Part Two: Going Back to My Roots
Posted by Mark Evans on Tue, Jul 06, 2010
Workwise…..
It’s been nice. I have to say, Europe has adopted Telecom Expense Management from an entirely different standpoint in comparison to the US.
If you wind the clock back in the US about 10 years ago, there was a moderately available TEM solution there that was entirely based on managed service. You would commonly hear, “Send all of your bills to us and we will take the problem away from you”. There wasn’t any real science behind it and no real introduction of technology to underpin it. Nonetheless, there was a known service that could be outsourced in the same manner as payroll or AP.
Australian TEM, although later in the game, was always based on the availability of electronic billing data. This was a bi-product of those days in the mid-nineties where it seemed like every major carrier on the planet descended on Sydney and Melbourne and dug up the streets and installing fibre. This was until most of them realised that actually, there aren’t that many people there (in comparison to other areas)! Still, what it DID do was cause them to issue electronic billing data in order to create a differentiator. This enables smart technology platforms to process and analyze the data and do useful things with it. I am proud to say that the TEM industry down there was somewhat pioneered by us in this regard.
Europe, however, seems to have got the best of both worlds. While the adoption of TEM has come later than the US and Australia, the European market is now able to obtain both smart technology and quality managed services around it. In effect, they can still “outsource the problem” but now with meaningful and technology driven processes. Add in the unprecedented adoption of this by the bigger global System Integrators, BPO players and the carrier’s themselves and I would say Europe has the best of both worlds.
So personally, would I consider Australia, USA or England the best place to live? They all have their positive attributes – all marvellous in their own regard and I enjoyed every minute in all three. But family desires aside, I would choose England! There you go – I’ve said it.
photo by mdda