How shadow IT and telecom costs linger…
In the interest of keeping it real, I am beginning the Prime Telecommunications blog with a promise to communicate as effectively and honestly as I can about current developments in connectivity, telecom news and information from the IT world.
I will do my best to attempt to make the posts relevant, interesting and professional. The formula that I will use will have 50% of the information about telecommunications and connectivity issues, 25% about how we are integrating solutions at Prime Telecommunications and about 25% as my own soap box.
As we wind up the year and enter the economic uncertainty that is all too prevalent, I think that we need to find better ways to work more effectively and efficiently. However, we all know that budgets will dry up and taht we need to find solutions that are cost effective (read: CHEAP) and fulfill a measurable need - not just a technology want.
I read an article in this week’s edition of Network World (http://www.networkworld.com) by Andreas Antonopoulos (andreas@nemertes.com) from Nemertes Research (http://www.nemertes.com). Andreas introduced me to “Shadow IT”. According to him, “shadow IT ” is all the technology that was neither planned nor approved by anyone, that gets chosen, deployed and used. It’s one of the most insidious hidden costs of IT - where decisions get made, costs get generated and sometimes those who introduced the “solution” leave to work elsewhere. What happens to the organization? At best, they wind up with an IT solution that looks like a business suit that I tailored - even though I can’t sew. At worst, there can be security breaches, licensing fiascos and just chaos!
In telecom, I have seen pretty much of the same. Lines, circuits, and volume commitments get contracted - without following clearly thought out purchasing guidelines. It always seems that carrier representatives get better looking and more clueless as time goes on. I would add “younger” but that would be cruel. Many carriers are using more of a “scripted” sales process and deceptive scripts. I have seen situations where if the salespeople are attractive enough, the client never checks the fine print - and by the time they do, the regret is palpable.
In the past month we have offered our clients a free maintenance check up. (http://primetelecommunications.com/maintenance ). I go to client sites, make sure that they are up to par and make recommendations. At least it gets people thinking. One of the five components is the cost analysis - you’d be surprised how otherwise astute people are lulled into zombie like complacency to pay money for services they either shouldn’t use, misuse or abuse. As my friend Larry says “money is a fungible asset. You can pay too much for what you don’t really want or need”. I have seen clients paying for circuits - T1’s- that are not used! I had a client paying for numbers that had been disconnected. I had a client with a 411 bill that looked like the numbers from the bank bailout!
Moral of the story: someone knocks on your door and asks you to sign a contract, read it and make sure you understand it. Never give your approval on the phone for volume commitments or new services and read your contracts!
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