“With mobile and particularly ‘smartphones’ becoming the device of choice and replacing the office desk phone as the primary business tool, many organisations are facing escalating mobile bills,” said Glyn Owen, portfolio manager at Damovo UK. “It is clear that organisations require greater control over their mobile costs whilst allowing end users the freedom to use their mobile phones where ever they chose. This should form part of an overall mobility management strategy, including device, service and security management, which are ever important for today’s mobile deployments.”
One way for organisations to start reducing mobile costs is to better utilise WiFi infrastructure. In combination with dual-mode smartphones and enterprise fixed mobile convergence (FMC) solutions mobile handsets can operate as extensions of the corporate PBX with the same call costs and functionality as desk phones. However, despite most organisations having some form of WiFi network, the research showed that only 14% were utilising WiFi for voice calls.
“Many organisations have under-utilised fixed line and WiFi networks. With the research revealing that nearly half (48%) of mobile calls are employees calling colleagues or the office, organisations should look to ensure that calls are being made using the most cost-effective method. With the latest FMC technology enabling mobile calls to be routed free over existing public and private WLAN networks (including home WiFi) and at the same time providing enterprise PBX functionality organisations can start to significantly reduce their call costs and also increase the productivity of their workforce,” added Glyn Owen.
In order to start reducing their mobile costs, many organisations need to have better visibility over their mobile usage. This can be easier said than done, as many organisations often receive mobile services from a number of service providers meaning that carrying out a full monthly analysis of mobile expenditure can be a time-consuming task. Over a third (37%) of the IT directors surveyed said that didn’t even look at their organisation’s mobile bill each month. While just under three quarters (74%) admitted that they turned a blind eye towards employees making personal and international / premium rate calls on their work mobiles.
The research also highlighted the lack control many organisations have when it comes to mobile usage. 31% of the IT directors surveyed believed that too much important customer data was kept on employees mobile phones, posing both potential CRM and security risks. “Ensuring that employees also store important customer data on a central directory or CRM system, is often an oversight when it comes to implementing mobile usage policies. While having this information on a mobile phone may be quick and convenient, it can mean that important customer data is more prone to theft or it simply leaves an organisation when employees changes jobs. Often employers only realise this when it is too late,” concluded Glyn Owen.