Blog, Press & Events

The telecom market is anything but standardised. Multinational businesses operating across Europe, the Middle East and Africa need to deal with various operators across various countries.

The fragmentation goes beyond country borders. Bill quality and formats, language barriers and currency differences feed into the fragmented nature of the telecom market.
As a result, businesses often struggle to understand their overall telecom spend, driving up unnecessary costs. A robust global technology expense management (TEM) solution can help international companies analyse and manage expense data efficiently by offering full inventory transparency. 

Let's look at the fragmented nature of telecoms in EMEA and the complicated spend management associated, to explore and explain the full utility of TEM software.

Thanks to the work-from-home movement, more employees, customers and business partners are now accustomed to leveraging UCaaS tools as part of their normal workflows. However, where a quick setup was the priority in the early days of COVID-19, businesses today are savvier about what they want out of a digital collaboration solution. Organizations are increasingly looking for ways to optimize their consumption and improve their UCaaS expense management.

Whether you’re planning to sign up with a new UCaaS provider or preparing to negotiate a renewal with an existing service, we’ve put together 7 things you need to know to as you evaluate UCaaS solutions.

With rising technology costs, supply chain issues, and global security threats, enterprises must evaluate their business continuity plans to prevent disruptions in business and stay on top of innovation so they are not left behind in the technology dust. If a network goes down unexpectedly, or there’s a cyber-attack, companies are exposed to enormous risk that can affect their reputation and bottom line.

Calero-MDSL, the leader in the Technology Expense Management (TEM) industry, announced it is transforming expense management yet again with the launch of the first ever SaaS Expense Management solution. 

Rochester, NY (April 26, 2022) – On Monday, Calero-MDSL announced the launch of their new SaaS Expense Management solution at the AOTMP (Association of Telecom Management Professionals) Engage conference. Having launched the celebrated UCaaS solution in 2021, this newest product from Calero-MDSL expands the breadth and depth of the solution into the greater SaaS space. This enables the modernization, centralization, and optimization of an enterprise’s expense management across their overall SaaS portfolio and is further evidence that Calero-MDSL continues to invest in the forward-looking needs of IT expense and lifecycle management across wireline, mobility, and now full SaaS.  

The Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) global market size is expected to reach USD 210 billion by 2028, with an annual growth rate of 23.6% from 2021 to 2028, according to Grand View Research, Inc. Given businesses growing reliance on cloud-based tools in recent years, it’s not surprising that the market is expanding at such an astonishing rate.

However, cloud-based tools, such as UCaaS is a relatively new concept for many businesses when it comes to specifics (i.e. call accounting, license management). Even seasoned IT, Operations, and Finance experts have difficulty wrapping their heads around the various terms in the wider cloud-based toolset, which the unified communications sphere forms a part of.

In this guide, we’ll go back to basics and reveal the meaning behind ten cloud and UCaaS-related acronyms. Continue reading to gain the foundational knowledge you need to navigate the industry with confidence.

The financial services landscape is still transitioning - along with the rest of the business world - into post-pandemic mode. Work arrangements are moving from what has been a fully remote workforce for most organizations to either work from home (WFH), full-time office or hybrid. Employee roles are also shifting as enterprises explore ways to reduce manual tasks, free up workers’ time for higher-value activities and nurture productivity.

To help understand how those changes will impact market data management in the coming year, we’ve put together a summary of the trends, updates and key items to consider in 2022.

Technology Expense Management (TEM) stakeholders have their plates full when it comes to managing spend, from handling invoices, to tracking thousands of technology devices, and dealing with billing discrepancies. There aren’t enough hours in the day to handle every single detail. In turn, billing errors and cost savings opportunities can fall through the cracks.

We’ve all seen the explosion of UCaaS, both in the enterprise and in our personal lives. Zoom and Teams meetings became the norm to communicate and collaborate at work and at home, and expertspredicta compound growth rate of 13.4% between 2021 and 2028 for UCaaS services.

The business environment has undergone numerous recent transformations, including the decoupling of person-to-person communication from traditional telephony platforms. Permanent changes in the nature of enterprise collaboration have also come about, driven by the pandemic-inspired move toward a hybrid workforce. Users are more often using their mobiles rather than desk phones, for example, and reliance on direct peer-to-peer communications has also increased.

In this new landscape, cloud-based collaboration tools are now prolific, but they create new challenges for enterprises. Many of these digital channels were launched quickly, without the typical processes in place to manage costs and oversee sprawl. And now that the durability of solutions such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom is becoming clear, companies face a steep learning curve as they work to control spend across these new platforms.

The current rapid adoption of digital transformation and work-from-anywhere environments have combined to make the use of SaaS applications to connect employees, contractors, vendors and other associates and partners rise on a similarly swift pace across the enterprise space.

Calero-MDSL, the global leader in technology expense management (TEM), announced today its inclusion in Gartner’s 2021 Market Guide for Telecom Expense Management Services. Calero-MDSL is a Representative TEM Pure-Play Vendor for Global Delivery profiled by Gartner in the report. The vendors reviewed include those most frequently asked about in Gartner end-user inquiries, typically serving the large, regional or MNC enterprise base. 

“Calero-MDSL is honored to be recognized again in Gartner’s annual TEM Market Guide. We believe inclusion in this guide validates our leading position in the global TEM market, and our ability to simplify recurring technology expenses for the largest companies across the globe” said Scott Gilbert, Chief Executive Officer of Calero-MDSL. “Over the past 12 months, I have been passionate about driving a new sense of bold innovation across our organization and we are now seeing the industry embrace the change as well.”

Gartner’s TEM coverage focuses on SaaS-based applications and platforms, managed services, and associated professional services. Findings in the 2021 Market Guide include:

In today’s world of remote work, the topic of technology and devices has become more important than ever. Homes have been transformed into offices, making it crucial for team members to have the right equipment to complete their work in a secure and efficient manner.

While using a BYO model remains popular with companies, it’s not the most secure or cost-effective strategy. To gain added security benefits and stay compliant, enterprises should consider moving toward a Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled (COPE) mobility model.

How will you ensure that you are getting the best possible rate for your organization’s telecom service provider? More importantly, where do you start your search?

When is the last time you made an online purchase or opted for delivery over dine-in at a restaurant? Nowadays, you can get almost anything you want delivered to your door with the click of a button. Not only is online shopping convenient, but it has become a necessity for many in the midst of a global pandemic.

The way of doing business continues to evolve for all global enterprises. The meaning of Technology Expense Management (TEM) and all that it embodies is constantly changing to better manage and optimize growing technology spend. Many enterprises are rapidly adapting to the new ways of working and planning ahead with an innovative outlook on their TEM strategy. But the key to staying ahead, is considering the unexpected information that you might be lacking. As you plan your TEM strategy for 2022, consider these new innovations for a successful TEM approach.

Choosing the right technology vendor for your business can be a complicated process. How do you know if you’re making the right decision when it comes to scalability, value, and your overall investment? An RFP scorecard can help you gather and score the right criteria to present to decision makers, in an efficient and organized way.

Our simple infographic below will walk you through how to create a plan for scoring RFP’s in the selection stage when finding a Technology Expense Management (TEM) provider.

Michael Fameli joined Calero-MDSL in November 2021 as VP/GM, continuing the momentum of enhancing our customer experience.

Michael is an experienced enterprise leader and brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise across both technology and operations leadership. Throughout Michael’s career, he has held senior leadership positions in technology, product, service delivery and client experience.

As technology leaders around the globe wrap up budgets and begin planning for next year, Andrew Taylor, President and Chief Revenue Officer of Calero-MDSL had the opportunity to chat with David Bliss, Chief Product Officer of Calero-MDSL to get a sneak-peak of product launches coming in 2022. In this exclusive interview, you’ll learn all about the exciting developments we have in store for Smart Automation, our SaaS and UCaaS management offerings, and how we plan to improve our customer experience in the year ahead.

With a background in IT, and experience in healthcare and financial industries, Robert (B.J.) Block brings a wealth of experience to lead the evolution of our global security posture at Calero-MDSL – to protect our informational assets and continue to extend our lead as the most secure global partner in the industry.

Are you trying to manage the cost and deployment of rapidly expanding UCaaS tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams or RingCentral? Let us help!

Is your organization looking to make a digital transformation in the upcoming year? In recent years, we have seen a trend where all traffic is moving to the cloud. According to Gartner, “Enterprises need this because their network traffic is doubling in size, roughly every 2.9 years.” With the onset of this trend, more organizations have chosen to move to faster and more secure WAN, like SD-WAN, for an easier transfer of digital assets.

In 2017, the European Union banned roaming charges for people using mobile phones abroad. The new rules meant citizens travelling within the EU were able to call, text and browse the internet at the same price they paid at home.

However, after the UK voted to leave the EU and with the trade agreement not incorporating protection against mobile roaming charges, some of the UK’s largest operators are now reintroducing the fees. Such a change in service could create significant difficulties for international companies with employees travelling abroad for work.

In this article, we will discuss what we know about the situation so far and outline what your business can do to ensure the charges don’t catch you or your communications teams off guard.

Microsoft recently announced the first Office price increase in a decade. If your enterprise uses Office, you probably know the platform has rolled out a lot of new capabilities since the last release. The company has essentially reinvented the Office platform as a cutting-edge SaaS service, setting a rate for innovation that would be difficult for many other providers to match. But while the increase appears justified against rising technology costs and upgraded feature sets, it’s still important to take the right steps to ensure your spend matches your needs and usage.

Are you ready for the Microsoft Office price hike? We’ll show you 5 ways to wrangle your Microsoft UCaaS Spend.

With only one quarter left in the year, it’s the ideal time to check technology spending and make a new budget to set your company up for success in 2022. With the rise of hybrid work and growing dependency on technology, it’s become more important than ever to invest in Technology Expense Management (TEM) to help cut costs, track services and equipment, and negotiate better contracts.  

Call accounting originally grew from a core set of business needs that included cost validation and fraud detection. Enterprises often utilized call activity information to incentivize lower cost calling behaviors and manage traffic, and certain sectors—financial services and government among them—used call data to meet a range of compliance requirements. Companies also embraced call accounting for more mundane uses, such as cost center chargebacks based on consumption.

Rochester, NY October 6, 2021 - Calero-MDSL, the innovation leader in the high-growth Technology Expense Management (TEM) software space, announced today that it is promoting David Bliss, EVP of Product Management to Chief Product Officer. As Chief Product Officer for Calero-MDSL, David will lead the product management, design, and user experience teams as well as the learning and development organization. In this new role, David will continue to work in close partnership with the engineering team.

Your essential checklist to save, manage and optimize your digital communications spend.

Updated January 19, 2022

The transition of legacy PBX systems and other communication platforms from on-prem to cloud is happening at an unprecedented pace. This migration creates new challenges for enterprises trying to monitor communications usage and spend, from traditional forms of communication to UCaaS. Traditional tools can’t keep up with the need for better visibility into where telecom & UCaaS budgets are going and how to optimize the value of investments. 

Join Amalgam Insights (Hyoun Park), Facebook (Daniel Garcia), Adobe (John Mockett) and Calero-MDSL (David Bliss) to explore key trends and salient recommendations in wireless expense management. 

When: On-Demand

Where: Virtual - Link provided after registration

Here's what we have in store for you at this exclusive event:

Why Calero-MDSL Managed Services? 

Calero-MDSL was recently interviewed by Modern CTO Podcast, a group that explores thought leadership in the world of technology.

Updated January 19, 2022

Now more than ever, businesses in this globally connected world are turning to Unified Communications (UC) and Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) solutions to enable seamless collaboration. 

Corporate-owned personally enabled devices, or “COPE”, is a reemerging trend as enterprises continue to adapt to new ways of working. Where BYOD creates IT management and support complications, as well as security risk, the advantages of COPE programs include lower costs and lower risks. The key factor is that the approach also empowers employees to use these company owned devices for personal activities including social sites, e-mail, and calls, inevitably passing savings along to the employee, as well. 

When you’re justifying the ROI of implementing Technology Expense Management (TEM), don’t just look at hard dollar paybacks, such as refunds for billing errors. Instead, consider the time and cost savings that are often overlooked: 

Les systèmes existants de suivi des dépenses pourraient être un obstacle à la réalisation d’importantes économies.  

Veraltete Kostenüberwachungssysteme könnten Ihr Unternehmen daran hindern, massive Kosteneinsparungen zu erzielen. 

Legacy expense monitoring systems could be preventing your business from achieving massive cost-savings. 

D’après un rapport du Transparency Market Research, la gestion des dépenses de télécommunications (GDT) pèsera 4,92 milliards de dollars aux États-Unis en 2024. Mais la GDT reste très sous-utilisée dans la zone EMEA (Europe, Moyen-Orient et Afrique) — malgré les économies qu’elle pourrait apporter aux entreprises.

Laut einem Bericht von Transparency Market Research wird das Marktvolumen von Technology Expense Management-Lösungen (kurz: TEM) in den USA bis 2024 etwa 4,92 Milliarden US-Dollar betragen. Trotz dieser vielversprechenden Aussichten wird TEM in Europa, dem Nahen Osten und Afrika noch zu selten genutzt. Und das, obwohl die Einsparungen für Unternehmen enorm sein können. 

According to a Transparency Market Research report, technology expense management (TEM) will be worth $4.92 billion in the US by 2024. But, TEM remains an underutilised asset in Europe, the Middle East and Africa — despite the savings it could bring companies. 

In Part 1, we examined the challenges enterprises face in effectively auditing SaaS spend. Billing practices for cloud services are complex and often disorganized, and traditional audit tools fall short. Now we’ll look at how businesses can overcome these difficulties, and the benefits they receive once they do.

In part 3 of our series on the Calero-MDSL Centers of Excellence, we take a closer look at 2 CoE’s and the impacts they have made to customers recently.

With all the industry buzz around BYO programs for businesses, it can be hard to know which to choose. With more employees working remotely than ever before, BYO is not going away any time soon, and seems to be growing more in popularity by the day. One device program that is gaining more adopters is what is called COPE, or Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled. As a hybrid between BYOD and Corporate owned device programs, COPE allows employees to use company owned devices for personal activities including social sites, e-mail, and calls while mitigating risks and lowering costs for the employer.  This is a win-win for everyone, especially the company because of the hard and soft savings benefits of the program. The company lowers the cost of IT, licensing, security, maintenance, and even the cost of the plans and phones themselves. 

Over two thirds of Americans have a smartphone and almost half have a tablet. With so many devices already in hand, many companies are implementing BYO programs. However, there are many things for a company to consider before electing to go BYO.

First, there needs to be a thorough understanding of the BYO approaches and their implications. The four types of programs companies can choose when dealing with devices and employees: 

• BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)
• CYOD (Choose Your Own Device)
• CLEO (Corporate Liable Employee Owned)
• COPE (Corporate Owned Personally Enabled)

Data notifications received from vendors are being sent in increasing volumes and becoming harder for IT teams to manage. Many are not customer-specific and are irrelevant, causing unwanted “noise” and making it harder to spot the important changes that can impact your business. 

Updated January 20, 2022

Do you know how much you’re really spending on telecom every year? What if you could see the hidden costs, know what telecom inventory you have, where that inventory is located, and why you have it?

Traditional enterprise fixed and mobile spend audits are a stable and mature service offered by every large expense management company as well as a plethora of smaller providers and independent analysts. These vendors have built a successful practice around finding billing errors or cost reduction opportunities for clients and sharing a percentage of the monies recovered or the savings achieved. From the early days of telecom expense management (TEM) to today, most enterprises take advantage of this standard service, either as a one-time engagement or on an ongoing basis. 

BYOD is being used more and more for businesses in both terminology and practice.

But what exactly is BYOD, and what does it mean for companies? BYOD stands for Bring Your Own Device, and it allows employees to do work on their own devices to access a company’s network and data rather than rely on the company to provide the hardware. Upwork estimates that 1 in 4 Americans will be working remotely thru 2021 which further supports the popularity of BYOD. Millennials are also driving the trend, thinking their personal devices are more effective and easier to use than devices provided by their employers.

Fund managers in major financial services organizations and major banks truly depend upon a robust feed of market data to support their critical decision making. With trillions on the line its really no wonder that market data is in their top five expense items, topping $30 Billion in total spend in 2020. 

In our first post on the Calero-MDSL Centers of Excellence (CoE) we described all seven centers and how they work together. 

Index License Manager Earns Prestigious Industry Recognition as part of the 2021 CODiE Awards

WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 22, 2021) - Calero-MDSL, a leading provider of Technology Expense Management (TEM) and Market Data Management solutions, today announced that their Index License Manager (ILM) product has been named the best Fintech Solution of 2021 as part of the annual SIIA CODiE Awards. The CODiE Awards recognize the companies producing the most innovative business technology products across the country, and around the world.

Index licensing fees have skyrocketed through valuation-based fee models that increasingly benefit index providers. The ILM platform reduces manual processes for both the buy-side and sell-side, automates reporting capabilities and vendor declarations, improves cost allocation methodologies (e.g. to funds), and helps conform with recently enforced benchmark regulations and IOSCO’s Principles for Financial Benchmarks. The centralized database contains index data licenses, benchmark licenses, reporting licenses, and all other index license types, with an intuitive user interface developed specifically for index license management. The result is an informed and complete holistic dashboard view of an organization’s enterprise-wide licensing with all index providers. Index License Management from Calero-MDSL has previously won the same SIIA CODiE Award in 2020.

“Congratulations to all of the 2021 Business Technology CODiE Award winners,” said SIIA President Jeff Joseph. “The products honored this year hold a particularly special place in the distinguished history of the CODiEs. Many of these winners literally helped business survive, and even thrive, as the global business community transitioned to remote status due to the pandemic. All those honored today demonstrate the resilience of this dynamic industry. Innovation continued even in the face of an unprecedented challenging year.”

Updated January 19, 2022

Large businesses are increasingly realizing they have a major problem around SaaS spend management. The use of cloud subscription services is going up but, unlike with traditional on-prem technologies, few companies had controls in place before the pace of SaaS and UCaaS adoption accelerated. And while SaaS applications were a lifeline for companies and workers when COVID-19 hit, the scope of expenses associated with so much cloud service sprawl is just now becoming clear.

2020 was undoubtedly a difficult time for everyone, but insurance companies were hit with costs from every direction.

Rochester, NY (June 8th, 2021) – Calero-MDSL, the leader in the high-growth Technology Expense Management (TEM) space, announced today its addition to the Zoom App Marketplace. The company is the first TEM provider to offer both a UCaaS expense management solution within its TEM platform, and a native Zoom app. With this certified Marketplace App, Calero-MDSL customers can now implement UCaaS expense management in minutes. In March, the company announced that it was first-to-market with a comprehensive solution for managing and optimizing both the variable and fixed costs associated with UCaaS programs integrated with its established wireline and mobility programs.

Empowering users to do more is the fundamental goal of all automation. Automating repetitive or consistent tasks frees people to do more strategic, meaningful and valuable work.

Earlier we explored the challenges of managing UCaaS spend in today’s dynamic environment. Now we’ll take a broader look at the factors deepening the problem, including the widening SaaS market and its acceleration driven by the rapid evolution and transformation of enterprise-connected services, from traditional and hybrid managed to cloud and app managed.

In January 2021 Calero-MDSL announced our innovative Centers of Excellence service approach, an initiative built to deliver practice area thought leadership and establish the appropriate governance and processes to deliver best-in-class service for all clients.

Investments in companies that contribute to the best interests of our planet provide hope for a more sustainable future, while also producing long-term returns for investors. Asset managers are attracted, since they are under both direct risk from climate-related disasters impacting commodities and global economies and indirect risk such as changing consumer preferences and increasing scrutiny and pressure by governments and regulators.

The COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated the transition to even greater use of mobile devices for personal communications. Many people preferred to use their company-provided smartphone rather than their home phone to keep in touch with everyone. Especially in companies using unified-communication-as-a-service (UCaaS), mobile was preferred for its direct access to the corporate network for calls, texts, video, and other data exchange with colleagues.

More mobile devices are being used by corporations than ever. Beyond simple calling there are many new applications emerging all the time. Also, its likely that a significant proportion of your employees use more than one mobile device. Some recent mobile applications include:

Do buzzwords like IIoT and WFA keep you up at night? Wondering how you can plan for the future of mobility now?

In this 30 minute session, you will learn from our panel of experts about emerging mobility technologies and how you can begin to incorporate them into your Mobility Management strategy today.

Updated January 18, 2022

While everyone recognizes that the global pandemic drove many to work from home, the broad impact on mobile computing and communications is more far-reaching than many may surmise.

ROCHESTER, NY -  APRIL 20, 2021 Calero-MDSL, an established pioneer in the high-growth Technology Expense Management (TEM) software space, announced today that it has acquired MetaPort, the leading telecom network mapping software company.
MetaPort’s founder and CEO, Andres Aguire, will join the Calero-MDSL team as
part of the transaction. Calero-MDSL prospects and customers will soon be
able to turn network hardware and services data into powerful additional
insights that will allow them to leverage new technologies like SD-WAN or
reduce cost by identifying redundant or unused circuits.

Calero-MDSL is a recognized vendor on the report for the second year in a row

The pandemic has changed the way corporations do business, in some ways permanently. Many companies were forced to quickly adopt communication platforms such as Zoom to address an unprecedented need to support remote workers. The need for speed in embracing these UCaaS and SaaS services often bypassed normal business processes, and the lack of oversight coupled with the requirement to move quickly created the perfect environment for SaaS costs such as Zoom to go unchecked. In a recent Calero-MDSL survey, we found that 50% of enterprises don’t know their annual UCaaS spend.

Are you managing your technology expenses in-house, and are you finding that lack of insight into capacity and poorly integrated systems slow down productivity? You are not alone in this struggle, and this might not be the best strategy for your organization's long-term success.

With the number of mobile devices in use worldwide almost even with desktop computers, management of mobile devices becomes more critical than ever. Not just technical management or security management, but financial and liability management as well. There are fundamentally five variables to be considered in all permutations:

Yes, there can be too much of a good thing.

IDG’s CIO 100 award recognizes enterprise excellence and innovation in IT

Updated January 19, 2022

Cloud-based telephony solutions, like Unified Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) are increasingly viable alternatives to platforms such as VoIP and TDM. The shift to UCaaS is a natural progression for many businesses and follows data’s wide-scale move to the cloud. But there are steps you should take to ensure you not only get the ROI you expect from cloud telephony services, but that you remain in control of your UCaaS spend.

Calero-MDSL, a leader in the high-growth Technology Expense Management
(TEM) software space, announced that it is making a significant expansion to
its solution offering by launching a Unified Communications-as-a-Service
(UCaaS) Expense Management module as part of its platform. The company is
the first-to-market with a comprehensive solution for managing and optimizing
both the variable and fixed costs associated with UCaaS programs integrated
with its established wireline and mobility programs.

It's a great bet that you never did any thinking about moving all your employees to work from home before we all had to do so at the start of the COVID pandemic. But have you done any thinking yet about how to best bring some or all of them back to the office when it ends?

Updated January 18, 2022

The secret sauce to a great relationship between clients and their technology expense management (TEM) provider is a blending of information, business insight, and interpersonal communication. When these three elements are combined properly, with healthy measures of trust and confidence stirred in, the results are a successful business relationship beneficial to everyone. This is the foundation of promoting a positive, proactive, and productive partnership.

Many enterprises are struggling to understand where they are spending their SaaS dollars from Cloud Communications (UCaaS) solutions such as Zoom, Teams, RingCentral, and Webex to Enterprise SaaS solutions such as Office 365. The result is a potentially large spend black hole that will continue to snowball over time without unified visibility across all of these UCaaS solutions.

"Chief among our gains must be reckoned this possibility of choice, the recognition of many possible ways of life, where other civilizations give a satisfactory outlet to only one temperamental type, be he mystic or soldier, businessman or artist, a civilization in which there are many standards offers a possibility of satisfactory adjustment to individuals of many different temperamental types, of diverse gifts, and varying interests."

As in almost all businesses, the rule for financial services firms, including banks, insurance, and other financial products, is to do more with less, mainly less personnel.

Summary:

• Patrick Mulvehill joins Calero-MDSL in January 2021 as EVP, Operations
• Patrick brings 20 years of leadership across operations, technology, and business process improvement
• His leadership style focuses on continuous improvement and development of people
• Cross functional leadership collaboration drives his strategic planning

“Rush” is responsible for creating more errors, more waste, and more frustration than most anything else. And much of what happens in a busy healthcare environment is done “stat”, in a rush.

Remote work and digital communications took center stage in 2020. As we start the new year on a more hopeful path, businesses must now focus on managing spend and consumption of the Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams they added to support remote collaboration.

Company Continues to Invest in its Global Service Delivery Capability

Clearly, the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the retail sector more severely than any other. Many major retailers are halving their 2021 forecasts and closing store locations at a record pace. Those who have attempted to persevere have found fewer and fewer customers patronizing their stores.

Opportunities to waste money and spend needlessly abound in your budget line for telecom and related technology expense, mainly because there’s so much to keep track of, and so many ways to look at it.

It used to be that every employee in your company had a desk phone that you needed to keep track of. Today, they may still have a deskphone, but they also have a mobile smartphone, a tablet, a laptop computer, and perhaps even a desktop computer. Multiply by your company’s total headcount and you have one very substantial set of fixed assets to keep track of. But that’s just the beginning.

Most of these devices have telecom services associated with them. Users that travel or work outside the office may have a wireless access account. 

Then there are the data and cloud services each user requires. Each needs a datacom service account as well as voice. You’ll want to provide the same productivity, communications, and collaboration platform to each so they can conference, work on documents together, and see each other no matter where each of them is located. Any cloud user must also have security, data backup, anti-malware, and other utility services to operate safely.

Do Nothing

The easiest way to waste money is to do nothing, that is, do nothing when an employee is terminated. Leave their mobile data, voice, and cloud accounts open. Don’t reassign their devices to anyone and instead go ahead and buy new ones. After a relocation, just leave the services at the former location fully provisioned so someone can pay a bill for services that are no longer in use. When you stop to think about it, many of these things can easily go unnoticed and remain completely invisible to you, perhaps until audit time. It happens more often than you’d imagine.

Depends on How You Look at It

Today’s technology expense management (TEM) solutions are rapidly developing an enhanced ability to interact with all this data to produce the kind of reports that will help you streamline your communications operations in every way possible. Reports can readily be scheduled with proactive alerts for stakeholders based on release or specific thresholds, and are refreshed whenever data is updated.

One dashboard can show you many things:

• Registered users who have zero activity but you’re still paying their bill
• Services with zero activity by location, including some you no longer occupy
• Which departments are consuming the most voice, data, and cloud services, including those for which you pay based on consumption.
• Which projects are consuming the most voice, data, and cloud services, including those for which you pay based on consumption.
• Which individuals are consuming the most voice, data, and cloud services, including those for which you pay based on consumption.
• How close you are to exceeding your committed quota for cloud and other quota-subscribed “consumption based” services after which you’ll start running up overage charges.
• The performance of the “pooled” minutes programs you’re using. Are you oversubscribing? Undersubscribing?
• Which carriers and vendors are you patronizing most? This information will be useful the next time you’re negotiating rates with them.
• Key Performance Indicators (KPI) including total mobile spend, total landline spend, total cloud spend, top talkers, and more.
• Activity by user, by geographic region, by period of time, by department or business unit, by carrier, and more

These dashboards enable those responsible for management of telecom and datacom expenses to drill down into any given data point from a variety of different perspectives or views. Once they’ve found what they’re looking for its easy to generate a report that answers the specific questions they have.

Sharing Insight

Nobody has a corner on all the good ideas, so the best TEM providers are sharing innovative report formats among all users of their dashboards, making it easy for other managers to explore their own data in new and perhaps more productive ways. Technology continues to grow as a proportion of your balance sheet. The more it grows, and the more your company grows, the more vigilance you need to maintain over these expenses. Talk to MDSL to learn more about how a quality TEM provider contributes to your bottom line.

Technology Expense Management (TEM) starts delivering value to clients far sooner than many might expect.

Updated January 18, 2022

How much money are you wasting? Specifically, how much are you wasting on telecommunications services and equipment by not having a budget and plan? For that matter, how many telecom accounts and how many phones and related equipment are floating around your organization?

Two of the valuable things you learn during a crisis like the one we’re struggling through are:

If the current pandemic has taught us anything it’s that we are far more dependent than we ever imagined on the more than 5 billion mobile devices in use in the world today. With so many information workers now working from home many are solely using their mobile phones to make and take all calls, access information, and do actual work than ever before.

It may be that pandemics end up teaching us much about how to most effectively manage global teams, greatly deepening our understanding, our appreciation, and our effectiveness in using today’s telecommunications technologies.

Calero-MDSL, a leader in the high-growth Technology Expense Management (TEM) software space, announced today that it has gained acceptance onto the UK government’s G-Cloud 12 Framework. Now on its 12th iteration, the G-Cloud Framework has opened up the market to IT suppliers of all sizes, enabling the UK government to more easily make the right technology and services investments from the right providers at the right price.

Bringing Clarity to the Complexity of Regional and Carrier-Specific Fluctuations

Calero-MDSL, a leader in the high-growth technology expense management (TEM) software space, announced today the release and availability of its powerful new enterprise telecom benchmarking solution.  

Calero-MDSL, the global leader in technology expense management (TEM) and market data management, is happy to be awarded the Johnson Controls Supplier Leadership Award in Shareholder Value. Calero-MDSL was awarded virtually at an online Supplier Conference on November 9, 2020.

Every department this year faced the challenges of cutting and reallocating technology costs between the demands of COVID, remote work, fundamental business changes, and digital transformation. As we start the road to recovery, recuperate from an overwhelming political election cycle, and bring up the new normal, key market trends will affect your telecom, mobility, cloud, and application expense and finance strategy.

Calero-MDSL, a leader in the high-growth technology expense management (TEM) software space, announced today that its board of directors has chosen the company’s existing President Scott Gilbert to lead Calero-MDSL going forward, and that former CEO Charles Layne has stepped down from his position. Calero and MDSL, two leaders in the TEM space, merged in January 2020 in a transaction led by investors Riverside Partners and Oak Hill Capital to create Calero-MDSL. Since the merger, Gilbert has been responsible for leading the integration of the two companies across all functional areas, in addition to driving change across its global operations, product and technology organizations.

Telecom Expense Management (TEM) has transformed from management of just the telecom expenses to encompass all technology expenses across all spend categories, quickly becoming Technology Expense Management.

Calero-MDSL, a global leader in technology expense management (TEM) and market data management, announced its inclusion in Gartner’s 2020 Market Guide for Telecom Expense Management Services. Calero-MDSL is a Representative TEM Pure-Play Vendor for Global Delivery profiled by Gartner in the report. Those interested in learning more can access a complimentary copy of the Market Guide here.

Experienced executives know the importance of carefully planning and managing growth. Uncontrolled growth has been the cause of many business failures. Processes, procedures, and systems that supported the company well when it was small or mid-sized cannot handle the larger operations growth companies become.

Updated January 19, 2022

Deloitte Insights reports that companies spend 3.28% of their annual revenue on information technologies, so it's no wonder more and more want expert assistance managing their telecom, datacom, and other technology expenses. There are now several providers of telecom and technology expense management (TEM) services to choose from, and you are well-advised to carefully examine them during your selection process.

Changing technology expense management (TEM) providers can be a difficult decision-making process. There’s much to consider. Many questions to be answered before you can take that step. Here are some of those questions to ask yourself:

At the end of part one of this two-part blog series you were searching for a new, better provider for technology expense management (TEM) services. Armed with a clear understanding of why you’re dissatisfied you have surveyed the industry asking pointed questions and getting answers, some solid and some not.

Nobody ever wants to change providers, simply because making such a change is by no means a trivial process. Especially when it comes to those who provide critical services like telecom expense management (TEM) or managed mobility services (MMS).

“Hey, I’ve got an idea! Let’s move 40,000 people out of their offices and have them work from home starting tomorrow!”

Seasoned Financial Leader Strengthens Management Team and Reinforces Global Growth Strategy for Technology Expense Management Software and Services

Calero-MDSL, a global leader in technology expense management (TEM) and market data management, announced that it has hired Brian Brady as Chief Financial Officer. Brian joins an established executive team at Calero-MDSL focused on innovation and automation through software to simplify recurring-expense management for enterprise technology services. He will report to the Chief Executive Officer, Charles Layne.

In today’s environment, where firms are required to do more with fewer resources while dealing with increasing complexity in commercial index data policies and licensing models, it is becoming more and more difficult to ensure that index data usage is being managed effectively and that the cost of index data is controlled.

Leading Market Data Management Provider Strengthens Offering for Securities Firms to Manage Complex License Agreements

Calero-MDSL, a leading provider of Technology Expense Management (TEM) and Market Data Management (MDM) solutions, today announced a partnership with Jordan & Jordan, a prominent FinTech company providing market data, regulatory compliance and trading solutions across the securities industry, have partnered to provide a comprehensive Index License Management solution to the market. In combining Calero-MDSL’s award-winning Index License Manager (ILM) software with Jordan & Jordan’s best-in-class licensing services, the two companies now offer the most comprehensive Index Management solution in the industry. 

Index License Manager Earns Prestigious Industry Recognition as part of the 2020 CODiE Awards

Calero-MDSL, a leading provider of Technology Expense Management (TEM) and Market Data Management solutions, today announced that their Index License Manager (ILM) product has been named the Best FinTech Solution of 2020 as part of the annual SIIA CODiE Awards. The prestigious CODiE Awards recognize the companies producing the most innovative business technology products across the country, and around the world.

Index License Manager Earns Prestigious Industry Recognition as part of the 2020 CODiE Awards

Calero-MDSL, a leading provider of Technology Expense Management (TEM) and Market Data Management solutions, today announced that their Index License Manager (ILM) product has been named the Best FinTech Solution of 2020 as part of the annual SIIA CODiE Awards. The prestigious CODiE Awards recognize the companies producing the most innovative business technology products across the country, and around the world.

In 2020 the need to do more with less will continue to rise for those managing market data for their companies. Many financial institutions are looking for opportunities to introduce automation and integration to cut costs, while maintaining their service during transition.

Did you know that 71% of enterprises consider mobility as a top priority?

Worldwide sales of smartphones to end users are on track to reach 1.57 billion units in 2020, an increase of 3% year over year, according to Gartner, Inc. With the unprecedented growth of mobile devices, organizations are relying on mobility management services (MMS) to stay in control. As technology continues to evolve, IT and procurement leaders need to prepare now for what their organizations will require in the next 5 years. Whether it be the launch of 5G, the rise of IoT, or AI becoming a more integral part of business processes, new technology brings new opportunities and new management challenges.

Buzzwords such as 5G, eSIM, SD-WAN, Cloud, AI, IoT and IIoT have dominated conversations and headlines lately. While they no doubt will change entire industries, what do they really mean to you and the world of expense management in 2020? What will realistically move from buzzword to solution? What do our experts predict will deliver or not deliver as expected?

Company is one of 14 providers recognized for managed mobility services in the global market

Gartner has positioned Calero in its April 2020 Magic Quadrant for Managed Mobility Services, Global. Vendors included in the report have at least 1.15 million smart mobile devices under management and support at least 25% of their installed base outside their home region by the end of October 2019. A complimentary copy of the report is available for download here. 

Three layers of regulatory compliance burden governments, businesses, financial institutions, and other organizations.

Internal Regulations – The information governance body within an organization creates authorized use policies (AUP) for their own employees to assure consistent and accountable use of information.

Index License Manager software platform earns prestigious industry recognition

Calero-MDSL, a leading provider of Technology Expense Management (TEM) and Market Data Management (MDM) solutions, today announced that Index License Manager (ILM) was named a 2020 SIIA CODiE Award finalist in the Best FinTech Solution category. Finalists represent the best products, technologies, and services in software, information and business technology.

The spread of COVID-19 is having significant implications on organizations as they attempt to navigate diminishing or interrupted supply chains, increased mobile usage across remote employees and bandwidth utilization challenges.

To address these issues, we’ve put together a comprehensive webinar to help you successfully mitigate the potential impacts to your business during this time of uncertainty.

Mastering the Tangled Web of Cloud Expense Management

Did you know that 71% of enterprises consider mobility as a top priority to stay ahead of the curve? With the unprecedented growth of mobile devices, including the rise of IoT, there are many key challenges that must be addressed across the enterprise in order to be effective. Check out this infographic to learn how working with the right Managed Mobility Services (MMS) provider can help take the complexity out of mobility and enable your organization to realize its full mobile potential.

If your business continuity plan calls for an increase in your remote workforce, your organization is likely prioritizing the enablement of employees across the globe with access to corporate networks and data remotely, securely, and efficiently. As organizations rush to support the work from home mandate amid the COVID-19 outbreak, they must be fully prepared to address the unique challenges that mobility presents.  If managed incorrectly, remote employees could end up costing organizations more money in unnecessary mobile expenditures, compliance issues and productivity loss.  To address these challenges, we’ve put together several best practices to help you successfully navigate and mitigate the potential impacts to your business during this time of uncertainty.

Updated January 19, 2022

“The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data.” An article in The Economist from 2017 first informed us that “data is the new oil.” A year earlier a post on the IBM Business Analytics blog suggested that “data is the new bacon,” adding, “It sizzles; it’s crispy; it’s essential to the complete buffet.”

Company to work with leading telecom experts to advance frictionless commerce for dynamic connectivity services extended to enterprises worldwide

Industry-leading provider receives award for its innovative approach to delivering a robust market data management platform

Calero-MDSL, a leading provider of Technology Expense Management (TEM) and Market Data Management (MDM) solutions, has been awarded Best Market Data Inventory Platform at the A-Team Group TradingTech Insight Awards – Europe 2020. The company received the honor during the award ceremony which took place in London on Tuesday, February 25th. 

A February 11, 2020 article in the New York Times announced that “T-Mobile and Sprint Are Cleared to Merge as the Big Get Bigger” in which they explain, “The long-in-the-works merger would combine the nation’s third- and fourth-largest wireless carriers, creating a telecommunications giant to take on AT&T and Verizon. The new company, to be called T-Mobile, would have about 100 million customers.”

Updated January 19, 2022

In this blog, we will provide high-level guidance to help organizations expand the capabilities of their technology expense management program to accommodate all dimensions of premise and cloud service technologies. 

Updated January 19, 2022

The rate of change in technology-focused industries is giving some businesses a feeling of whiplash. But whether your company is caught in the confusion of trying to wrangle telecom expenses in-house or stuck in an unhappy marriage with their current technology expense management (TEM) systems provider, it may be time to consider something new.

Updated January 18, 2022

Cloud Services Can Provide Much Greater Insights for Expense Management

Telecom carriers offer little ability to customize the data structure of their telecom invoices. For the most part, invoice reports are architected from the carrier’s perspective (i.e., with emphasis on what needs to be paid). This structure is primarily due to regulatory and compliance standards around USOC (Universal Service Ordering Code), tariffs, rates, service types and products and automated Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). As a result, organizations must create workarounds that programmatically correlate the only customer-defined field in the invoice (i.e., the subaccount) with the appropriate cost center owner. They must also augment other information in the invoice feed to ensure the expenses are properly allocated in accordance to the current cost center assignments.

Let’s start this conversation with outlining the five areas where an effective cloud expense management program can help optimize the use of leased cloud technologies.

Company expands investment in the Rochester technology community, and relocates into the city

Rochester, NY — Calero-MDSL, a leading provider of Technology Expense Management (TEM) and Market Data Management (MDM) solutions announced today that it plans to move its current Rochester location from Henrietta to University Avenue in Rochester’s Neighborhood of the Arts (NOTA) area, expanding its operations center and adding many new jobs over the next five years. 

Companies today spend a staggering amount on IT, technology and telecom services. Global spending on hardware, software, services and telecommunications is set to reach $4.8 trillion in 2023, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC).

Updated January 19, 2022

UCaaS Adoption is Rising, Especially Among Small and Mid-sized Companies

When you bring together the various ways in which people can communicate, including text messaging, voice, video, screen sharing, whiteboarding, conferencing and more, you make it far easier and far more flexible for people to communicate in the most effective way possible. This is why so many companies, large and small, are moving from traditional phone systems to Unified Communication systems.

Merger Transaction Led By Oak Hill Capital and Riverside Partners Intended to Fuel Growth

Phoenix, AZ and Rochester, NY — Calero Software and MDSL, two high growth software providers in the recurring Technology Expense Management (TEM) and Market Data Management (MDM) space, announced that they have completed their merger in a transaction led by Oak Hill Capital Partners and Riverside Partners. Financial terms of the merger were not disclosed.

The previously announced merger between Calero and MDSL has received government and regulatory approvals and the transaction has been completed. For now, we will be known as Calero-MDSL. This exciting news means we can execute on our joint vision to deliver innovative technology and service solutions to manage recurring technology spend that is unparalleled in our industry.

Look around yourself and count how many devices you have for the purpose of communicating. The first thing you spot is probably your desk phone which then reminds you of your mobile phone, and both probably feature voicemail. Think you’re done?

The most annoying bills to pay are bills you really don’t have to pay. No supplier or provider is immune from making billing mistakes, and usually they’re not intentional. Whatever causes a billing error, though, you are fiscally responsible to catch and correct the errors to avoid making unnecessary payments.

As your company grows this problem gets larger too. More invoices coming in means more time spent recording and analyzing them. Human error can always occur not only when evaluating each invoice, but also when entering them into your payment system. Slow and error-prone are not how you want to be describing your system for paying the bills.

Then you first have people visiting each provider’s online portal to actually pay each bill. All in all, that’s a large number of manhours dedicated not to making money, but to spending it.

Don’t you have better things for your talented people to do?

Enter Technology Expense Management (TEM)

Proving that anything worth doing is also worth outsourcing, many companies began taking advantage when firms entered the market for collecting and processing these communications-related invoices for them. In the earliest days this consisted of having external people collect and process all invoices instead of your own employees.

Then the earliest digital transformations started happening, way before they became in vogue. Some providers were offering digital data transfer for billing information. This defrayed a portion of the load of invoices to be paid that had to be manually captured, but it was certainly an improvement. This soon evolved into full telecom and now technology expense management (TEM) services.

TEM anticipated that more providers would be offering billing in digital format that could be collected machine-to-machine with little or no human intervention. While more did, even more shifted to generating files in portable digital format (PDF). Even here, there were two different types of PDF files to contend with. The earlier “first gen” PDF files were composed of highly predictable and consumable text directly by the receiver. Others were scans of printed invoices that contained no capturable data. These could be easily scanned by optical character recognition (OCR) software.

The very few invoices that still come through as printed paper documents can still be manually scanned, processed using OCR, and then added to the database.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) was developed to support and improve service providers’ processes. By automating the data collection and ingestion processes, payment processes, and collating functions, RPA further accelerates the process making it easier for TEM providers to capture, collect, and process technology invoices. Robotically automated data capture can process anywhere from a few hundred to a thousand invoices in the time it would take a human to process one.

It’s All About Scalability

Imagine the travails of an accounts payable manager who is confronted by having to maintain tight control even as their company is acquiring or merging with another. Suddenly the sheer volume of bills leaps, not to mention the need to align the technology services in use between the two companies. When their technology expense management leverages the advantages of RPA, scaling becomes no problem.

At this point, the question becomes how could you possibly invest the same amount necessary, especially if you're a large multinational, to build out a TEM methodology enabled by an RPA strategy for doing this at a cost price that is lower than just engaging a quality TEM provider who has already done it? Beyond how, why would you ever undertake such a project?

Cost Savings and Other Rewards

Processing invoices to be paid at a rate of as much as 1000 to 1 significantly reduces costs. It also benefits companies who engage an RPA-enabled TEM service provider by making more of their personnel available to perform far higher-order functions than data entry.

For more information about engaging an RPA-enabled TEM service provider to manage your technology bills and get them paid properly and accurately, talk to MDSL today.

WatersTechnology Recognizes MDSL's Groundbreaking eBonding Integration with FactSet for Market Data Procurement with Award Win for Best New Technology

MDSL, a global leader in Market Data Management (“MDM”) and Technology Expense Management ("TEM") solutions, has been awarded Best New Technology by WatersTechnology for their innovative technology integration with FactSet, a global provider of integrated financial information, analytical applications, and industry-leading service. The award was announced during the American Financial Technology Awards (AFTAs) held December 3^rd in New York City.

“We are thrilled to be honored alongside so many other leading financial technology providers at this event,” said Charles Layne, Chief Executive Officer of MDSL. “Receiving this award is a testament to the innovative mindset we have at MDSL, and more importantly, reinforces the dedication we have to bringing groundbreaking solutions to the market data management industry.”

WatersTechnology is a leading publication incorporating Inside Market Data, Inside Reference Data, Buy-Side Technology & Sell-Side Technology, and focuses on the data & technology challenges facing capital markets firms. The AFTAs recognize excellence in the deployment and management of financial technology within the asset management and investment banking communities. The AFTAs consist of two sections: End-User categories and Vendor categories. Only end-user firms — banks, brokers, asset manager and hedge funds — may enter the end-user categories. Only third-party technology providers may enter the vendor categories.

In September this year, MDSL introduced an innovative technology solution with FactSet to automate procurement of Market Data Services and streamline data exchange, providing greater accuracy and increased automation for their clients. When orders and data management flow electronically, data is synced between provider and management platforms and ensures efficient ordering, provisioning, and delivery of market data products and services.

 “Since we launched this solution with FactSet, we’ve seen great synergies between our client bases and the ability to bring automation to their market data environments,” said Simon Bone, General Manager of Market Data at MDSL. “Having a group like WatersTechnology bring further validation to this solution through this award brings credit to our partnership, our engineering teams, and shows true innovation in the marketplace.”

“Our work with MDSL helps clients streamline their overall procurement processes in a valuable way,” said Jason Dennis, Senior Vice President, Sales Engineering and Technology Services, FactSet. “This award reflects the positive feedback we receive from clients, who are searching for ways to improve operational efficiency in ways that also support innovation.”

North America and Europe-centric sessions to be held on December 4th featuring Amalgam Insights and MDSL subject matter experts

MDSL, a global leader in Technology Expense Management ("TEM") solutions, will host a pair of webinars on December 4th led by industry analyst Hyoun Park. During these 30-minute interactive sessions, attendees will:

Many explanations of how “blockchain” technology operates begin by describing it as a ledger. Everyone knows what a ledger is. It’s a place to record transactions to keep track of them. And we prefer seeing them filled out in ink so nobody can change the numbers.

Technology Expense Management Players to Accelerate Investments in Product Innovation and Customer Service

Phoenix, AZ and Rochester, NY — Calero Software and MDSL, two high-growth software providers in the recurring Technology Expense Management space, today announced plans to merge. Oak Hill Capital will make a significant new investment—joining Riverside Partners, Calero’s existing financial sponsor—as the lead investors in a growth re-capitalization of Calero and subsequent funding of the combination with MDSL. Sumeru Equity Partners (“SEP”), MDSL’s financial backer, will also continue as a significant investor in the combined business. The closing of the merger is expected in late Q4 or early Q1 and remains subject to customary regulatory and other approvals. Financial terms of the transactions were not disclosed.

According to Gartner, organizations spend an average of 62% of their technology budgets on vendor products, services and outsourcing. However, when it comes to promoting the purpose and expected benefits of adopting the appropriate policies and processes, Sourcing, Procurement, and Vendor Management (SPVM) leaders too often fail to develop a communication and change plan. How can procurement and sourcing take a greater leadership role and go beyond admin work and tactics?

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At the turn of the century, the core responsibility for software procurement used to be simple – get the best possible price. Over the past decade as the market has progressed into Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), it became obvious that nobody was actually purchasing software, but the results the software could provide for their company.

Updated January 19, 2022

How much are you spending on mobile communications that you really don’t have to be spending? If you think the answer is “zero” or you really haven’t thought about it much, you may be in for an unexpected surprise. Good news, there are ways to get that number as close to zero as possible.

Procurement teams face a number of challenges in ensuring goods and services are sourced at the best possible price. Without the tools to analyze technology usage and data across the organization, it is incredibly difficult to fully understand a company’s technology requirements and know what represents a deal that's favorable to the organization.

Market data manager and market data provider automate data exchange to provide greater accuracy and increased automation for their clients

MDSL, a global leader in Market Data Management (“MDM”) and Technology Expense Management ("TEM") solutions, has announced a new technology solution with FactSet, a global provider of integrated financial information, analytical applications, and industry-leading service.  FactSet Procure to Pay provides the first electronic data exchange to procure services, known as eBonding, between a market data management vendor and market data provider. The result is greater accuracy and increased automation in managing user entitlements for financial market data, leading to faster expense processing and reconciliation for procurement teams.

Out of sight may be out of mind, but when it comes to paying telecom invoices what goes out of sight might drive you out of your mind. SAP Concur  observes that “Cutting costs and boosting profits are a priority for most businesses, but many do not realize the hidden costs of simply paying the bills.”

The pending $26.5 billion merger of T-Mobile and Sprint will likely result in more than just a third major choice of wireless provider. Given Sprint’s substantial portfolio of wireline services, and the sell-off of their prepaid services and spectrum to Dish, approval by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will very likely result in significant enterprise disruption in both wireless and wireline services. Since it will also give Dish entry into the wireless services market it will more likely create four major players, not just three.

MDSL one of five ETMA 2019 Innovation of the Year Nominees

ETMA, the Enterprise Technology Management Association, announces five nominees for the Innovation of the Year award: Social Mobile, MDSL, Mobile Solutions, AMI Strategies and Auditmacs. This award supports ETMA's mission to raise industry standards, enhance the category image for its members and promote the value of Technology Management, Managed Mobility Services (MMS), and Telecom Expense Management (TEM).

The selection criteria will include:
1. Degree of Innovation… How innovative is this?
2. What has been the market response from clients?
3. How is the offering delivered?
4. How is the value proposition being achieved, fulfilled and validated in the marketplace?

Nominees will present and the winners will be selected, by peers at the upcoming ETMA conference September 24-26 in Atlanta.

"Managing cloud spend requires a tailored solution that can scale alongside the growth of enterprise cloud service usage as a whole," said Rob Stratton, Marketing Director at MDSL. "What we've developed at MDSL brings extended visibility and automation to managing cloud costs, leveraging a software platform that already manages billions of dollars in technology expenses for some of the largest organizations in the world."

"This year's nominees have impressive innovative technologies that have been introduced to the market," said Joe Basili, Managing Director of ETMA. Basili added, "The nominees' presentations at the upcoming support the conference theme of: faster, better, stronger."

ETMA's executive board has prepared a full agenda for the upcoming September 24-26 conference. In addition to networking activities and great information from presenters, the awards will showcase important industry developments.

ETMA, the Enterprise Technology Management Association is a non-profit organization with approximately 50 members managing over $71 Billion in enterprise expenses. Its ongoing mission is to raise awareness, foster industry growth, improve the quality and value of solutions, and establish industry standards. Further, ETMA members subscribe to a Code of Ethics, which clearly establishes standards and differentiates their level of commitment to their clients. ETMA does not sell consulting services or solutions.

Members provide solutions for enterprises in: Enterprise Technology Management, Managed Services, Expense Management, Telecommunications Management, Telecom Expense Management (TEM), Mobile Expense Management, Managed Mobility Services (MMS), Mobile Device Management MDM and Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) solutions and other related areas.

Let’s think big.

A multi-national company operating in about 1,000 locations spread among more than 25 countries will likely require 30,000 telecom circuits of varying kinds to support perhaps 400,000 phone extensions costing about $150,000,000 per year. Each month anywhere from 3% to 5% of those circuits and phone extensions get added, disconnected, upgraded, downgraded or otherwise changed.

12,900 to 21,500 changes. Who is keeping track of all that? How? And how many mistakes may be made each month? Overcharges, undercharges, charges for disconnected services, services that should have been disconnected but weren’t.

Are you confident that you are getting the technology expense management (TEM) Managed Services resources you were promised? Have you been happy with the quality and support you have been given over the life of your contract? With MDSL, you can be certain you receive a dedicated team of in-region experts completely committed to your success, removing that pesky administrative burden and allowing you to focus on what matters most. Learn more about a typical MDSL Managed Services Team Member.

For the 2nd year in a row, the global Technology Expense Management (TEM) provider appears on the Inc. 5000, Ranking No. 2,687 With Three-Year Revenue Growth of 144% Percent

Inc. magazine recently revealed that MDSL is No. 2,687 on its annual Inc. 5000 list, the most prestigious ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. The list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economy’s most dynamic segment—its independent small businesses. Microsoft, Dell, Domino’s Pizza, Pandora, Timberland, LinkedIn, Yelp, Zillow, and many other well-known names gained their first national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000.

Do you have recurring nightmares about computers gone haywire or huge IT bills going unpaid? Does the thought of your technology workload constantly spook you? If so, then it’s time to unmask your demons with technology managed services.

In too many companies, IT staff members spend their days handling a lot of minutiae. In fact, one study found that 30 percent of a typical IT person’s day is devoted to “low level tasks.”

MDSL's Index License Management (ILM) solution assists you with documenting and managing your firm's index licenses, helping you to ensure compliance with audits and upcoming regulations, and quickly confirm the terms and coverages of your licenses. 

MDSL was able to help a large, U.S.-based asset manager automate the cost allocation of index licenses for the fund management industry using our Index License Manager (ILM). Let's take a closer look at this client success story and explore the complexity of license management, MDSL's proposed ILM solution and what organizational outcomes were produced for the client. 

Updated January 18, 2022

Communication is one of those things you truly depend upon to run your business. There are several telecom providers that provide your telecom services, and each one has its own rules, its own pricing programs, its own requirements, and more.

International Software Awards Program Announces Finalists and MDSL’s Technology Expense Management Platform Makes the List

Large organizations face a number of challenges in improving their telecom environments and increasingly must balance providing reliable, modern technology to end users while keeping costs in check.

Do you and your IT department spend multiple days each month logging into various cloud portals and accounts to extract data? Do you struggle to assign the actual resource cost utilized by various departments? Can you validate the cost of specific projects and determine actual metrics, including ROI? Are you able to do it alongside all of your other complex spend categories like telecoms, mobility, and market data?

Gartner estimates that through 2020, 80% of organizations will overshoot their cloud IaaS budget due to a lack of cost optimization approaches. Most companies simply ignore the problem, drown themselves in spreadsheets, leverage isolated native cloud tools, hire expensive consultants, use superficial independent software or create plans that are never executed. All of which leads to increased support costs, unbudgeted spend, unanticipated growth, poorly negotiated contracts and individual management processes. Sound familiar?

In this webinar from MDSL, you will learn:

• How you can successfully manage cloud expenses alongside other complex technology spend categories to capture a total cost of ownership
• Why you need automated versus manual control mechanisms in place to help drive transparency and accountability
• How an optimized cloud expense strategy can allow you invest in other projects and drive further innovation
• How a global consumer products company generated a 35% reduction in cloud spend among other outcomes
• More about MDSL’s unique approach to cloud services expense management and a sneak peek at our award-winning solution 

Today, virtually every company is looking more and more like a technology company.

Even just five years ago, the phrase “digital transformation” would have attracted some confused looks. Many companies still viewed their IT budgets as an overhead cost that had to be trimmed and right sized on a yearly basis.

But 2019 looks a lot different. There’s no longer a valley of separation between the technology and business sides of modern enterprises. Many great companies put technology front and center as they set company strategic direction, create new business models and build their talent pool. Our rapidly changing marketplace not only values, but necessitates, a team of strategically minded IT professionals who understand their customers’ needs and can deliver creative solutions backed by meaningful business intelligence in response to technology advancements.

Digital transformations – the process by which companies adopt the newest technologies into their day-to-day operations as they evolve into a digital business – are increasingly common. How swiftly, and how well, a company engages in digital transformations may have a direct impact on how they compete in a crowded market.

So, are you ready for your next digital transformation project? It starts with nurturing a company culture that prioritizes strategic, big-picture and future-focused thinking, accomplished through ensuring IT professionals have the right tools and resources to support a digital transformation with confidence and efficiency.

Consider these five questions to determine whether your team is approaching digital transformations tactically or strategically – and whether they’re ready to take on the biggest changes in your industry.

MDSL, a global leader in Technology Expense Management ("TEM") solutions, today announced its inclusion in the Gartner’s 2019 Market Guide for Telecom Expense Management Services. MDSL is one of the seven Representative TEM Pure-Play Vendors for Global Delivery profiled by Gartner in the report. Those interested in learning more can access the Market Guide here, compliments of MDSL.  

Automation makes our lives easier. It gives us clarity and consistency, eliminating many laborious manual tasks (and the accompanying, inevitable human error).

We know that technology professionals are increasingly strapped for time and resources as pressure mounts in a competitive, fast-paced environment. Much of that pressure on IT teams can be alleviated by automating their technology expense reporting and business intelligence, enabling enterprises to more quickly access insights to get in control of – and cut down on – costs.

The 5G hype-train has left the station. It's probably the hottest tech conversation happening right now. And it's way too premature. There's still a lack of clear understanding of exactly what 5G is or will be capable of delivering. 

Re-enlisting and Enfranchising Rogue IT Departments

With cloud so easy to subscribe to and use, many departments have chosen to “lose patience” with IT and create their own cloud-based IT solutions, perpetuating and extending data silos and non-integrated solutions. The increase in overall operating cost to the enterprise is substantial, and often invisible. Reduced control over IT processes, resources, and costs represent significant business and financial risk. Here’s how to use cost analysis to encourage rogues to work with you instead of at crossed-purposes.

Re-enlisting and Enfranchising Rogue IT Departments

With cloud so easy to subscribe to and use, many departments have chosen to “lose patience” with IT and create their own cloud-based IT solutions, perpetuating and extending data silos and non-integrated solutions. The increase in overall operating cost to the enterprise is substantial, and often invisible. Reduced control over IT processes, resources, and costs represent significant business and financial risk. Here’s how to use cost analysis to encourage rogues to work with you instead of at crossed-purposes.

You might have plenty of data, but what are you doing with this data? Moreover, what is the data doing for you and your enterprise?

Data and analytics ultimately the drive spending decisions of future cloud, network, mobility and the overall IT budgets — so it’s imperative your enterprise is up-to-date on the latest capabilities. When used right, business intelligence (BI) can reveal your technology infrastructure’s pain points, illuminate where expenses are occurring and where they might be reduced, support benchmarking, and provide predictive and prescriptive analytics. BI can empower organizations to gain insight into new opportunities, assess demand and measure suitability of different services.

But what BI developments really have a measurable impact in streamlining and improving everyday processes — while also reducing costs? We narrowed it down to five of the most game-changing trends in BI for IT Finance teams.

Dynamic and Visual Reporting

With the ultra-modern capabilities offered by some BI platforms, digesting, analyzing and sharing relevant, real-time business insights is becoming easier and more intuitive. Today’s dynamic dashboard interfaces are able to simplify and display enormous amounts of data with applicable and responsive visual aids, such as:

• At-a-glance, easy-to-digest charts and graphs presenting a quick overview of usage and account activity.
• Map-based visualizations that allow enterprises to keep tabs on services spanning cities and other geographies. If a company is undergoing a major re-organization, this perspective can help your enterprise see where services are still active — and eliminate unnecessary recurring expenses.
• Calendar visualizations that offer visibility in terms of deadlines, contract renewals, invoicing and delivery dates.

Self-Service

Dashboards are increasingly designed with a self-service mentality, allowing users to build reports to display the data exactly how they want. IT teams can adjust the dashboard to fit their preferences — aesthetically and functionally. Personalization saves time, as users won’t need to sift through piles of irrelevant data to extract the information they need.

Without self-service capabilities, users need to export raw data into Excel spreadsheets so they can manually manipulate the data and distribute it to others. This a time-consuming, non-reproductible process that slows decision-making. Further, some BI vendors charge additional fees to create specified reports time-consuming and non-reproductible, slowing down decision-making.

Role-based Visibility

A dozen iPad raffles, a killer continental breakfast, and Tim Colwell setting a record for most consecutive, independent General Session presentations in a row.

A dozen iPad raffles, a killer continental breakfast, and Tim Colwell setting a record for most consecutive, independent General Session presentations in a row.

Industry third party recognizes MDSL’s innovation in managing enterprise cloud expenses at annual technology expense management event

Industry third party recognizes MDSL’s innovation in managing enterprise cloud expenses at annual technology expense management event

Traditional mobile lifecycle strategies aimed at cost reduction with a focus on vendor management, technology procurement, and rate plan optimization. But once you have exhausted your traditional cost reduction strategies, what are other innovative ways to reduce expenses?

The rise of two recent movements in enterprise mobility, embedded SIM (eSIM) and unified endpoint management (UEM), have shown to be significant drivers of enterprise digital transformation. While these technologies deliver significant cost savings, successful usage helps enterprises address security concerns, increase employee productivity, and improve employee satisfaction while ensuring proper compliance with regulations.

Join Felix Lau, Director of Customer Solutions and Strategy, and Andrew Hartwyk, Sales Engineer and Former Industry Analyst, on Wednesday, May 8 at 11 AM EDT as they discuss non-traditional ways enterprises, especially those with diverse endpoints, can think about cost optimization.

Attendees will gain: 
• An understanding of how eSIM technology is being used to reduce expenses for specific use cases 
• Real-world examples of UEM adoption aligned to expense management and how you can achieve these results 
• A new perspective of the entire mobile ecosystem that generates insights and yields long-term savings 
REGISTER TODAY

Traditional mobile lifecycle strategies aimed at cost reduction with a focus on vendor management, technology procurement, and rate plan optimization. But once you have exhausted your traditional cost reduction strategies, what are other innovative ways to reduce expenses?

The rise of two recent movements in enterprise mobility, embedded SIM (eSIM) and unified endpoint management (UEM), have shown to be significant drivers of enterprise digital transformation. While these technologies deliver significant cost savings, successful usage helps enterprises address security concerns, increase employee productivity, and improve employee satisfaction while ensuring proper compliance with regulations.

Join Felix Lau, Director of Customer Solutions and Strategy, and Andrew Hartwyk, Sales Engineer and Former Industry Analyst, on Wednesday, May 8 at 11 AM EDT as they discuss non-traditional ways enterprises, especially those with diverse endpoints, can think about cost optimization.

Attendees will gain: 
• An understanding of how eSIM technology is being used to reduce expenses for specific use cases 
• Real-world examples of UEM adoption aligned to expense management and how you can achieve these results 
• A new perspective of the entire mobile ecosystem that generates insights and yields long-term savings 
REGISTER TODAY

Everything you’ve read for years has reported how very different cloud computing is from on-premise networks. They talk about elasticity, self-service, shared resource pools and reduced operating costs.

It’s all true!

But there is one thing that on-premise networks and cloud computing have in common. They are both ways to manage information in your enterprise, in fact cloud has always been positioned as an eventual replacement for on-premise infrastructure.

What they both have in common is that, whichever is your primary IT strategy, it must be managed.

IT is a Business Operation

Like shipping, receiving, finance, sales, and marketing, information technology (IT) is a business operation. It is budgeted as are other business operations. It is measured just as any other business operation is. It participates in the production of profit, just like all other business operations.

It must be managed as an operating department. This takes us beyond measuring performance and scanning for anomalies. Clearly there are technology-based components to the process of managing any IT operation, but that’s not where the point of commonality occurs.

As with all other operations, we want to do our best to keep costs to a reasonable minimum and return to a maximum level.

Fiscal management of an on-premise infrastructure involves accounting for capital investments in IT premises equipment such as servers, storage, switches, routers, and other components. To this we add various utilities and services such as electrical power, cooling, fire protection, physical premises security, space, network connectivity, hardware maintenance, software support, and more. Many of these expenses vary from month to month.

Cloud computing requires similar tracking, though the amounts don’t vary as much. As users are added and removed their licenses must be accounted for. Otherwise, each user will use some cloud services and not others. While the community may be somewhat more dynamic, the variability of the license costs is significantly less. One substantial exposure here is making sure that licenses for departing employees are re-assigned to other new users before additional licenses are purchased.

IT as a Profit Center

The holy grail of computing is to have IT represent a sufficiently significant strategic advantage that it represents a true profit generator, rather than the cost center it has always been seen as. Many IT Maturity Models are developed to demonstrate how this can be accomplished. But these do not address one of the foundational requirements for establishing IT as a profit center. To prove that IT is generating revenue that exceeds its cost, you must first know those costs.

MDSL has developed a key white paper, Critical Concerns Change When Controlling Cloud, which dives deeper into the processes required to fully and accurately track and manage the operating expenses involved in cloud computing. When you stop running technology on premises, you do not stop managing the expenses required to have the same technology services coming from cloud service providers.

Everything you’ve read for years has reported how very different cloud computing is from on-premise networks. They talk about elasticity, self-service, shared resource pools and reduced operating costs.

It’s all true!

But there is one thing that on-premise networks and cloud computing have in common. They are both ways to manage information in your enterprise, in fact cloud has always been positioned as an eventual replacement for on-premise infrastructure.

What they both have in common is that, whichever is your primary IT strategy, it must be managed.

IT is a Business Operation

Like shipping, receiving, finance, sales, and marketing, information technology (IT) is a business operation. It is budgeted as are other business operations. It is measured just as any other business operation is. It participates in the production of profit, just like all other business operations.

It must be managed as an operating department. This takes us beyond measuring performance and scanning for anomalies. Clearly there are technology-based components to the process of managing any IT operation, but that’s not where the point of commonality occurs.

As with all other operations, we want to do our best to keep costs to a reasonable minimum and return to a maximum level.

Fiscal management of an on-premise infrastructure involves accounting for capital investments in IT premises equipment such as servers, storage, switches, routers, and other components. To this we add various utilities and services such as electrical power, cooling, fire protection, physical premises security, space, network connectivity, hardware maintenance, software support, and more. Many of these expenses vary from month to month.

Cloud computing requires similar tracking, though the amounts don’t vary as much. As users are added and removed their licenses must be accounted for. Otherwise, each user will use some cloud services and not others. While the community may be somewhat more dynamic, the variability of the license costs is significantly less. One substantial exposure here is making sure that licenses for departing employees are re-assigned to other new users before additional licenses are purchased.

IT as a Profit Center

The holy grail of computing is to have IT represent a sufficiently significant strategic advantage that it represents a true profit generator, rather than the cost center it has always been seen as. Many IT Maturity Models are developed to demonstrate how this can be accomplished. But these do not address one of the foundational requirements for establishing IT as a profit center. To prove that IT is generating revenue that exceeds its cost, you must first know those costs.

MDSL has developed a key white paper, Critical Concerns Change When Controlling Cloud, which dives deeper into the processes required to fully and accurately track and manage the operating expenses involved in cloud computing. When you stop running technology on premises, you do not stop managing the expenses required to have the same technology services coming from cloud service providers.

Most of us get our bills, see the amount due, submit payment and then forget about it. We trust that the information presented is accurate, and we don’t have time to stress over nickels and dimes. However, when managing an enterprise with an ever-expanding inventory of telecommunication equipment and services, those nickels and dimes can add up fast.

To ensure you aren’t overpaying for services you don’t use, a telecom audit might be exactly what your company needs. Yet, an audit may seem daunting for time-strapped IT professionals who are continually trying to do more with less.

But what if it doesn’t have to be?

MDSL can get clients back on track — quickly and conveniently — with a telecom audit that’s designed to improve budgetary forecasting by revealing necessary and unnecessary expenditures. On average, companies receive 2 to 5 percent in savings following an audit — equating to a lot of nickels and dimes.

What to Expect from a Telecom Audit

•  TEM professionals do the heavy lifting. The ultimate goal of a telecom audit is to make life easier, so there’s no reason the audit itself should be hard. When partnering with an experienced Telecom Expense Management (TEM) provider like MDSL, an enterprise has little work to do. It’s essentially responsible for providing a full inventory list of telecom services and contracts, but the subsequent research and data analysis are completed by the provider.

•  Telecom costs become fully transparent. Taking advantage of a telecom audit gives enterprises an ability to increase savings, validate invoiced charges and optimize legacy technologies so they work the way they were intended. Additionally, they are less likely to experience any unwanted surprises at the end of the month; getting a clear perspective empowers companies to easily control and track their finances.

•  Your data is demystified. Do you know your daily or monthly data usage? Chances are, probably not. Don’t expect this information to be readily available either — most people rely on estimates or month-to-month invoices to determine how much data or voice calling they’re using. TEM providers take the guesswork out of the equation: as part of an audit, they have the capabilities to monitor and analyze real-time data usage — even within large-scale operations — resulting in a more accurate picture of what services are being used — and abused — and when. Then, enterprises can anticipate these costs to develop a budget.

•  Mobile optimization is verified. When a large enterprise manages expansive mobile lines and diverse rate plans, there can be an overwhelming amount of data to verify. As people join, shift roles and leave the company, invoices may reflect lines with ceased services and zero usage but an associated cost. A telecom audit illuminates the consumption of data and optimization opportunities, and can, in turn, reveal gaps in mobile plans where savings can be immediately realized.

•  Your costs are compared to industry benchmarks. The benchmark price of telecommunication services isn’t common knowledge, which means you likely don’t know how your rates compare to the broader industry or geography – and whether you are unnecessarily footing high bills. Or, when it comes time to renew, how do you know the current prevailing rates? A TEM provider with the experience, technology and established supplier relationships is needed to assess whether your telecom costs are current, fair and forward-thinking.

•  An overview of the service you signed up for — and the service you need. It’s easy to overlook miniscule changes in contractual agreements — we have all scrolled through the fine print, assuming it isn’t as important as the big bold text. However, these tiny details might play a big role in how much services cost. Telecom vendor contracts are carefully validated or disputed during an audit, showing you exactly why a refund may be due or where verbiage needs to be negotiated to align with your needs or industry benchmarks.

•  A crash course in today’s tech. A thorough telecom audit will reveal modern telecom services are perpetually changing, updating and expanding. As companies embrace cloud services, the Internet of Things and other future-focused services, the scale of today’s networks continually grow. For one person — or one IT department — this can be a lot of information to keep track of. Outsourcing this labor saves money and time as an audit sorts through the entirety of a company’s telecom inventory, helping to clarify which services are needed or underutilized. During this process, enterprises can learn a lot about their tech and how it intersects with daily operations.

What NOT to Expect from a Telecom Audit

•  A time-consuming, frustrating experience. With the right technology and the right expertise, audits can be simple for the company to accomplish. A skilled TEM provider understands how to digest and process an enormous amount of information, so a concise analysis is delivered to the company. This process doesn’t waste time nor labor — IT professionals will be freed up to focus on other high-priority tasks.

•  To be left in the dark. A telecom audit is best accomplished when approached collaboratively. The enterprise’s cooperation is imperative to ensure all proper information is delivered, while a TEM provider needs to keep the enterprise’s priorities top-of-mind. The telecom audit can be an educational experience for both parties and may represent the beginning of a long-lasting partnership.

•  Your carrier is billing correctly. Seemingly small errors are unavoidable. Even if a company has been loyal to the same carrier for years, it is important to recognize the possibility that mistakes may have occurred along the way. System glitches, human error, call rating and lack of oversight regularly contribute to billing errors. And with multiple service suppliers, monitoring billing can be a challenge — that’s where a TEM provider is a huge asset.

There are ways to stop losing money, and a telecom audit is a great place to start. Getting finances in order — and sifting through the mountains of associated paperwork — doesn’t have to be the insurmountable task that is sometimes seems to be. After clearing up any uncertainties, an audit becomes an asset rather than a burden.

MDSL offers a combination of cutting-edge technology, data-driven recommendations, an experienced staff and a proven dedication to clients that all make a holistic audit stress-free. Learn more. 

Most of us get our bills, see the amount due, submit payment and then forget about it. We trust that the information presented is accurate, and we don’t have time to stress over nickels and dimes. However, when managing an enterprise with an ever-expanding inventory of telecommunication equipment and services, those nickels and dimes can add up fast.

To ensure you aren’t overpaying for services you don’t use, a telecom audit might be exactly what your company needs. Yet, an audit may seem daunting for time-strapped IT professionals who are continually trying to do more with less.

But what if it doesn’t have to be?

MDSL can get clients back on track — quickly and conveniently — with a telecom audit that’s designed to improve budgetary forecasting by revealing necessary and unnecessary expenditures. On average, companies receive 2 to 5 percent in savings following an audit — equating to a lot of nickels and dimes.

What to Expect from a Telecom Audit

•  TEM professionals do the heavy lifting. The ultimate goal of a telecom audit is to make life easier, so there’s no reason the audit itself should be hard. When partnering with an experienced Telecom Expense Management (TEM) provider like MDSL, an enterprise has little work to do. It’s essentially responsible for providing a full inventory list of telecom services and contracts, but the subsequent research and data analysis are completed by the provider.

•  Telecom costs become fully transparent. Taking advantage of a telecom audit gives enterprises an ability to increase savings, validate invoiced charges and optimize legacy technologies so they work the way they were intended. Additionally, they are less likely to experience any unwanted surprises at the end of the month; getting a clear perspective empowers companies to easily control and track their finances.

•  Your data is demystified. Do you know your daily or monthly data usage? Chances are, probably not. Don’t expect this information to be readily available either — most people rely on estimates or month-to-month invoices to determine how much data or voice calling they’re using. TEM providers take the guesswork out of the equation: as part of an audit, they have the capabilities to monitor and analyze real-time data usage — even within large-scale operations — resulting in a more accurate picture of what services are being used — and abused — and when. Then, enterprises can anticipate these costs to develop a budget.

•  Mobile optimization is verified. When a large enterprise manages expansive mobile lines and diverse rate plans, there can be an overwhelming amount of data to verify. As people join, shift roles and leave the company, invoices may reflect lines with ceased services and zero usage but an associated cost. A telecom audit illuminates the consumption of data and optimization opportunities, and can, in turn, reveal gaps in mobile plans where savings can be immediately realized.

•  Your costs are compared to industry benchmarks. The benchmark price of telecommunication services isn’t common knowledge, which means you likely don’t know how your rates compare to the broader industry or geography – and whether you are unnecessarily footing high bills. Or, when it comes time to renew, how do you know the current prevailing rates? A TEM provider with the experience, technology and established supplier relationships is needed to assess whether your telecom costs are current, fair and forward-thinking.

•  An overview of the service you signed up for — and the service you need. It’s easy to overlook miniscule changes in contractual agreements — we have all scrolled through the fine print, assuming it isn’t as important as the big bold text. However, these tiny details might play a big role in how much services cost. Telecom vendor contracts are carefully validated or disputed during an audit, showing you exactly why a refund may be due or where verbiage needs to be negotiated to align with your needs or industry benchmarks.

•  A crash course in today’s tech. A thorough telecom audit will reveal modern telecom services are perpetually changing, updating and expanding. As companies embrace cloud services, the Internet of Things and other future-focused services, the scale of today’s networks continually grow. For one person — or one IT department — this can be a lot of information to keep track of. Outsourcing this labor saves money and time as an audit sorts through the entirety of a company’s telecom inventory, helping to clarify which services are needed or underutilized. During this process, enterprises can learn a lot about their tech and how it intersects with daily operations.

What NOT to Expect from a Telecom Audit

•  A time-consuming, frustrating experience. With the right technology and the right expertise, audits can be simple for the company to accomplish. A skilled TEM provider understands how to digest and process an enormous amount of information, so a concise analysis is delivered to the company. This process doesn’t waste time nor labor — IT professionals will be freed up to focus on other high-priority tasks.

•  To be left in the dark. A telecom audit is best accomplished when approached collaboratively. The enterprise’s cooperation is imperative to ensure all proper information is delivered, while a TEM provider needs to keep the enterprise’s priorities top-of-mind. The telecom audit can be an educational experience for both parties and may represent the beginning of a long-lasting partnership.

•  Your carrier is billing correctly. Seemingly small errors are unavoidable. Even if a company has been loyal to the same carrier for years, it is important to recognize the possibility that mistakes may have occurred along the way. System glitches, human error, call rating and lack of oversight regularly contribute to billing errors. And with multiple service suppliers, monitoring billing can be a challenge — that’s where a TEM provider is a huge asset.

There are ways to stop losing money, and a telecom audit is a great place to start. Getting finances in order — and sifting through the mountains of associated paperwork — doesn’t have to be the insurmountable task that is sometimes seems to be. After clearing up any uncertainties, an audit becomes an asset rather than a burden.

MDSL offers a combination of cutting-edge technology, data-driven recommendations, an experienced staff and a proven dedication to clients that all make a holistic audit stress-free. Learn more. 

MDSL has a long history of providing strategic services, including telecom audits, to clients big and small from a variety of industries. Learn what similarities are found between them. 

Your migration to cloud computing was a great decision. You’ve all-but-eliminated any capital investments on equipment. You’ve removed many operating expenses, too, including rent, electrical power, HVAC space cooling, equipment maintenance, on-staff administrators and managers, and more. You’ve replaced all of that with a single monthly expense that is consistent, predictable, and budgetable.

Or is it?

One of the Essential Characteristics of Cloud Computing

In 2011, the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) published                                                                                     "The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing.” One of the “Essential Characteristics” listed in this brief document is:

Rapid elasticity. Capabilities can be elastically provisioned and released, in some cases automatically, to scale rapidly outward and inward commensurate with demand. To the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can be appropriated in any quantity at any time.

This coordinates elegantly with another essential cloud characteristic, “resource pooling.” Economies are achieved by having all users share from one pool of resources, requesting them and releasing them as needed. Finally, another essential service, “measured service” enables cloud service providers to measure all utilization and bill each user only for the services and resources they’ve actually used.

This has translated into one of the most attractive customer benefits of cloud computing, the fact that you only pay for the resources you’ve used. This is commonly referred to as “consumption-based billing” and it would seem like a wonderful advantage, which it is… as long as it is managed properly.

Managing Cloud Expenses

American author Thomas Charlton first wrote in 1809 that “the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.”

Applied here, cloud has dramatically reduced not only capital and operating costs, it has also minimized customer involvement in operating their own IT environment. While that is indeed “liberating” in that it frees personnel to accomplish far more important and valuable activities, cloud spending requires constant vigilance. Failure to exert such vigilance may often result in very unpleasant surprises. Some of these may even be career-threatening.

After a few months, invoices arrived. But some of these invoices didn’t resemble the subscription’s indicated maximum because some of these new cloud arrivals had overrun their intended limits. They consumed too much cloud. In some cases, way too much cloud. These unfortunates found themselves holding unanticipated invoices for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Even today, those who are just now adopting cloud computing are struggling to improve their governance to prevent a proliferation of uncontrolled cloud projects.

Cloud and Your Offboarding Process

When new personnel join your cloud-computing-based-company, you routinely purchase them subscriptions for the services they will use.

Or do you first check to see if you already have “seats” that were formerly used by someone who has left your company? Many companies neglect to include cloud subscriptions in their offboarding checklist, and don’t have an accounting procedure in place to tick and tie the number of users to the number of “seats” currently under subscription.

The result is the purchase of new subscriptions when there is still time left on idle ones. Then, that usable time simply runs out unused.

The New Cloud Expense Accounting

The migration from on-premise to cloud computing brings with it a need to migrate from on-premise-style accounting to new processes designed specifically for cloud-computing environments. In turn, these new processes require the support of systems designed specifically for Cloud Service Expense Management (CSEM). This includes visibility and management of cloud service consumption well before you exceed thresholds, and that you use existing resources before you buy new. More fundamentally, CSEM enables you to track and reconcile all of your cloud services to approve payment of invoices with confidence.

An efficient, effective CSEM solution also interfaces directly with SAP, Oracle, or whatever enterprise resource management (ERP) solution your company depends upon to run the business.

With acceptance and adoption of cloud computing fast becoming the standard, the need for CSEM has increased dramatically. MDSL has enhanced our popular Technology Expense Management (TEM) to create a new, powerful CSEM solution that allows you to manage your cloud spend as closely as you manage every other cloud performance factor. To learn more, click here.

The exponential rise in enterprise cloud spend and ambiguity of ownership presents unique management challenges 

MDSL, a global leader in Technology Expense Management ("TEM") solutions, has announced the general availability of their Cloud Services Expense Manager (CSEM) module as part of the MDSL TEM solution offering. The new module allows enterprise clients to manage spend for cloud services across Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). According to Gartner research, through 2020, 80% of organizations will overshoot their cloud IaaS budgets due to a lack of cost optimization approaches.* 

“The cloud has become more ubiquitous and our enterprise clients continue to share their struggles managing the increasing costs, the sprawl of resources, and lack of management associated with it,” said Charles Layne, Chief Executive Officer of MDSL. “Given our history of managing complex technology spend within the enterprise, we are in a unique position to manage all types of cloud spend through the MDSL platform. By creating a tailored offering, with specific nomenclature and reporting for those who manage cloud assets, we’ve simplified the experience for our users and provided actionable business intelligence.”    

CSEM is a cloud-based software solution that allows IT budget owners to manage the cost and usage of cloud resources across departments, projects, or individuals. Leveraging automated vendor API integrations to import detailed usage data (both billed and unbilled), users are able to configure business rules around the processing, allocation, and reporting of cloud expenses through a single, centralized expense management platform. Users can manage these cloud expenses alongside other complex technology spend categories within the MDSL solution to capture a total cost of ownership. 

What separates the MDSL solution is the extensible technology that leverages a single, unified platform used for more than 20 years to manage enterprise technology and financial subscription services. The contract structure and instance billing of IaaS and PaaS mimic the structure and components of traditional fixed voice and data services. SaaS subscriptions behave similarly to traditional market data services like Bloomberg, Reuters, and FactSet, which MDSL manages for the largest financial institutions in the world.  

Early adopters of the CSEM functionality experienced a large reduction in management overhead for administrative processes and valuable insight into the breadth of their cloud estate. One pilot customer, a $5B consumer products company, quickly discovered that while they had half the cloud accounts they originally expected, the spend on those accounts was more than twice what was budgeted. In addition, the CSEM uncovered a nearly $1M PaaS licensing fee which would have otherwise gone unnoticed. 

Hyoun Park, CEO and Principal Analyst at Amalgam Insights, who regularly covers the technology expense management space, also made a prediction in a recent report on the growth of the market. Over the next five years, Amalgam estimates that about 20% of cloud infrastructure will be managed by third-parties, making cloud IaaS management roughly a $400 million market in 2022.  

“Cloud expenses are simply another type of recurring technology spend that the enterprise needs to manage,” said Simon Mendoza, Chief Technology Officer at MDSL. “Given the size of these growing expenses, enterprises should implement standard processes for capturing, reporting and allocating not just for cloud expenses, but for all spend categories and gather intelligence across their entire technology estate.”  

To learn more about the new MDSL CSEM features and functionality, including access to a client success story, visit https://www.mdsl.com/technology-expense-management/cloud-management.    

*Gartner, How to Identify Solutions for Managing Costs in Public Cloud IaaS, 22 January 2018 

The exponential rise in enterprise cloud spend and ambiguity of ownership presents unique management challenges 

MDSL, a global leader in Technology Expense Management ("TEM") solutions, has announced the general availability of their Cloud Services Expense Manager (CSEM) module as part of the MDSL TEM solution offering. The new module allows enterprise clients to manage spend for cloud services across Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). According to Gartner research, through 2020, 80% of organizations will overshoot their cloud IaaS budgets due to a lack of cost optimization approaches.* 

“The cloud has become more ubiquitous and our enterprise clients continue to share their struggles managing the increasing costs, the sprawl of resources, and lack of management associated with it,” said Charles Layne, Chief Executive Officer of MDSL. “Given our history of managing complex technology spend within the enterprise, we are in a unique position to manage all types of cloud spend through the MDSL platform. By creating a tailored offering, with specific nomenclature and reporting for those who manage cloud assets, we’ve simplified the experience for our users and provided actionable business intelligence.”    

CSEM is a cloud-based software solution that allows IT budget owners to manage the cost and usage of cloud resources across departments, projects, or individuals. Leveraging automated vendor API integrations to import detailed usage data (both billed and unbilled), users are able to configure business rules around the processing, allocation, and reporting of cloud expenses through a single, centralized expense management platform. Users can manage these cloud expenses alongside other complex technology spend categories within the MDSL solution to capture a total cost of ownership. 

What separates the MDSL solution is the extensible technology that leverages a single, unified platform used for more than 20 years to manage enterprise technology and financial subscription services. The contract structure and instance billing of IaaS and PaaS mimic the structure and components of traditional fixed voice and data services. SaaS subscriptions behave similarly to traditional market data services like Bloomberg, Reuters, and FactSet, which MDSL manages for the largest financial institutions in the world.  

Early adopters of the CSEM functionality experienced a large reduction in management overhead for administrative processes and valuable insight into the breadth of their cloud estate. One pilot customer, a $5B consumer products company, quickly discovered that while they had half the cloud accounts they originally expected, the spend on those accounts was more than twice what was budgeted. In addition, the CSEM uncovered a nearly $1M PaaS licensing fee which would have otherwise gone unnoticed. 

Hyoun Park, CEO and Principal Analyst at Amalgam Insights, who regularly covers the technology expense management space, also made a prediction in a recent report on the growth of the market. Over the next five years, Amalgam estimates that about 20% of cloud infrastructure will be managed by third-parties, making cloud IaaS management roughly a $400 million market in 2022.  

“Cloud expenses are simply another type of recurring technology spend that the enterprise needs to manage,” said Simon Mendoza, Chief Technology Officer at MDSL. “Given the size of these growing expenses, enterprises should implement standard processes for capturing, reporting and allocating not just for cloud expenses, but for all spend categories and gather intelligence across their entire technology estate.”  

To learn more about the new MDSL CSEM features and functionality, including access to a client success story, visit https://www.mdsl.com/technology-expense-management/cloud-management.    

*Gartner, How to Identify Solutions for Managing Costs in Public Cloud IaaS, 22 January 2018 

Companies today spend a staggering amount on IT, technology and telecom services. According to IDC, global spending in these categories equaled around $4 billion in 2018. By 2019, just IT expenses alone will likely top $3.8 billion worldwide, Gartner has predicted. And, a global survey of CIOs from Deloitte found that the typical enterprise spends more than 3 percent of its annual revenue on IT expenses.

Companies today spend a staggering amount on IT, technology and telecom services. According to IDC, global spending in these categories equaled around $4 billion in 2018. By 2019, just IT expenses alone will likely top $3.8 billion worldwide, Gartner has predicted. And, a global survey of CIOs from Deloitte found that the typical enterprise spends more than 3 percent of its annual revenue on IT expenses.

Are you looking to evaluate a new TEM vendor and want counsel on how to make the process easier? Review our checklist to make sure you taking the necessary steps to ensure a successful TEM engagement. 

Are you looking to evaluate a new TEM vendor and want counsel on how to make the process easier? Review our checklist to make sure you taking the necessary steps to ensure a successful TEM engagement. 

Seasoned Sales Professionals Strengthen Global Growth Strategy for Leader in Technology Expense Management Software and Services

MDSL, a global leader in Technology Expense Management ("TEM") and Market Data Management (“MDM”) solutions, announced that it has hired Tom Feeley as Vice President of Global Sales and Aaron Zeper as Vice President of Customer Demand. After a record growth year in 2018, MDSL looks to continue introducing innovative solutions to the marketplace that assist more than 350 enterprises in managing more than $12 billion in technology expenses.

“Over the past 18 months, MDSL has continued to expand its worldwide presence by growing our technology development and service delivery teams,” said Charles Layne, Chief Executive Officer of MDSL. “With our ongoing focus on expanding scale and our world-class delivery model, we are changing the way that TEM and MDM clients experience the industry. In order to fuel MDSL’s next stage of growth, Tom and Aaron are the right professionals to have us realize our full potential. I could not be more excited about having them join MDSL.”

“At a time where we see our competition reducing headcount, MDSL has added more than 10% to our global workforce in 2018 across technology development and service delivery. We’re ready to fuel the next stage of growth with the addition of Tom and Aaron joining us and we have high expectations for the coming year.”

With over 25 years of industry experience in enterprise software, Tom Feeley has been recognized as a top performing sales leader at companies such as Dun & Bradstreet, EMC and Oracle. He is a transformation agent that thrives on change and has been part of over 25 acquisitions, three of which as the acquiree. Most recently, Tom was a Regional Vice President of Sales at Coupa Software, a Gartner Leader in Procure-to-Pay solutions, where over the last 18 months he dramatically grew enterprise sales revenue in his region. Tom has developed a process for assessing sales teams for immediate impact and executing customer-centric strategies for both attracting new customers while increasing spend with existing customers.

Aaron Zeper has 19 years of experience creating and leading highly effective teams focused on profitable market expansion and improved customer experiences. He leads MDSL’s marketing and new business acquisition strategy, including the advancement of their partner/channel program and overall go-to-market strategy. Aaron comes to MDSL from CloudCover, where he served as Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing. Prior to CloudCover, he served as Vice President of Professional Services, Sales and Marketing with Tech Data Corporation where he was named a CRN Channel Chief in 2017.

“With Tom and Aaron joining the seasoned leadership team, MDSL continues reinforcement of its customer-oriented growth strategy to drive sustained leadership in the technology expense management space,” said George Kadifa and Sanjeet Mitra, MDSL Directors and Managing Directors at SEP.

Seasoned Sales Professionals Strengthen Global Growth Strategy for Leader in Technology Expense Management Software and Services

MDSL, a global leader in Technology Expense Management ("TEM") and Market Data Management (“MDM”) solutions, announced that it has hired Tom Feeley as Vice President of Global Sales and Aaron Zeper as Vice President of Customer Demand. After a record growth year in 2018, MDSL looks to continue introducing innovative solutions to the marketplace that assist more than 350 enterprises in managing more than $12 billion in technology expenses.

“Over the past 18 months, MDSL has continued to expand its worldwide presence by growing our technology development and service delivery teams,” said Charles Layne, Chief Executive Officer of MDSL. “With our ongoing focus on expanding scale and our world-class delivery model, we are changing the way that TEM and MDM clients experience the industry. In order to fuel MDSL’s next stage of growth, Tom and Aaron are the right professionals to have us realize our full potential. I could not be more excited about having them join MDSL.”

“At a time where we see our competition reducing headcount, MDSL has added more than 10% to our global workforce in 2018 across technology development and service delivery. We’re ready to fuel the next stage of growth with the addition of Tom and Aaron joining us and we have high expectations for the coming year.”

With over 25 years of industry experience in enterprise software, Tom Feeley has been recognized as a top performing sales leader at companies such as Dun & Bradstreet, EMC and Oracle. He is a transformation agent that thrives on change and has been part of over 25 acquisitions, three of which as the acquiree. Most recently, Tom was a Regional Vice President of Sales at Coupa Software, a Gartner Leader in Procure-to-Pay solutions, where over the last 18 months he dramatically grew enterprise sales revenue in his region. Tom has developed a process for assessing sales teams for immediate impact and executing customer-centric strategies for both attracting new customers while increasing spend with existing customers.

Aaron Zeper has 19 years of experience creating and leading highly effective teams focused on profitable market expansion and improved customer experiences. He leads MDSL’s marketing and new business acquisition strategy, including the advancement of their partner/channel program and overall go-to-market strategy. Aaron comes to MDSL from CloudCover, where he served as Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing. Prior to CloudCover, he served as Vice President of Professional Services, Sales and Marketing with Tech Data Corporation where he was named a CRN Channel Chief in 2017.

“With Tom and Aaron joining the seasoned leadership team, MDSL continues reinforcement of its customer-oriented growth strategy to drive sustained leadership in the technology expense management space,” said George Kadifa and Sanjeet Mitra, MDSL Directors and Managing Directors at SEP.

Today, we’re talking about the finer things in life. This goes out to the activities that everyone simply adores. You know, like going to the dentist or spending hours in line at the DMV.

And, for most companies, in this echelon of paying taxes and having wet socks is paying IT and telecom bills. The world of technology expense management (TEM) is simply marvelous.

Today, we’re talking about the finer things in life. This goes out to the activities that everyone simply adores. You know, like going to the dentist or spending hours in line at the DMV.

And, for most companies, in this echelon of paying taxes and having wet socks is paying IT and telecom bills. The world of technology expense management (TEM) is simply marvelous.

Most IT professionals know the implementation of an expense management program can sometimes be difficult, especially with the number of people, processes, and software requirements involved. For most, they also dread the notion of starting from scratch when the current vendor doesn’t live up to their promises. However, it’s possible to have a successful migration. The key is to pick a provider that has historical knowledge, can identify the necessary steps, and get you to deployment with less headaches. 

Join Josh Sokoloff, VP of Professional Services with MDSL, on February 21 for a webinar where he will review two client implementations of varying size and complexity that came from the same TEM provider. 

Attendees will learn: 
• What you can look for from your new vendor 
• The questions your vendor should be asking you 
• The time frames you can expect 
• What counsel you can expect from your vendor at each process stage 

Technology expense management provider adds to 2018 award wins with CFO recognition

Tamara Saunders, CFO of MDSL, a global leader in technology expense management (TEM) and market data management (MDM) solutions, was named a winner in this year’s 15^th annual Stevie® Awards for Women in Business.  More than 1,500 entries were submitted for this year’s Stevie Awards in more than 90 categories. Saunders was honored for her accomplishments with a Bronze Award in the Category of Executive of the Year, Business Services, for companies with 11 to 2,500 employees.

On November 15, MDSL hosted more than 50 clients in London for our second Connections event of 2018. The event brought together attendees from all over the world that leverage MDSL software and services for technology expense and market data management to network with their peers, share best practices, and exchange ideas with the MDSL team for future product innovations. 

On November 15, MDSL hosted more than 50 clients in London for our second Connections event of 2018. The event brought together attendees from all over the world that leverage MDSL software and services for technology expense and market data management to network with their peers, share best practices, and exchange ideas with the MDSL team for future product innovations. 

MDSL Earns Rankings on Arizona’s Fastest Growing and Largest Companies Lists in
Arizona Corporate Excellence Awards; Layne Honored as CEO of the Year

MDSL, a global leader in technology expense management (TEM) solutions, has earned rankings on two prestigious lists as part of the 2018 Arizona Corporate Excellence (ACE) Awards created by the Phoenix Business Journal. MDSL CEO Charles Layne was honored as CEO of the Year. This was MDSL’s first year to enter the competition.

As the ancient Greek philosopher and writer Heraclitus once said some 2,500 years ago, “Change is the only constant.” He’s not the only one to offer some form of this sage advice. French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr coined his own version, and even a creepy Matthew McConaughey character has his own twisted take. 

It’s truly a universal concept. So why, then, do IT teams fail to take this lesson into account? What can IT teams do to better anticipate and integrate new technologies? 

As the ancient Greek philosopher and writer Heraclitus once said some 2,500 years ago, “Change is the only constant.” He’s not the only one to offer some form of this sage advice. French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr coined his own version, and even a creepy Matthew McConaughey character has his own twisted take. 

It’s truly a universal concept. So why, then, do IT teams fail to take this lesson into account? What can IT teams do to better anticipate and integrate new technologies? 

Last week, the MDSL team visited sunny Long Beach, CA to participate in the 23rd Annual IT Procurement Summitpresented by CAUCUS. More than 120 IT Buyers from enterprise, government, and university organizations were represented at the event. It was interesting to hear their thoughts on what’s important from a procurement perspective in managing their technology environments.  

Among them, the usual suspects – managing an accurate inventory and ensuring expenses were properly validated – but what stood out what the increasing need for data and insights that improve vendor relationships. While savings and data accuracy for IT and telecom teams has always been the bedrock of telecom expense management (TEM), it’s important to note that procurement relies on this information as much (or more) when negotiating agreements with vendors for current and future technology services to better their business. 

In addition to speaking with procurement professionals, we saw an interesting keynote presented by Michael Tchong, a Futurist, Ubercool Innovation founder, and Motivational Speaker. Michael’s session revolved around the concept of Ubertrends, which are massive waves that cascade through society leaving many subtrends in their wake, and provide telltale signs for helping decode the future. For an Ubertrend to occur, four pieces of criteria need to be met by a product or service to invoke true change. 

Technology expense management provider honored at Oracle OpenWorld event as 2018 Oracle Cloud ISV Partner of the Year – North America

MDSL, a global leader in Technology Expense Management ("TEM") solutions, has been honored at Oracle OpenWorld 2018 as the 2018 Oracle Cloud ISV Partner of the Year – North America. The award recognizes MDSL, a Gold level member of the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), for their outstanding work in driving customer success with software and services solutions delivered to clients on a global scale.

Oracle partners accelerate innovation and customers upgrade to the cloud. From business planning and implementation, to connectivity and data center services, Oracle partners provide the support and services needed to maximize the value of Oracle Cloud solutions for customers’ organization. The Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) offers opportunities for partners to accelerate and expand their business. Oracle would like to highlight their partners who are highly experienced and skilled in taking their customers on a successful path to the cloud.  

“Providing an MDSL SaaS offering Powered by Oracle Cloud has allowed us to help our clients manage their large Technology expense inventory and budget, while providing a superior performance over our previous cloud infrastructure,” said Thierry Zerbib, Chief Architect at MDSL. “It has been a pleasure partnering with the Oracle engineering team who assisted us in porting our software platform to their more reliable and scalable infrastructure.  We are grateful to receive this award and are looking forward to a long-term relationship.”

“MDSL has demonstrated an outstanding level of innovation in delivering proven Technology Expense Management Solutions which are Powered by Oracle Cloud and solve our joint customers’ most critical business challenges,” said David Hicks, vice president, Worldwide ISV Business Development, Oracle. “We congratulate MDSL  in achieving the 2018 Oracle Excellence Award for Oracle Cloud ISV Partner of the Year – North America. This achievement is a testament to their dedication to excellence and to providing customers SaaS solutions that drive real business value and results.”

MDSL has achieved Powered by Oracle Cloud status and is listed on the Oracle Cloud Marketplace. The Oracle Cloud Marketplace is a one-stop shop for Oracle customers seeking trusted business applications and service providers offering unique business solutions, including ones that extend Oracle Cloud Applications. Oracle Cloud is the industry’s broadest and most complete public cloud, delivering enterprise-grade services at every level of the cloud technology stack including platform as a service (PaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS), and data as a service (DaaS).

About Oracle PartnerNetwork
Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) is Oracle's partner program that provides partners with a differentiated advantage to develop, sell and implement Oracle solutions. OPN offers resources to train and support specialized knowledge of Oracle’s products and solutions and has evolved to recognize Oracle’s growing product portfolio, partner base and business opportunity. Key to the latest enhancements to OPN is the ability for partners to be recognized and rewarded for their investment in Oracle Cloud. Partners engaging with Oracle will be able to differentiate their Oracle Cloud expertise and success with customers through the OPN Cloud program – an innovative program that complements existing OPN program levels with tiers of recognition and progressive benefits for partners working with Oracle Cloud. To find out more visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners. 

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Today’s enterprise organization is continually challenged to optimize their technology costs and find greater efficiencies, while embracing digitalization and the growing range of fixed and mobile devices. “Easy” said no IT manager ever. 

Join members of the MDSL Leadership Team and a special guest speaker for a webinar on Tuesday, December 4 titled 2019 Technology Expense Management Industry Outlook: Managing the Complexities of Tomorrow.

Industry peers recognize self-certification during ETMA’s annual meeting in Philadelphia

MDSL, a global leader in Technology Expense Management ("TEM") solutions, has been awarded the 2018 ETMA Best Practice Award for its Self-Certification best practice. One of three finalists, MDSL received the award after presenting to an audience of their industry peers during the Enterprise Technology Management Association’s (ETMA) annual meeting in Philadelphia this past week.

 “We are constantly looking to pass on the knowledge we’ve acquired through thousands of implementations and ongoing service engagements to benefit our clients,” said Daman Wood, Chief Operating Officer at MDSL. “It’s exciting to have Self-Certification recognized as an award-winning best practice and to be recognized by fellow companies within the enterprise technology management industry is truly an honor.”

Large organizations routinely fight inventory validity as part of their ongoing TEM practice. Self-certification leverages MDSL software to routinely poll users and managers and verify that active inventory is valid and currently in use. The practice enforces IT security and compliance measures while improving cost allocation and reducing expenses. Proof points of the process are widespread among MDSL clients, including a recent annualized savings of €320,000 for a Global Fortune 500 technology company.

“An accurate inventory is the foundation of any program; it can be leveraged to eliminate unused services, re-assign licenses, hardware and other items,” said Joe Basili, Managing Director for ETMA. “This award shines a spotlight on MDSL and its best practices related to inventory as it is a truly complex area. However, dedicated focus and automation can lead to an award-winning solution that helps enterprise clients maximize their cost savings and network efficiencies.”

About ETMA

ETMA, the Enterprise Technology Management Association is a non-profit organization with approximately 50 members managing over $71 Billion in enterprise expenses. Its ongoing mission is to raise awareness, foster industry growth, improve the quality and value of solutions, and establish industry standards. Further, ETMA members subscribe to a Code of Ethics, which clearly establishes standards and differentiates their level of commitment to their clients. ETMA does not sell consulting services or solutions.

Members provide solutions for enterprises in: Technology Management, Managed Services, Expense Management, Telecommunications Management, Telecom Expense Management (TEM), Mobile Expense Management, Managed Mobility Services (MMS), Mobile Device Management MDM and Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) solutions and other related areas.

Learn more about ETMA online at https://www.etma.org.

Do you have recurring nightmares about computers gone haywire or huge IT bills going unpaid? Does the thought of your technology workload constantly spook you? If so, then it’s time to unmask your demons with technology managed services.

In too many companies, IT staff members spend their days handling a lot of minutiae. In fact, one study found that 30 percent of a typical IT person’s day is devoted to “low level tasks.”

90 day go-live is an early example of the TEM provider’s refined implementation methodology

MDSL, a global leader in Technology Expense Management ("TEM") solutions, was recently chosen by Alight Solutions to provide TEM software and services to manage more than $25 million in annual telecom expenditures. After administering an RFP to see what was available in the marketplace, MDSL was selected to implement a single, centralized TEM application to house their telecom inventory and proactively manage their recurring telecom expenses.

Ranked No. 3401, the Technology Expense Management (TEM) provider continues to grow while focusing on innovation and customer success

Inc. magazine revealed that MDSL is No. 3401 on its 37th annual Inc. 5000, the most prestigious ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. The list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economy’s most dynamic segment—its independent small businesses. Microsoft, Dell, Domino’s Pizza, Pandora, Timberland, LinkedIn, Yelp, Zillow, and many other well-known names gained their first national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000.

Procurement teams face a number of challenges in ensuring goods and services are sourced at the best possible price. Without the tools to analyze technology usage and data across the organization, it is incredibly difficult to fully understand a company’s technology requirements and know what represents a deal that's favorable to the organization.