Tspendo (Telecom Spend Optimizer)

www.tmanco.ch - toni.lazazzera@tmanco.ch - 091.930-9663

About Tspendo ( www.tspendo.ch )

Tspendo is a software tool developped by Tmanco SA, it performs an X-ray of your mobile telephony invoice (detailed billing files from the carrier) and produces the current report. This report enables you to visualize the trends, verify the tariffs, identify opportunities for optimization and quantify the potential gains. Such insights shall help evaluate the ROI of given projects, and therefore define & prioritize initiatives for cost optimizations, such as: inventory cleanup project, contract negociation, TEM deployment (Telecom Expense Management), etc.

WARNING: this report is produced automatically based on the information found in the carrier's billing-files (eg: Swisscom Mobile - Invoice Reporting Raw Data). The information provided here shall be interpreted with care and considered in the context of the specific customer, it shall not be seen as a "ready-to-use answers" to trigger actions without prior validation by a telecom specialist.

Mobile analysis for customer DEMO

Scope RDS_TSPENDO-DEMO-1910-2002
Optimization NATEL go
Level RADA
Date 2020-06-16
 

 
Scope: defines a given set of data analyzed (eg: a given period of months or a limited group of invoices)

Optimization: the type of optimization performed by the present report. Tspendo also generates other reports with other kind of optimizations (eg: Swisscom CMN).

Level : defines the level of details of this report

• R = Reveal
  Provides enough information to reveal the potential savings (Executive summary only)
• RAD = Reveal-Assess-Decide
  Provides enough information to decide before moving forward with the full RADA report (Executive summary + further analysis, but without the details needed to act)
• RADA = Reveal-Assess-Decide-Act
  Provides all the necessary information to act, including full mobile numbers

01) Executive summary

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This report analyses the mobile telephony spend for the customer DEMO-REPORT. It highlights anomalies or opportunities that can be exploited to reduce the spend, and also quantifies the savings that could be achieved.

Brief overview

This analysis was based on 5 months of data (Swisscom Invoice Reporting files from 2019.10 to 2020.02).
We extrapolated a yearly spend of 394000 CHF/year for a total of 272 mobiles (last period), which gives an average of 120 CHF/month per mobile

The analysis revealed 18.7% potential savings, subdivided between Long-term and Quick-win as illustrated in this bar-graph:

Important: please check the section 02) Validation of source data used for the analysis to ensure that the underlying data (used to build this report) is complete. Otherwise the information provided in this report may not be accurate and should be corrected before you can use it

Costs by category

The table hereafter provides a summary of the costs, subdivided by category. For more details, see section 03) Invoice Verification & Overview

Savings opportunities

The table hereafter provides a summary of the potential savings identified. The hyperlinks in the table bring you to the sections with further details.

01.1) Invoice Verification

Tspendo does not have sufficient information to verify that your invoice is correct
but section 03) Invoice Verification & Overview provides you further details per category and enables you to verify that:

• the items billed match your inventory (nb & type of subscriptions/options)
• the tariffs applied match your contract (for subscriptions, options, minutes, Mb, SMS, etc)

If you find any divergence, this may reveal billing errors causing extra costs and therefore a potential saving, however further investigation may then be needed to confirm that the divergences are not due to other factors before claiming a refund from the provider

01.2) Quick win

We identified 67000 CHF/year as quick savings (17.0%) which could be achieved within 1-3 month by terminating unused lines or choosing the best subscription & option for each mobile.

• Section 04) Inventory verification & optimization provides details about 0 CHF/year savings (0.0%) that could be achieved by terminating lines which didn't have any traffic during the whole period analyzed
• Section 09) NATEL go optimization provides details about 67000 CHF/year savings (16.9%) that could be achieved by choosing the berst subscription & option for each mobile

01.3) Medium / long term savings

We also identified further long-term savings around 7000 CHF/year (1.8%) which could be achieved within 3-12 months through initiatives such as negociation, by enforcing usage policy or by implementing a technical solutions for call-routing.

• Section 08) Room for negociation provides details about 2000 CHF/year savings (0.5%) that could be achieved through negociation
• Section 05) Usage policy / Top users provides details about 0 CHF/year savings (0.0%) that could be achieved by enforcing usage-policies to the top users who account for 40% of the spend
• Section 06) Usage policy / Business hours provides details about 4000 CHF/year savings (1.0%) that could be achieved by enforcing usage-policies to all users, instructing them to use the fix phone when in an office in home country or abroad
• Section 07) Least Cost Routing provides details about 1000 CHF/year savings (0.3%) that could be achieved
using equipment to route international calls through the fix network.

Important: for medium / long term savings, we considered only 40% of the savings identified in each section (rule of thumb), to take into account that:

• each optimization (including quick-win) reduces the costs that can then be optimized by further optimizations, and therefore the total saving can not be the sum of all savings
• some optimizations require investments (eg: TEM to enforce usage policy, equipment to use least cost routing)

01.4) Process optimization through TEM

Considering the management of the mobile fleet of 272, we estimated that it probably requires ~0.5 FTE to manage it (order subscriptions/equipment, activate options, verify invoices, allocate costs, support users, etc.) , and using a TEM solution could probably reduce that workload by ~0.3 FTE

• This has been estimated by considering that it usually requires ~1 FTE to manage 1000 mobiles, and that TEM usually reduces that workload by 50%
• Note that the objective is not necessarily to reduce the headcount but rather to reduce the time spent for activities that can be automated, and therefore enable people to perform more value-added tasks (eg: assist endusers, identify anomalies that could save money, ...)

01.5) Enforcing usage policies through TEM

The long-term savings highlighted above show the impact that enforcing usage policies can have on the costs
Here are the type of actions that can drive users to lower their average cost/month or use the fix phone instead of their when possible :

• Understand why top users have higher average cost/month, what they could do to lower their costs (eg: don't use mobile to watch youtube when roaming)
• Define usage-policies to prevent inadequate behaviours and communicate them to the users, asking for their contribution to lower telecom costs.
  Such initiative should be supported and promoted by the management in order for the users to feel the pressure
• Inform users about their actual costs by providing them regular reports showing them how they are doing and clearly highlighting areas where they may not be following the rules.
  This point is very important as it builds a cost-awareness and provides feedback to the user so he can progressively align his behaviour with the policies
  The reports must be designed so that the user can quickly understand "where he is not following the rules", it's not sufficient to send him a list of call details.

TEM is a key component to achieve these savings, by enabling the design of custom reports and the automatic distribution to hundreds/thousands of users every month

Index

01) Executive summary

01.1) Invoice Verification

01.2) Quick win

01.3) Medium / long term savings

01.4) Process optimization through TEM

01.5) Enforcing usage policies through TEM

02) Validation of source data used for the analysis

02.1) Swisscom files imported

03) Invoice Verification & Overview

03.1) Costs by category

03.2) Evolution by month

03.3) Subscriptions & Options

03.4) National Tel

03.5) International Tel

03.6) International Tel / Top countries

03.7) Roaming Tel

03.8) Roaming Tel / Top countries

03.9) Roaming Data

04.0) Roaming Data / Top countries

04) Inventory verification & optimization

04.1) Mobiles with zero traffic

05) Usage policy / Top users

05.1) Overview of potential savings by category (traffic costs only)

05.2) National Tel

05.3) National Data

05.4) International Tel

05.5) Roaming Tel

05.6) Roaming Data

05.7) SMS / MMS

05.8) List of top mobiles (present in one or more Goup 1)

06) Usage policy / Business hours

06.1) International Tel

06.2) Roaming Tel

06.3) Roaming Data

07) Least Cost Routing

07.1) International Tel

07.2) Roaming Tel

08) Room for negociation

08.1) Billing increment

09) NATEL go optimization

09.1) Subscription costs used for the simulation

09.2) Recommended changes, nb of mobiles involved and resulting saving

09.3) Summary per Pareto group

09.4) Number and kind of subscriptions BEFORE / AFTER the recommended changes

09.5) Sample mobile for each kind of downgrade/upgrade

09.6) Detailed list of mobiles and recommended change

02) Validation of source data used for the analysis

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02.1) Swisscom files imported

The table below shows the months imported for the analysis, and the nb. of mobiles found in the Swisscom files.

• 271 mobiles (in_billitem) were found in the file rds_billitem (indicating the global costs)
• 261 mobiles (in_itemized) were found in the file rds_itemized (indicating traffic details with minutes, Mb, etc.)
• 0 mobiles (no_detail) generated traffic but they are missing from the file rds_itemized, therefore we don't have any traffic details and these mobiles are missing from some analysis. This usually happens when the option 'Detailed billing' is not activated for a mobile.
• 10 mobiles (no_traffic) generated no traffic, therefore they don't appear in the file rds_itemized, but we can't tell if the option "Detailled billing" is correctly activated or not (appears in yellow in the graph)

03) Invoice Verification & Overview

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03.1) Costs by category

The table below shows how costs are distributed by categories.

03.2) Evolution by month

The table below shows the monthly evolution over the whole period available.

03.3) Subscriptions & Options

The table below shows the subscriptions and options billed for the last month, as well as the average tarif billed per unit. A tarif in parentheses means the subscription/option was never billed for a full month and the tarif is therefore an approximation

Some manual check is needed to ensure the invoice doesn't contain obvious errors that may result in undue costs

• Verify if the nb. & type of subscriptions/options looks plausible to you compared with your inventory
• Validate if the price billed per subscription/option matches the price in your contract

03.4) National Tel

03.5) International Tel

The table below shows the costs and traffic for calls from Switzerland to International

03.6) International Tel / Top countries

The table below shows the costs and traffic for international calls, with the top 10 countries (calls made from Switzerland to International)

03.7) Roaming Tel

The table below shows the costs and traffic for Roaming calls (calls made or received while abroad)

03.8) Roaming Tel / Top countries

The table below shows the Roaming costs and traffic for the top 10 countries (calls made or received while abroad)

03.9) Roaming Data

The table below shows the costs and traffic for Roaming calls (calls made or received while abroad)

04.0) Roaming Data / Top countries

The table below shows the Roaming costs and traffic for the top 10 countries (data usage while abroad)

04) Inventory verification & optimization

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04.1) Mobiles with zero traffic

The following table shows 1 mobiles which apparently didn't generate any traffic during the whole period analyzed. If these lines are not used and would be terminated, then it would save 101 CHF per year

Warning: a mobile may be used to receive calls or for emergency situations, in which case it could be normal that it didn't generate any traffic but that doesn't mean that it could be terminated

05) Usage policy / Top users

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By sorting the mobiles top-down according to their cost, we look at what portion of the mobiles generates the first 20% of the costs (Paretto group 1), what portion generates the next 20% of the costs (group 2), etc up to group 5

We also look at the average cost/month per mobile for each group. Then we estimate what the savings could be if users of groups 1 & 2 could be moved one group down in terms of average cost/month.

05.1) Overview of potential savings by category (traffic costs only)

The table herafter presents the yearly costs per traffic category, as well as the potential savings if users of group 1 & 2 could lower their average cost/month to the next group down.

The graph shows the percentage of mobiles for each of the 5 groups, where each group generates 20% of the costs:
Group 1 = top users Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Group 5 = bottom users

Each category is then analyzed indivually in this section. At the end of the section you'll find a list of all mobiles which belong to group 1 or 2 in one or more of the categories

05.2) National Tel

05.3) National Data

05.4) International Tel

05.5) Roaming Tel

05.6) Roaming Data

05.7) SMS / MMS

05.8) List of top mobiles (present in one or more Goup 1)

There are 77 mobiles which are in a 'Group 1' or in a "Group 2" for one or more of the categories listed above

The table below shows the list of these mobiles and indicates the group the mobile belongs to for the given category: Group 1, Group 2, Group 3, Group 4, Group 5

06) Usage policy / Business hours

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This section analyses the period when costs are generated, looking for costs generated during business-hours and which could be avoided (or reduced) if we assume that the user is probably in an office with the possibility to use a fix phone or wifi (for data)

Warning: to simulate the cost of routing the calls through the fix network, we normally take the info from the fix-telephony call details. If such detail is not provided, then we assume the fix cost is the mobile cost / 3 (for international) or /2 (for roaming)

06.1) International Tel

The cost 'fix_chf' is the cost if the call would be made from the office in Switzerland using the fix network. This cost has been calculated using the tariffs found in the fix-telephony files

If users would use the fix phone at least for half of the calls during the period 'Week 09-18', then this would save an average of 1270 CHF per year

06.2) Roaming Tel

The cost 'fix_chf' is the cost if the call would be made from an office abroad, using the fix network. As a rule-of-thumb, we assumed that the cost would be half of the mobile cost (conservative approach, the cost may actually be lower).

If users would use the fix phone at least for half of the calls during the period 'Week 09-18', then this would save an average of 5846 CHF per year

06.3) Roaming Data

The cost 'wifi_chf' is the cost if the mobile would use the wifi network instead of 3G, therefore 0.

If users would use the WIFI for at least half of the traffic made during the period "Week 09-19", then this would save an average of 2685 CHF per year

07) Least Cost Routing

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07.1) International Tel

The table below shows the costs and traffic for calls from Switzerland to International

If these calls were routed through the fix network (mobile to office, then office to international), this could save an average of 1789 CHF per year .
Such least-cost-routing requires a special solution. That solution consists of an equipment installed centrally and a cuscope-software installed on each mobile device. The cuscope software makes the whole process transparent to the user. More work would be needed to evaluate the feasability and estimate the ROI

An example of such solution: www.sosoftware.com

The graphic represents the percentage of the total that could be saved, and highlights the categories that would benefit the most from such routing

WARNING: this simulation is only performed if we have the fix-telephony details available, otherwise this section is meaningless

07.2) Roaming Tel

The table below shows the costs and traffic for Roaming calls (calls made or received while abroad)

Using the same type of solution as for the International calls, it is possible to use a call-back feature so that you are charged for an incoming-roaming call instead of outgoing-roaming (this is usually cheaper).

The column new_chf shows a simulation on what the cost would be if the mobile was called-back from the office, and then the call to the destination is initiated from the office. All that being transparent to the users thanks to a cuscope software installed on the device.

Using such mechanism could save an average of 1183 CHF per year

The graphic represents the percentage of the total that could be saved, and highlights the categories that would benefit the most from such routing

08) Room for negociation

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This section identifies areas that may have room for negociation. The indicated savings are rough estimations of what may be achievable, unless these areas were already taken into consideration.

08.1) Billing increment

The EU regulation states that roaming calls shall be billed in 1 sec. increment after the first 30 sec. Swisscom bills roaming calls in 60 sec. increments and this generates, in this case, an extra cost of 4473 CHF per year

While it would not be possible for Swisscom to modify the billing increment, this point can be addressed by ensuring that the tariffs are adjusted to compensate for the extra costs.

09) NATEL go optimization

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This section shows the results of the NATEL go optimization performed to identify the best subscription for each user. It presents the recommended Upgrade/Downgrade for each mobile and quantifies the saving that would result from these changes.

From the 272 mobiles present on the invoice the last month of the period (2020.02) we found 253 mobiles that had one of the following NATEL go subscription: Swiss, Neighbours, Europe, Global. And from them, we analysed 234 mobiles which had the same NATEL go subscription over the full 5 months period

From these 234 mobiles 70 mobiles would benefit from a Downgrade or Upgrade , resulting in a total saving of -66784.8 CHF/year

About NATEL go

• NATEL go is a family of mobile subscriptions from Swisscom offered to large enterprises in Switzerland
  
• When using NATEL go subscriptions, it is important to associate the right subscription for each user, but this task is not easy. This is why Tmanco developped Tspendo to simulate the various options and identify the best subscription/li>

Metodology

• For each mobile, Tspendo takes the detailed traffic of the past months (in this case 5 months) , simulates what the cost would have been with each of the NATEL go subscription (Swiss, Neighbours, Europe, Global) and suggests the subscription with the lowest total cost over the full period.
• The traffic and costs are obtained by reading the files “Swisscom Invoice Reporting Raw Data” which contain all details for each call or data communication
• Tspendo then applies the rules and tarifs as described in the official Swisscom document Prices and services – Mobile communications NATEL go from 1 August 2019
  On this Swisscom information page about NATEL go you can find more information as well as a link to the latest version of the "Prices and services" document
• For each call, Tspendo looks at the countries and associates the traffic to the correct international region or roaming zone
• Even in complex situation like calling between roaming zones, Tspendo simulates the correct variable costs
• When roaming data exceeds the included 40GByte/month, Tspendo adds the variable costs for the extra volume

Limitations

• According to the NATEL go rules, if you upgrade a subscription then you must wait at least 3 months before you downgrade. Tspendo doesn't simulate multiple upgrades/downgrades for the same mobile, it looks only at mobiles which had the same subscription over the whole period, and simulates the new cost if that mobile had a different subscription. By considering a period of several months, it is more likely that the upgrade will make sense for several months and will not require a downgrade before 3 months.
• Because the situation can change in the future, this type of optimization should be repeated at regular interval. Tmanco suggests to repeat it every 3 months but to still perform a quick analysis every month in order to detect exceptionnal situations.

09.1) Subscription costs used for the simulation

The following NATEL go subscriptions & costs were found in the Swisscom files (Invoice Reporting) and were used for the simulation

09.2) Recommended changes, nb of mobiles involved and resulting saving

 Legend

diff/yr = total cost difference extrapolated to 1 year

diff/period = total cost difference over the 5 months period

Abo/Neighb/Europe/Global = cost difference for the 5 months period

GREEN    = DECREASE

• For Abo: this is the difference of subscription costs
  
• For Neighb/Europe/Global: this is traffic-cost which was charged with old abo, but will be included in new abo

ORANGE =   INCREASE

• For Abo: this is the difference of subscription costs
  
• for Neighb/Europe/Global: this is traffic-cost which was included in old abo, but will be charged with new abo

About methodology used for the simulations

For Abo costs

• we took the actual costs found in the Swisscom invoices
• If a given abo was not found, we used a cost provided manually (either the standard cost or the negociated cost)

For traffic costs (Neighb/Europe/Global)

• In case of UPGRADE and for VOICE/SMS traffic: we used the costs found in the Swisscom invoices
• In case of UPGRADE and for DATA traffic: we used the costs found in the Swisscom invoices but there can be some divergence
  For ex. if the user buys a pack "Data Travel 50 MB Global" but uses it in Europe, the cost will be attributed to Global but the traffic itself is Europe
• In case of DOWNGRADE: the Swisscom invoices contains no cost because it was included in abo, therefore we need to simulate
  1) We take the actual volume and use the average tarif which was paid by other mobiles who paid for similar traffic
  2) If we can not find similar traffic, we use the tarif published by Swisscom for the given source/destination regions For roaming data, we consider packages of 200 MB, we compute the tarif per MB and we take 2x that tarif (because packages may not be 100% used)

Limitations

• We did our best to simulate the cost as precisely as we could, but we can not exclude some divergences
• Nevertheless, the recommended change remains valid because the error-margin is usually far smaller than the cost reduction itself
• And if you still do not trust these numbers, Tmanco is ready to provide a type of "No gain / No pain" warranty

09.3) Summary per Pareto group

If we adjust the subscription only for the top 5 mobiles, we can already achieve 20.5% of the savings, therefore -13677.6 CHF/year

And if we adjust the subscription only for the top 33 mobiles then we achieve 80.8% of the savings, therefore -53942.4 CHF/year

The above observation are visible in the following table which shows a "Pareto" distribution of the mobiles according to the saving

• By sorting the mobiles top-down according to their saving, we look at what portion of the mobiles generates the first 20% of the savings (Paretto group 1), what portion generates the next 20% of the savings (group 2), etc up to group 5
• The graph shows the percentage of mobiles for each of the 5 groups, where each group generates 20% of the savings:
  Group 1 = top users Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Group 5 = bottom users
• The value diff/m/m indicates the average saving per mobile per month

09.4) Number and kind of subscriptions BEFORE / AFTER the recommended changes

This table provides an overview of how the situation will change. By looking at which subscriptions are reduced and which ones are increased, it provides an indication of how the current subscriptions may be over/under-dimensionned

09.5) Sample mobile for each kind of downgrade/upgrade

The following table shows a sample mobile for each kind of change (Downgrade/Upgrade)

In this table, we can see what the cost-difference would be if we change the subscription from "Old" to "New"

09.6) Detailed list of mobiles and recommended change

This section provides the detailed list of all mobiles which would benefit from a downgrade or upgrade

The mobiles are subdivided in 5 tables according to the Pareto group. See 09.3) Summary per Pareto group

For explainations about the information in these tables and the meaning of the colors, see 09.5) Sample mobile for each kind of downgrade/upgrade

Note: on the "TOTAL" row, the values in the columns Subscription / Neighbours / Europe / Global indicate the total difference for this Pareto group over the whole period of 5 months

 
List of mobiles in Pareto group 1

This is the top group of mobiles that, together, represent about 20% of the savings

• For information about Pareto groups, see 09.3) Summary per Pareto group

 
List of mobiles in Pareto group 2

This is the 2nd group of mobiles that, together, represent about 20% of the savings

• For information about Pareto groups, see 09.3) Summary per Pareto group

 
List of mobiles in Pareto group 3

This is the 3rd group of mobiles that, together, represent about 20% of the savings

• For information about Pareto groups, see 09.3) Summary per Pareto group

 
List of mobiles in Pareto group 4

This is the 4th group of mobiles that, together, represent about 20% of the savings

• For information about Pareto groups, see 09.3) Summary per Pareto group

 
List of mobiles in Pareto group 5

This is the 5th and last group of mobiles that, together, represent about 20% of the savings

• For information about Pareto groups, see 09.3) Summary per Pareto group