Carriers are not alone in offering services to the enterprise. Love ’em or hate ’em,
plenty of “frienemies” are trying to help enterprises save money on their
wireless bills, thereby funneling less revenue to operators.

Those unused cell phones sitting in ex-employees’ desks might not bother wireless carriers too much. After all, the operators are still getting paid for them, even if they’re not being used. But enterprises are getting bothered.

That’s where companies such as Tangoe, which acquired Traq Wireless earlier this year, and mindWireless come in. They provide solutions that basically enable companies to better manage their wireless assets.

In one large enterprise with about 9,000 devices, mindWireless unearthed more than 400 phones that were not tied to any current employees. That’s par for the course at a surprising number of businesses, even though – on paper – human resource policies call for departing employees to hand over their devices before they leave.

A mindWireless energy client achieved and sustained 44% annual savings while its minute usage remained constant.

For telecom expense management companies, their relationships with carriers are of the love/hate variety. Many carriers would love to see those telecom expense management companies disappear, says David Wise, managing partner/co-founder at mindWireless. It’s not as if carriers aren’t doing price plan analyses for their customers – many do, but they’re typically seen as the “fox watching the henhouse” rather than an independent party that’s making suggestions for improvements. Plus, carriers often don’t offer to make the price plan analysis until a customer threatens to churn.

mindWireless also offers a help desk to handle customer service issues, so its clients don’t have to sit on hold or spend an hour talking with a carrier’s customer care department. A majority of the problems can be handled by mindWireless’ staff, and when they can’t, its employees, rather than its clients, sit on hold or talk through larger issues directly with carrier representatives; mindWireless’ employees know the shortcuts and back doors.

Lately, more firms are entering the enterprise fray with the promise of combining Wi-Fi and cellular phones to help enterprises reduce their cell phone charges. Wise sees those as complementary to what mindWireless does. Both share the goal of reducing costs. However, while VoIP solutions are good for some employees, such as those who frequently travel overseas, they’re not for everybody.

But once a client has achieved its cost savings, what’s in it for mindWireless? Wise says the company offers an optimization program for repeat business. Wireless rate plans and business requirements change so often that mindWireless can keep up the savings.

Pepe: Average customer can save $240 a year on bill.

DIFFERENT STROKES
mindWireless has been in business for going on eight years and has been turning a profit for the past five. Its typical client has about 4,000 wireless devices across its employee base. Other companies are newer to the game. Validas, for example, recently launched its service targeting entities with 200 or fewer devices.

Last summer, Tom Pepe, co-founder of Validas, left his job at Verizon Wireless after about 10 years in various positions. He joined Validas President Todd Dunphy and COO Dave Chalmers, who previously was at Research In Motion (RIM), as well as CTO Jeremy Groh. At Verizon, Pepe says he spent a lot of time talking to customers and quickly learned that no one person could know all there is to know about all the available service plans.

They created Validas, whose mission is to save people money on their cell phone bills using a technology that reads bills and makes sure the charges line up as designed. The company says its average subscriber can save about $240 per year with its system.

Here’s how it works: A user downloads his or her online bill and uploads it to the Validas system, which will produce detailed usage reports and graphs. An early version of the program suggests other plans that are more economical from the user’s current carrier. A future version will include comparisons with other carriers. If a customer wants to switch to a carrier with a better plan and an early termination fee (ETF) is involved, Validas has connections with partners that can try to match a person up with a company that wants to take over the contract.

By monitoring the spending habits of users, mindWireless can optimize expense by ensuring that all users are on the most appropriate rate plan with the right device. (click image to enlarge)

While the service might threaten a carrier’s current business, Pepe points out that users of the Validas system must register for online billing with their carriers, something that saves the operators money. Plus, Validas is providing a service that carriers could consider valuable in the sense that it relieves the call load to customer service departments due to incorrect billing or from being on the wrong plans.

The name Validas is derived from the word “veritas,” signifying truth, and “das,” which means to devote/dedicate. “We want to fundamentally change the way you do things,” Pepe says.

CONSUMER VS. ENTERPRISE
The founders initially expected the service to take off among the consumer segment, but Pepe says they were surprised to see it gain traction among small enterprises. Validas charges $5 for a 1-bill upload; $10 for five bill uploads and $20 for 15 uploads.

The concept of MyValidas.com is similar to that of MyRatePlan.com, which also strives to minimize phone bills by offering online rate plan filters and calculators. MyRatePlan doesn’t do activations; it refers users to other sites for that, principally online retailers LetsTalk and InPhonic. However, while a lot more people are buying online, the site still remains largely a research mechanism rather than one for sales. “Our competitive advantage is, I think, we have a really good informational experience on our site,” says Allan Keiter, CEO of MyRatePlan.com.

Whether it’s saving large enterprises a lot of money on their cell phone bills or offering advice to consumers, various entities are making sure less money goes into the hands of carriers. From a carrier’s perspective, that might not sound too good, but in the end, those services no doubt result in happier bill payers and end-users.