Let us discuss one of the primary areas of charge-blindness in mobile environments: data usage. Companies expect to pay more for data services especially as many employees are working from home amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. In this article, you will see how to consider mobile data usage and how to estimate and manage these expenses.
Let us discuss one of the primary areas of charge-blindness in mobile environments: data usage. Companies expect to pay more for data services especially as many employees are working from home amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. In this article, you will see how to consider mobile data usage and how to estimate and manage these expenses.
When reviewing different companies’ invoices since the Covid-19 lockdown started in March, I have noticed that data usage and cost have increased drastically.
In fact, data usage in most companies is growing at a phenomenal rate, with monthly totals growing 5-15%. As most companies opt for work-from-home for their employees, we have seen an increase up to 150% at an astronomical cost. Are businesses able to carry the cost at this rate indefinitely? I do not think so!
The profound question is: how much is really enough for the enterprise employee? The trend we are seeing is about 5-10% of employees use around 50-70% of the data. You are probably thinking “With Covid-19 we expected a significant increase in data usage?” And, yes, you are correct on that front – this will cause a temporary spike, yet many users do not need excessive data.
How much data is enough to perform necessary job functions? To get an idea of how much is enough, you can use our data calculator. This calculator allows a company to create a personalised approach by considering a number of different variables on a monthly basis. One of the big considerations will be the need to check-in via video call on various platforms like Teams, Zoom or Skype vs using these platforms in an audio setting.
Ultimately, I suggest implementing a data policy, where one of the areas covered is the appropriate amount of data usage and what happens if someone exceeds this limit.
One best practice in analysing data is to have a real-time technology management tool. Many companies use Intelligible from SeeClear, which has a number of trending reports where you can see data usage and other services, as well as track trends for individuals over time.
Tools are only as good as their users. I spoke to a CIO recently and he asked the question, “What am I seeing and what am I supposed to do with what I see?” It is important to have a trusted partner to help guide you through the vast amounts of data available for analysis. Those trusted resources help outline the policies you should consider, what reports you should monitor and inform you on industry trends and pace. In all of these areas, SeeClear shines.
In conclusion, I have seen a handful of companies keeping their employees’ data usage below an average of 2 GB/month. You are probably thinking “No way! Oh, this company really doesn’t have the same needs as we do.” In my experience, I have to disagree with this thought process. I also believe that 95% of high data usage is outside of business needs.
The strategic decisions made today will determine the immediate cost and how it will affect the company in the future.
Feel free to contact us directly should you need any further guidance.
Glossary
1 CDR stands for Call Data Record. By way of simplistic example, a call detail record describing a particular phone call might include the phone numbers of both the calling and receiving parties, the start time, and duration of that call. The same information is generated for any data usage with all the relevant fields such us megabytes uses, time stamp and even destination.
These are automatically imported into Intelligible™ via a third-party gateway linked directly with your service provider every 10 minutes (enquire about any vendor exclusions regarding CDR’s).
2 EDR stands for Event Data/Detail Record. EDR’s gather a variety of parameters like duration, data volume, website/content accessed, quality of service per flow, per event, per Ad etc. which to generate invoices.
These are automatically imported into Intelligible™ via a third-party gateway linked directly with your service provider on a monthly bill run from your service providers.
3 MACD’s stands for Move, Add, Change and Disconnect which are all crucial part of telecom management.