When economic times are tough, we all scramble to tighten operational expenses. Mobile phone and PDA expenses have been a climbing expense over the years and more and more businesses look at mobile devices as a necessary means to conduct business. Here are some tips on lowering these expenses yourself.

What’s the incentive?

Our experience shows that companies, on average, save themselves over 25% when they undergo a thorough bill review.

What can I do?

1. Optimize. Ask your carrier partners to have a plan optimization delivered by a certain date. It is important that you keep the tone serious and they know you are considering options to consolidate. This will inspire action from your sales rep.
2. Shop around. See if you can get other business rate plan options from a third party to ensure you are getting full disclosure. There are many wireless third party organizations that would love to have your business and they will share this with you readily.
3. Eliminate zero usage lines of service. Plan optimization is not always enough. Many companies have unused lines of service due to employee turnover. See if you can get electronic billing data and compare the last three months and identify all lines where there was no usage. For larger companies, you might want to cross-reference with HR records to verify these lines have not been re-assigned.
4. Text Messaging (SMS) Costs have been climbing as more people use this medium to communicate with friends, loved ones and co-workers. Decide what your corporate policy is here and change your plans accordingly. If you wish to allow it, you will need to monitor the plans and adjust them on a regular basis. If you decide against it, ask your wireless carrier to add a SMS restriction to your lines effective immediately. (Fees will be prorated and your next bill might be a bit crowded, but it will save you possible overage charges.)
5. Using email or surfing the web on your cell? You need a data plan.  Find those users and add a matching data plan. This seems obvious, but often we see a few phone lines that are missing a data plan, yet data is being used
6. Is your plan outdated? Make sure you are on updated, promotional rates if available. If applicable, review your contract for discounts.
7. Directory Assistance. Encourage your team to program Google 411 into their speed dial (1-800-GOOG-411, or 1-800-466-4411). This is a free service and beats $1.79 per minute.
8. International Service This is a big expense for many companies that travel worldwide. Whether you are making international calls or roaming internationally, there are many solutions out there that reduce your cost by 50% or more. International SIM card vendors are a dime a dozen and provide you with access to the very same networks that U.S. carriers utilize. They typically bundle a U.S. forwarding account (local or 800#) that travelers can reference on their voicemail when going abroad. If you wish to forward your cell number, keep in mind that the carrier does charge a forwarding rate, but this is typically still much less than paying up to $3.99 per minute in some countries.

If you are really serious about staying optimized and organized, look into expense management software. The ROI is a no-brainer.

Saving money saves jobs.

These are easy to implement and well worth the time! If you manage wireless for your company, think as if you were the CEO. A few hours of your time can save thousands of dollars to the company’s bottom line!