Recently, we painted the roof on part of our farmhouse. This part of the house is the older, smaller part of the house, and while it is not as high as the rest of the house, getting on the roof sure gives one some perspective. It gives you an idea of a bigger picture: what is important, what isn’t and a better opportunity to get outside yourself and put things in their rightful place.
I was thinking the parallels are also interesting with wireless. Sometimes businesses cannot see the forest through the trees. While they know something is amiss, they have no perspective, no context, no visibility into seeing the big picture. This leaves the enterprise manager not only with a sense of confusion, but also a sense of helplessness.
One of the biggest frustrations with businesses and wireless is that they really have no idea what they are spending and what they are getting for the spend: there are no standard measurement criteria. Who is using what device? What does that get the business? How is the business using this technology to the best of its abilities in order for the organization to get the most out of the technology? These are all very difficult questions out of context. I recall one business manager saying to me, “trying to get good, understandable summary data is like pulling teeth. Why can’t someone just give me meaningful data? See?…all about perspective and context.
The carriers are relatively good about providing LOTS of data and in portals that are very sexy. They look really cool and are helpful to the individuals, but they show the business little in terms of good meaningful summary data, nor do they provide it in an easy to decipher format. Usually it is an individual roll-up which isn’t of much assistance when looking at 5000 devices.
What is needed is some perspective: what is really important to the enterprise and how is it measured and improved? In our patented methodology, we use the WEM PATROL process which look at 3 key performance indicators: Data usage (measured in cost per KB), Voice (measured in cost per minute) and Total cost (measured in cost per phone). These 3 indicators are indeed the measurements that truly illustrate how the account (and users) are exploiting the capabilities of the devices. In a perfect world, these amounts should be on a decreasing trending scale based on optimization. Additionally, these 3 categories make it very easy for the enterprise manager to see on a holistic level what the account is doing and provides perspective.
Keep in mind, this is done with a great deal of work behind the scenes, millions of dollars and hours put into software to manage the solution as well as time to review in person (yes, human to human, imagine that!) with the enterprise manager to insure the solutions are continuing the fit the needs of the organization.
But, we believe this approach provides us and (more importantly) the enterprise with greatly needed meaningful information on which to base good management decisions. Spending big bucks on wireless bills, although not such a big deal a few years ago is becoming the norm for any business that wants to stay competitive.
So, go paint your roof. It will help you sort through the quagmire to get some perspective on what’s important.
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