Success Story
National Transportation Company Finds Direction in Managing Telecom Expenses with MBG
Goal
This national freight railroad company, with more than 20,000 miles of track in over 20 eastern states wanted to centralize its telecom spend into one streamlined, management solution. The primary objective was to obtain complete visibility into its overall telecom spend through the 60 vendors it uses. Additionally, it needed a complete inventory of the 30,000+ circuits the company utilized at 16,000 locations to operate the railroad. To achieve this goal, the company wanted to convert as many invoices into electronic format as possible to facilitate invoice processing, along with putting the data into a context so it could make budgeting decisions.
Challenge
The company wanted an inventory with a hierarchy that listed assets by longitude and latitude, which would identify the location of railroad switches. The company had unsuccessfully worked with previous TEM vendors to try and build an inventory based on these parameters, and eventually turned to MBG.
Solution
Upon the initial inventory build, MBG was able to successfully create a “billed inventory”. To create the billed inventory, MBG started by converting as many invoices into electronic format. Through invoice comparison, MBG ran two months of parallel billing data to construct the initial billed inventory. The services were then distributed by the company’s specific hierarchy; breaking down the services by longitude and latitude. The inventory included over 80 fields of information coupled with the ability to quickly search for items, it provided a means to conduct instant analysis.
Result
This national freight railroad company has improved the management of its telecom spend through the combination of greater visibility into its telecom spend and through the understanding of its telecom network. It has an inventory that lists items specific to its hierarchy, with the necessary fields. This solution has also enabled the railroad to begin identifying areas where it can reduce costs through improved services and begin to create more accurate budgets.
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