I’ll Take One Telecom Audit by Any Other Name Please
As a former mid-level manager for a large financial institution and a corporation, I was never comfortable with the word “audit.” Like many people, I was extremely apprehensive about my telecom department being subject to a telecommunications audit! In fact, I even lost a few nights’ sleep over it, even though I had been in charge of the telecommunication department for less than a year and I had full management support for what I was trying to accomplish.
Managing worldwide telecommunications is stressful enough without having a full-blown audit thrown at you, too. However, after I saw the astounding results of telecom cost savings, the audit became more acceptable to me, and I was able to see the process as being positive for my company, my staff and myself. I was able to buy more high-tech toys for my I.T. department, increase staff and gain more control over my telecommunications billing network as a result of the telecom audit. In fact, I ended up enjoying the telecom audit project so much that I eventually became a telecom auditor myself!
Nevertheless, now that I am a professional telecommunications auditor serving many other companies, I still don’t really feel comfortable with the word “audit!” My clients, peers and most I.T. employees I talk to don’t, either. Others have even opined that the word “audit” produces a feeling of anxiety and they foresee visions of a witch hunt or a method that might be used to embarrass someone or exploit a management or system weakness. Will the audit itself be used as a way to get someone fired? In the modern telecom audit world, those fears with some telecom audit projects are not totally out of line.
Face it, nobody really wants an outside consultant (stranger) coming in to their company and telling them they can do a job a lot better and more efficiently, and find telecom cost savings of up to millions of dollars. There is the danger that any kind of an audit can produce the feeling that one is under close scrutiny, or that someone is looking for negative information with an audit. Folks who have some pride in their work (most of us) know that having one’s department or work being thoroughly analyzed can be unsettling.
Upon presenting huge cost savings to upper management, “whose fault is that? Or who should have known about these problems?” are questions I have been asked many times. My truthful response has most often been, “only a professional telecommunications auditor could have found these particular issues; they are beyond the scope and expertise of most I.T. employees and managers.”
As I think more about the word “audit” and its often negative perception in the corporate world, I wonder if that is why a great number of companies do not choose a telecom audit in order to reduce the billions of dollars of telecommunications overcharges stolen by the phone companies every year. Think about it: if you save a million dollars for client CFO’s, does that put them in the hot seat or make them a company hero? I’ve seen upper management and directors perceive huge telecom audit cost savings in both ways.
So there is some risk in the telecom audit outcome. However, overwhelmingly, smart managers know that cost-cutting is great business and the right thing to do, and proprietary telecom staffs are simply not equipped to outsmart the telecommunications companies. Nevertheless, I’ve seen CEOs and board members get testy when shown huge telecom audit savings results. After all, its human to be upset at discovering a wasteful financial drain.
As telecom auditors, we must be aware of the real perceptions of corporate employees and managers as they view our profession and our huge cost savings and financial impact on their companies. Again, achieving significant cost savings can create a controversy within an organization.
That is why during the telecom audit process, it is so important to build bridges and display and genuinely stress positive teamwork with the client. The client must understand that they are a vital part of the telecom audit project’s cost saving success and they should share in that success. Moreover, that they should embrace getting a telecom audit, not fear it. However, people will still have their own perceptions about what an audit does, but it depends on their situation within the organization and how we as professional telecom auditors mold the business community’s perception of what we do in a positive way.
In this environment of huge cost-cutting and cutbacks by American businesses, we telecommunications auditors and others related to the industry know that a telecom audit is a great way to gain telecom costs savings and cut expense items on one of the main three largest expense items in a large company’s capital budget. Every business should have a contingency-fee based telecom audit. There is nothing to lose and everything to gain, but many still don’t choose to have one. Why is that?
I have a couple of theories why the floodgates aren’t open and the hundreds of expert telecommunications auditors are not given the opportunity to attack the billions of dollars in potential telecommunications savings often enough at this particular time in our country’s history. First, let’s go back to the “A” word. Line employees fear losing their jobs; subjecting them to a telecom audit might push them over the edge or make them feel they may be next out the door. Second, upper management is also in fear of losing their jobs, and exposing a huge amount of telecom cost savings under their watch might push them out the door. Put simply, it’s called CYA. Getting corporate wide acceptance of a comprehensive telecommunications audit is rare.
Merriam Webster’s definition of the word “audit” is actually pretty tame: “A formal examination of an organization’s or individual’s accounts or financial situation or the final report of an audit-a methodical examination and review.” Most of us could live with this definition. However, as we look at other audit definitions on the world wide web, particularly as they relate to the term “financial audit,” I found some negative word descriptions such as “scrutinize”, “inspect,” “examine,” “verifying reliability” and “integrity of information.” If these terms are what some people expect from a telecom audit, then we need a softer title and description for what we do that is more in line with Merriam Webster’s definition of “audit.”
A prospective telecommunications audit client should look at it this way: you are a CFO and in charge of lowering telecom costs. You’ve been in charge of telecom finance for many years. You are responsible for expense and checks and balances. As a good manager who wants to ensure you’re getting what you pay for and cost controls, you hire a telecom auditor to perform a telecom audit. The audit finds you’ve been overpaying by millions of dollars over the years, and your favorite employee, the I.T. manager, has cost the company a huge amount of money because his staff has not properly reviewed the telephone invoices. Although he is short staffed and ill-equipped. How is your CEO going to perceive the telecom cost savings situation?
Telecom audit companies must do a better job of getting the majority of companies out there engaged in a telecom audit. My peers and I are anxious to recover the billions of dollars out there being wasted by potential clients and so should U.S. businesses.
My recommendation is to rename the telecom audit project to be reflected as “telecom analysis project.” We are no longer telecommunication auditors, we are telecommunication analysts.
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Does your company need a contingency-fee based telecom cost savings audit? Call the telecommunications audit professionals at 1-888-487-5326 or contact us at Telecom Audit.
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