I’ve seen this quoted twice now and wanted to comment on how deceiving this really is. Both AnchorPoint and Gartner have thrown this number around in webinars and implied most companies can realize this by renegotiating their contracts – some even go so far as to say you can renegotiate anytime. Of course you can, but getting a good deal; not so much. A reasonable disclaimer would be these are pretty much best case scenarios and your results may vary – really vary.

Perhaps you haven’t negotiated a new contract in say 20 years, or your business has grown by 2000% in the last 24 months, or we found a bunch of stuff that wasn’t on your old contract. Stuff like that. But a company that has been diligent about their services and needs? Not likely.

Consider that these statements are based on surveyed results; not actual data that can be checked with any kind of accuracy. These are self-reported numbers. Furthermore, they’re saying that this is an average, which means there are a sufficient number of cases that exceed 36%. What network provider could sustain such an attack on their already narrowing margins?

Also, contracts are not monolithic. In most cases they’re made up of multiple services with many cost elements that don’t lend themselves to a total 36% drop in overall spend. Take LD Voice: There are access costs, feature charges, multiple jurisdictions across individual states and countries, and of course switched and dedicated rates that carriers love to muddle things with on-net/off-net scenarios.

The issue here is evidence-based decision making, with emphasis on the evidence. The TEM/TLM industry should be moving more toward actual standards and methodology. Conveniently citing numbers without fact-checking what’s behind them is not good for business. Customers are rightfully suspicious of consultants because they’ve been burned so many times. Let’s stop that and restore confidence to the profession by using things like utilization modeling based on actual history so we can benchmark results fairly and accurately. Let’s separate the unusual from the usual to show where clean ups of billing issues is a discrete subset. True impacts using apples-apples comparisons is key to credibility. And finally, let’s make it a practice that a before and after study is part of the process so clients can conclusively validate what they’ve saved. If the bottom line number is closer to 17% for a new contract, with another 12% for clean ups, let’s report that and not hide it under the banner of contract savings. This should also add some longevity to engagements by educating customers on how sustain their savings.

Your comments and more important your results would be welcome to see where you’ve come out on renegotiating your telecom contract.