The Challenge

This large financial institution provides its 13,000 employees with over 22,000 wireless devices from multiple telecom service providers, which means multiple invoices to reconcile. The accounting department had become aware that, numerous times, payments had been applied to the wrong mobile account by the provider, but it was unable to confirm the bank’s telecom costs without accurate internal information. With no central record of asset allocation, invoices had to be circulated for verification by individual device-holders –­ a long process with little governance, that did not bring to light devices that were no longer being used but were still active.

In an effort to ensure correctly reconciled invoices, the nationwide bank had implemented a telecom expense management (TEM) solution some years previously. Its aims were to obtain a clear and detailed view of which employees had which devices, and how much they were using them. However, it had not been able to clearly address this challenge with its first TEM vendor or even a second one.

Before searching for a better solution, the bank refined its requirements list. As well as establishing clear links between devices, device-holders, plans, and usage, the bank wanted visibility over cancellations and upgrades, and it wished to prevent inappropriate use of mobile devices by employees.

Upland Cimpl – managed services accelerate success

The Upland Cimpl solution is a flexible platform that can be adapted to customers’ needs, with managed services to accelerate their journey to full cost control. The bank took full advantage of both these aspects.

The accounting team now has full, centralized visibility over end-users and the devices assigned to them, with their associated plans and usage. Inventories are automatically updated every time new devices are received and plans are cancelled or upgraded.

Upland Cimpl’s experts conduct regular audits on invoices, and analyses of the telecom environment, identifying billing discrepancies and devices that are no longer being used but still being billed.