A 1000-location pharmacy chain saves $32,000 a month with Upland Cimpl

A manual system was no longer sustainable for this nationwide retailer. Cimpl automated and simplified their telecom environment, helping them save.

The Challenge

With over 1000 points of sale across the nation, this large pharmacy chain was using spreadsheets and a manual process to manage its mobile device fleet and wireline telecom spend with 35 service providers. Several spreadsheets were circulated around different departments in an effort to track inventory, validate monthly invoices, and make sure that employees had the telecom services they needed to stay productive.

Operator invoices were organized but lacked details on the type of services billed to each device, which stores held which devices, contract information and more. It was impossible to understand whether contracts were being honoured, or whether all charges were legitimate. Wireless and wireline assets, contracts, and usage were getting increasingly difficult to track, and a significant amount of time was spent on trying to manage the retailer’s telecom environment and keep a somewhat accurate inventory.

It was evident that they needed a better system. But they also needed assistance and support to access the information that would enable them to efficiently validate and track their telecom services and assets.

Cimpl – customized automation and assistance

The pharmacy chain chose Cimpl, with its self-serve portal. This allows employees to confirm the assets and services assigned to them, providing an accurate and trackable inventory, and enabling automated validation and payment of invoices, which the telecom team uploads to the platform on a monthly basis. Self-serve also allows employees to initiate asset or service requests, and the resulting work orders are processed automatically. As orders go through, adding new devices or transferring them to other employees, the inventory is updated automatically. With an integrated HR feed, new employees are instantly added to the self-serve portal.

The retailer also uses the Cimpl platform’s configurable report-generating capability. The monthly reports the telecom team receives include billing discrepancies in wireless and wireline, and the state of the inventory. They also receive an analysis of potential savings, put together by our managed services team.

Additionally, to ensure they continue to get the most out of the platform, the telecom team joins our monthly webinars.

Benefits – reduced costs, increased inventory accuracy

The pharmacy chain’s telecom team has been able to save 126 hours per month, thanks to the self-serve portal and managed services. Our experts have also identified recurring savings of $32,000 per month, by removing active devices that were no longer in use, correcting billing errors, and implementing contracts that are appropriate to needs. The company has also attained inventory accuracy of 92% and drastically reduced the time required to keep it up to date.

These improvements have helped the customer save 26% of their annual spend, and attain an ROI of 106%. They continue to evolve their telecom expense management program for better oversight of their environment and even greater savings.