The First Step in Creating Cost Savings for Your Telecom Services

telecom services

The first step to creating the cost savings that your organization needs to realize from your telecom services is a full audit of all existing telecom and network contracts on a global basis. This audit allows us to see things that may have been missed or forgotten over the life of the contract. These are things like:

  • Contracted services. When reviewing contracts, one of the first things we note is exactly what services are promised in the contract. An easy way to start identifying telecom cost savings is by figuring out what you are paying for if you need it, and if you are receiving it.
  • Expiration dates. Some service providers include evergreen clauses in their contracts that state if no action is taken, the contract automatically renews. By noting expiration dates, we are able to make sure contracts that need to be canceled are canceled. Identifying evergreen clauses also allows us to bring services to your attention that you may not realize you’re paying for anymore.
  • Out-of-date services. If you contracted for specific services years ago, odds are they are now out-of-date due to the rapid technological progress in the telecom field. Understanding the services you are paying for, and the alternatives now available, can help you streamline them to lower your bottom line.
  • Expired services. There’s a better than a good chance that if your internal IT team discontinued service or product, and the contract associated with that service was never renegotiated, you are still paying for that service. A contract audit can reveal these kinds of issues. 
  • Other contractual obligations, such as SLAs. A contract audit can also reveal ways to save money through SLA credits or other clauses built in to provide restitution for poor service. 

This clear view of your contractual objectives and delivered services allows the creation of an assessment that either:

  • provides a strategy for migration to less expensive and more robust technology or 
  • allows for renegotiation and lowered costs for currently installed services.

Either of these documents will be the foundation of the cost savings process moving forward. 

At BlackFin Square, we have also found that this audit process allows us to create a baseline expense model for telecom spend that can then be used to compare multiple provider solutions and foundational costs. This financial comparison between providers is a great executive tool that easily shows opportunity costs, proposed savings, migration costs, and an install base. It can also be used to establish fiscal year budget baselines.

No matter what your second step is in the process of lowering your telecom spend, a contract audit absolutely has to be the first step. It’s the only guaranteed way to know exactly where your telecom and network dollars are going and whether those places are the best places for those dollars to be spent.

Learn more about how you could be saving big on your telecom services!

Why Telecom Costs Can Be So Complicated

telecom costs

Telecom services are a huge portion of the budget of your enterprise organization. However, it tends to be the part of the budget that no one really has a complete grasp on. Since telecom services are so crucial to your organization’s function, you know that services can be expensive, but sometimes it’s hard to grasp why your telecom costs are so high.

We’ve helped many organizations streamline and lower their overall telecom costs and can help to shed a little light on this problem. 

First, to effectively run an enterprise organization requires network and telecom services that cover multiple locations, usually in different cities, states, or even countries. These services are usually contracted over time, as offices move, or as a business is acquired. When this happens, it can be easy to lose track of these different contracted services leaving your IT organization with contracts for services that are outdated, insufficient, and expensive. 

Secondly, organizations can easily find themselves in situations where they are paying for services that are not installed, services that were disconnected and then never dropped off the invoice, or services they never wanted in the first place. This happens more often than you imagine. Service providers are also notorious for practices where they either bill you for services you didn’t contract for, switch you to a different service with no notice, or both.

Many enterprise organizations can also find themselves overpaying because they are not taking advantage of their purchasing power and leveraged agreements. By consolidating all of your service contracts under one master account, you can realize savings that come from realizing your true purchasing power. 

Finally, most service contracts come with clauses that guarantee a certain level of service and, if that service is not delivered for any reason, they offer a credit for the time of the outage or service impairment. These are called “Service Level Agreements” or SLAs. Many organizations that experience poor service or outages are eligible for credits through their contracted SLA but most organizations that experience these impairments are not submitting for their SLA credits, leaving free money on the table.

Having it laid out in such stark terms can make you wonder how any of this could happen. But there’s a reason that telecom is the most notoriously difficult spend category in organizations. The vast majority of organizations don’t have a grasp on their contractual obligations such as when contracts expire, what exactly are the contracted services, or they can’t find contracts and aren’t even checking to see if their invoices are correct. 

This leads to financial consequences for the entire enterprise. Telecom services are a place where a significant amount of money can be saved if there is an organized approach to auditing, reviewing, and researching the current telecom contracts. It can take a large amount of time, but the results are worth it.

Learn more about how you could be saving big on your telecom services.

Ultimate Guide to Managed Telecom

Thoughts to Consider Before Choosing an SD-WAN Vendor

SD-WAN Vendor

SD-WAN has emerged as the must-have technology for distributed organizations. With benefits such as increased network speed and ease of use, it has helped many businesses connect their disparate offices in one, relatively seamless network. If you are thinking about adopting this white-hot technology, here are some things to consider as you evaluate your SD-WAN vendor options.

The first thing to determine is what your future needs are for connecting your employees while evaluating the business value that SD-WAN can bring to your business. When prioritizing the features you want Lee Doyle of Network World recommends asking these questions:

  • How many branch locations do you currently have? How many employees are at distributed branches?
  • Which applications are mission critical to distributed employees? Where are these applications hosted? (data center, SaaS, public cloud)
  • What are the current WAN bandwidth requirements at each location and how fast is the demand for WAN bandwidth growing? What is your current spending on WAN bandwidth?
  • What are your key security requirements at the branch?

When you’ve answered these, you can move on to looking for a potential SD-WAN service provider that can help you implement your SD-WAN solution.

Do you want a DIY approach or a managed solution?

A managed services approach to SD-WAN technology means you will choose a vendor that will take on your SD-WAN project end-to-end. They will work with you to determine your needs and what features you want and use that information to choose a technology solution. They will navigate the vendor selection process and manage the relationship once your SD-WAN solution is up and running. They will take care of the necessary updates and routine maintenance.

If you choose to go for an internally managed system, the DIY approach, you will need to review technology vendors yourself to choose the one that best suits your bandwidth requirements and current WAN/LAN architecture. The right product matters, so this is something you’ll want to think through. 

What network security options are you looking for?

When you invest in SD-WAN technology, you also gain the ability to secure unreliable Internet links and traffic flows. They generally provide basic firewall capabilities as well as content filtering, endpoint identification and management, and policy enforcement capabilities. They can also deploy packet identification to understand your traffic flows that determine if traffic is coming from a trusted location. It’s important to talk to your technology vendor to understand the specific network security capabilities they offer with their SD-WAN options.

How easy is the deployment?

When you have remote offices, you may or may not have on-location IT staff. If you don’t have IT staff on location, you need to ensure that whatever SD-WAN option you choose is easily deployed and understood by those without deep technical knowledge. SD-WAN products should be plug-and-play with WAN circuits and remote configuration. They should easily integrate into the existing network equipment and network security products at the branch.

What does your current WAN/LAN branch architecture look like?

Unless you are getting rid of your current set-up and starting from scratch, you will already have a base of WAN and LAN equipment already deployed that a new SD-WAN solution will need to integrate with. This can include routers, firewalls, IP VPNs, LAN switches, Wi-Fi controllers, and WAN optimization products. While SD-WAN technology usually integrates well with your existing set-up, it will probably require you to deploy another piece of equipment at your branch locations. This process gives your IT department the opportunity to review your existing set-up and review what’s working and what could be replaced. 

If you’re looking to find a partner for your SD-WAN managed services, we can help. Contact us for a free consultation. 

Trends in SD-WAN You Need to Know About

SD-WAN

2020 is going to be a year of innovation. Businesses are poised to embrace the Internet of Things (IoT) more fully and rely more and more on the cloud to lower costs and remain agile. This means that the white-hot SD-WAN market will continue to explode with more vendors and suppliers introducing new products or building on their existing offerings. In fact, PRNewswire’s research shows that the SD-WAN market and the like will exceed $5 Billion dollars by 2025. 

With all of this, what should we expect? We expect you will see innovations in cloud onramps, support for leading SaaS applications, security and management/automation platforms as the year goes on. But what else is in store for SD-WAN this year? Here are the top five trends we’re watching this year.

Improved security, both in vendor partnerships and built into the technology.

The nature of SD-WAN, leveraging the bandwidth of mostly unsecured internet connections, makes it particularly vulnerable security-wise. Since the beginning, SD-WAN vendors have beefed up their offerings with additional security to ensure data remains safe. This year, we expect that SD-WAN suppliers will continue to improve the depth and breadth of their native security protocols to counter the rising tide of cybercrime.

Additionally, we expect that SD-WAN suppliers will start to take advantage of strategic partnerships with big-name security firms, building those capabilities into their offerings. These partnerships should offer a one-stop security solution for easy orchestration and management, along with the ability to include analytics that may warn on impending attacks.

Enhanced integration with large cloud providers.

No business uses just one cloud provider anymore. The offerings are too numerous and too critical to limit to just one application. In the coming year, you can expect SD-WAN to give your employees a seamless user experience, no matter what cloud-based application they are using. SD-WAN automation will also make adding new cloud applications easier than ever, despite the inherent complexities. 

Greater extension of SD-WAN deployment.

SD-WAN deployment is poised to break out of the office in the coming year. As our lives become ever more technology-enabled, the SD-WAN edge will continue to expand to ships, trains, and even the backpacks of first responders, wherever high-quality cloud-connected activity is needed. This trend will drive WAN transformation beyond the office and into every aspect of the way business is done.

Better support for SaaS.

With the expansion of business reliance on the cloud, SaaS providers have become more and more crucial to the way business gets done. But it’s challenging for today’s IT departments to guarantee the quality of service to these applications because of non-standard services, security mechanisms, APIs and management tools. Currently, it’s up to the IT department to clear each SaaS provider within the SD-WAN management portal. We expect this to change in the coming year. Knowing the importance of the critical SaaS applications, SD-WAN suppliers will continue to improve their automation of policies designed to deliver appropriate QoS without IT intervention.

Service providers enhance their offerings to include managed service options.

Currently, about half of enterprises who have deployed SD-WAN are using a managed services solution, and service providers have taken notice and are gearing up to meet this need. A select few service providers already have years of pilots under their belts. Many have realized that their initial technology options were too limiting to their customers. This year, they will amp up their SD-WAN solutions offerings to more fully satisfy the needs of their customers.

If you’re looking to find a partner for your SD-WAN managed services, we can help. Contact us for a free consultation. 

5 Myths About Migrating to SD-WAN

SD-WAN

SD-WAN systems have been receiving a lot of hype recently and for good reason. In fact, according to Avant Communications, SD-WAN has the highest RDI in the State of Disruption study. 

SD-WAN is taking off and there are many benefits to adding an SD-WAN system to your network’s infrastructure. But, there are some myths circulating out there about what it can do versus traditional systems as well. Let’s cut through the confusion and explore five common myths about it.

SD-WAN will totally replace MPLS.

In one word, no. There is no way for SD-WAN to provide guaranteed Quality of Service (see myth #2) which means that businesses will always need reliable transportation for their data, whether it’s MPLS or another form. It will change the way that your Internet connectivity and MPLS combine to give you the connectivity to your business needs. However, as long as you need to ensure your business traffic and applications run uninterrupted, there will always be a need for MPLS.

SD-WAN can ensure Quality of Service (QoS).

This one may seem counterintuitive as one of the many benefits touted by SD-WAN enthusiasts is that they guarantee QoS by measuring packet loss, jitter, and latency and compensate for them. That is true but, and this is a big one, it only compensates for them by finding a better path. What it does is make real-time, policy-based routing decisions based on current network performance indicators. But, if there is no good path available, it cannot guarantee you QoS. 

SD-WAN is the same as WAN optimization.

While these two are complementary concepts, they are not the same thing. The goal of WAN optimization is to reduce the bandwidth consumed within a WAN. This service is designed for TCP traffic that is not delay-sensitive. A side benefit of this is that it will make more room for delay-sensitive traffic, like VOIP, and boost its quality. SD-WAN deals with delay-sensitive and real-time traffic differently. Rather than having to optimize your network for better bandwidth, it actively searches out a better path for your traffic. Combining these two is a powerful way to boost your network’s performance.

SD-WAN is only superior to MPLS because of cost.

It is true that SD-WANs are cheaper than MPLS but there are more benefits than just lower costs. They are also easier to manage, operate, and maintain. You don’t need to be an expert to run an SD-WAN. Their controls are centralized, GUI based, and easier to work with than a traditional MPLS. This argument also makes a false dichotomy; you don’t have to choose one over the other. As we have mentioned before, it is not going to replace MPLS. SD-WAN will enhance MPLS, making your network traffic more reliable and smoother.

An SD-WAN will cut down on overall networking costs.

This system will optimize your business’s IT spend. It allows your network to be optimized for price and performance. Whether it reduces your overall spend depends on the applications you are using. However, it can reduce your commercial and operational costs by allowing you to support multiple network functions, like routing, firewall, and WAN acceleration, in one, rather than purchasing and maintaining multiple devices.

If you’re looking to make the migration to SD-WAN, we can help. Contact us for a free consultation. 

What to Look for in a Managed SD-WAN Partner

SD-WAN Partner

SD-WAN, or software-defined wide-area network, can bring many benefits to companies large and small but can be tricky to deploy. You know the benefits of bringing on a managed partner for your SD-WAN needs, but now you’re faced with many partner choices and don’t know which one to choose. Here are some questions to consider in helping you find the best SD-WAN partner.

What is their quality assurance process like? 

SD-WAN relies heavily on software, so it’s crucial that any managed partner you choose has a strong quality assurance, or QA, arm that’s able to vet any code before it’s rolled out system-wide. You don’t want a bug to infect your system because your partner didn’t fully test the code before rolling it out.

Do they have deep domain expertise? 

You’ll want to choose a partner that specializes in SD-WAN while also understanding that SD-WAN is a relatively new field and there are many aspects to it. Your chosen partner should have more than just expertise in SD-WAN. They should understand what your existing network looks like and all your application requirements, and how that will impact your SD-WAN needs.

Do they have flexible deployment plans? 

Many companies like to test SD-WAN in a few locations or areas before rolling it out company-wide. The best managed partners will be flexible enough to accommodate these kinds of tests before managing a full-scale rollout. They will also work on your schedule and with your requirements in mind.

How agile are they? 

What if you want to use your SD-WAN technology for other forms of virtualization, such as consuming network functions on demand? Your managed partner should have adaptive network control that can let you dial up or dial down network capacity on-demand to meet your needs. They should also easily manage virtual connections to cloud providers. SD-WAN should complement the agility that the cloud has brought to business, not hinder it.

Do they offer multiple connectivity options? 

MPLS. Internet. Wireless. SD-WAN can work with them all. It will be easier to build a best-in-class network if you choose a managed partner that offers a variety of transport options. Better partners will let you use your existing services, even if they are through a competing carrier. The best partners will take on the management of those relationships.

What security options do they offer? 

Security is more important now than it ever has been. Your managed partner should have substantial security options that you can opt in to, if you choose. These are features like intrusion detection and prevention (IDS/IPS), unified threat management, distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) prevention, and encryption.

If you’re looking to find a partner for your SD-WAN managed services, we can help. Contact us for a free consultation. 

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