Inefficient telecoms cost big business billions

Big businesses worldwide are wasting £12 billion a year by failing to deploy their telecom services efficiently, Hudson & Yorke has said.

Firms should engage with specialists, which could include VoIP providers, in order to lower their costs and improve their service, according to the telecommunications and network consultancy.

Eight out of ten telecoms sourcing projects, possibly including those for VoIP solutions, are not as cost effective as they could be, a Hudson & Yorke study found.

Companies could save up to 20 per cent on each contract spend by committing more time to acquiring such services, the research, conducted by business strategy specialists Forrester Consulting, found.

CIOs are paying out up to 20 per cent of IT budgets on telecom services like IP telephony solutions, but assigning under a fifth of team time to managing them.

Large organisations can also reduce the cost and enhance the service of their telecoms by planning ahead of implementation, committing more time to the project, and multisourcing.

Big businesses are increasing the speed at which they adopt unified communications, despite the economic downturn, technology industry analyst Ovum said recently.