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| March 2010 |
 In This Issue
The Return of Capital Expenditures - Good News for All of Us By Tim Wise, While the last 18 months (also known as the Great Recession) have been extremely challenging for all of us, we are beginning to see the early stages of growth and reinvestment in enterprises. Specifically, over the past four months, we have seen a surge in demand for assistance from our clients and the broader market in infrastructure planning for data centers, telephony and contact center platforms. All of these initiatives demand significant capital expenditures exceeding a minimum of $1 million with some over $30 million. This demand should be encouraging all of us in terms of overall business confidence and future economic growth. Beginning in January 2008, we saw these infrastructure projects pause or reduce in size, then permanently halt around September 15, 2008, corresponding with the Lehman failure. On that date, it was like every CFO instructed every CIO to stop spending money - especially on capital expenditures - and to cut operating expenses quickly. Now, with the economy on more solid footing and the realities of deferred capital investment on business growth, our clients are beginning to plan for those upgrades and reinvestments. Challenges on the Global Telecom Procurement Front By Gerry Carson, Managing Consultant, Advocate Networks, LLC For all types of strategic procurement, success is getting a vendor to apply a discount based on total volume of spend, for a product offering that meets or exceeds your needs. While volume of spend is not the only driver of price, the key challenge in global telecom procurement is getting discounts commensurate with total spend. This challenge is surmountable and requires driving vendors to respond based on one single business case. Many vendors, particularly large operators, are structured by region and also further divide responsibility by product. This can lead to pricing based on the parts and not the sum, thereby reducing the client's leverage and procurement savings. How can this be overcome? Vendors that have large global structures, with both retail and wholesale channels, must be held accountable to produce a single business case. This means that a vendor's North America or Asia-Pacific team cannot be allowed to provide bid responses individually. The business case for telecom vendors is driven by total spend, total incremental discount dollars, and total incremental EBITDA over a certain time horizon. Process and knowledge of the telecom vendor business case is required to maximize savings and negotiate successful multi-year deals. Product Management: An Ounce of Prevention... By Tom McLean, Senior Consultant, Advocate Networks, LLC It sounds like an old cliché, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That cliché, along with "history repeats itself" and "I did not see that one coming" can apply to many decisions or questions regarding service provider products, such as telephones, high-speed internet or video. Several common questions arise:
What do the before-mentioned clichés have to do with any of this?
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Advocate Networks and PRGX Form Strategic Alliance Advocate Networks, LLC and PRGX Global, Inc. entered into a strategic alliance to expand the recovery audit capabilities they can deliver to their clients. PRGX is the world's leader in recovery auditing and a pioneer in a new category of services called "profit discovery," the combination of audit, analytics and advisory services to improve client financial performance. Customer Spotlight: Numerex By Scott Fogle, Co-President & Co-Founder,
Ongoing Community Service: Children's Christmas Parade
"We had an awesome time volunteering at the Children's Healthcare Parade," said Carrisa Baptiste, manager of wireless help desk and order management at Advocate Networks. "I'm sure we helped put smiles on a lot of children's faces while also representing one of our company's guiding principles: 'Give back to the community - we have been given so much.'" Look For Us! CTAM's Cable & Telecommunications Industry Fundraiser: SkiTAM VHA Georgia Trustee Institute ATP Golf Tournament The World of IT Financial Management |
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To learn how Advocate Networks can reduce your communications expenses, please contact Scott Fogle at (678) 987-5990 or scott.fogle@advocatenetworks.com. Referrals are always appreciated (and rewarded)! Please contact Marina Harmon at marina.harmon@advocatenetworks.com for information about our referral program. |
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Numerex has worked with Advocate Networks for a number of years, including on the most recent engagement to reduce our telecom infrastructure costs. Through Advocate Networks' in-depth knowledge of multi-layered benchmark pricing, we were provided with visibility into the attainable savings picture. Advocate Networks led us through a very detailed and disciplined process, working with both the legacy and multiple prospective telecom providers. Our final savings result even exceeded initial estimates, which of course drops right to the bottom line! Thus, we highly recommend Advocate Networks when it comes to reducing your telecom spend.
Members of the Advocate Networks team gathered early the morning of December 5, 2009 to volunteer for the 29th annual Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Christmas Parade. For the second consecutive year, Advocate Networks gave back to the community and kicked off the holiday season by participating in the parade's Wheels Committee, making sure groups in the parade were lined up and properly organized.