Internet Solutions (IS) has announced the launch of its hosted telephone management system (TMS) solution that will enable organisations of all sizes to better manage telecommunications expenses and costs. This is achieved through call accounting and cost recovery across fixed line, VOIP and voice infrastructure services. 

“Many organisations don't have a holistic view of the collective telecommunications costs they incur, and therefore can't accurately budget and recover those costs by apportioning them to appropriate internal business units and cost centres,” comments Wayne Speechly, Business Development Manager; Communication Services at IS.

“However, our TMS solution now offers businesses a best of breed technology and management solution that can measure, collect and properly allocate all telephony costs incurred by an organisation, and ensure that these costs can be managed on a individual line item, departmental and organisational level” he continues. The solution also has the ability to capture other fixed infrastructure costs, such as line rentals, handset purchases, licenses and hardware infrastructure, to appropriately bill internal customers and reduce any inefficiency a company may have with regard to their total telecoms spend. “The provision of telephone management systems is not new to the market, but the appropriate and correct application of this function is very poorly adopted by some business. With the correct collection; costing and apportioning of costs, there is very little value added,” says Speechly. This solution also offers advanced management reporting; budget management at a user and departmental level, and aggregated dashboard information. “Part of the advanced reporting includes useful information on abuse of company telephony services, be it for personal use or general misuse, which if used can assist in initiatives to further reduce call costs and improve efficiency.” 

Speechly explains that businesses are not required to be on the voice over IS (VoIS) network to procure the IS TMS solution, as it uses onsite buffer technology to connect to any PABX system, via the cloud, to collect call data records (CDR’s) from all customer sites. “As this solution is delivered on a Software as a Service (SaaS) basis, the management and maintenance is fully outsourced, allowing businesses to further improve operational efficiency by freeing up internal resources, who can then focus on more important operational elements.” The SaaS model also allows IS to bill on a per-user, per-month basis and allows customers to scale to any number of sites or users on demand. 

“Also included in the service offering is the updating of all service provider input cost data, which is included in the itemised billing, to offer an all-inclusive view of a customer's telecommunication costs,” continues Speechly. “This reporting is provided to customers on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, depending on each customer's individual requirements.”

As part of the TMS launch offering IS is providing customers with the first month's subscription at no charge, to enable the collection and provisioning of the first report. “Once customers see the value they receive in the detailed reporting we offer we are confident that they will have no reservations about continuing with the solution,” he explains.

“With the launch for IS' hosted TMS solution companies now have a single comprehensive product that can capture and allocate all telephony call and infrastructure costs, align them with business units and cost centres, and recover the costs accordingly,” says Speechly. “Organisations remain focused on cost minimisation and efficiency improvement and this solution ensures that this is achieved on an ongoing basis,” he concludes.