbers, work out average call times, highlight their busiest periods and identify the most expensive calls.
McGinness said this level of management information had not been available to the business previously and was already making a significant difference to internal processes.
“It is amazing how much of an impact taking care of the small things can make,” said McGinness. “Now we are actually able to use our telephone bill as a business performance tool and it has been very effective. I wouldn’t be without this information in the future now that I’ve got my hands on it.”
The firm had previously been a BT customer but now takes advantage of routing calls over abica’s carbon-neutral network.
Scott Allison, managing director at abica, commented: “The Taxi Centre is a thriving business but nonetheless is taking the prudent step of looking at its cost base. In the current climate the difference between commercial success and failure is incredibly tight and many businesses are fighting for survival. Those who are happy to stick with longstanding suppliers out of apathy are guilty of negligence to their shareholders. Now is the time to make your suppliers work harder for you and abica offers a better solution, often at a lower cost.”
abica is focused purely on the business community and offers an entire suite of services covering broadband, landline and mobile needs. Established as a mobile virtual network operator, the firm is able to set its own tariffs, rather than simply resell what is already on offer from the bigger networks. It is this freedom that sets it apart from competitors and enables it to make such significant savings for its customers.