As the remote and mobile workforce continues to boost the growth of new mobile devices connected to the enterprise, savings, security and accountability are top of mind for IT decision makers wary of the long-term implications. For those businesses adopting individual liable programs to cut costs and avoid the tax requirements, be warned: While this option can be appealing for bringing savings in the short-term, it can be paralyzing in the long run.

According to IT research firm Gartner, how enterprises buy their wireless services has changed in the past few years – more than 60 percent of midsize and large companies have moved away from buying individual plans, which are the least efficient in reducing costs.

However, newer services, such as pooling plans, flat-rate plans, and zero-minute phones all need to be carefully evaluated to ensure that they are offering maximum value across the organization.

Regardless of their liability policies, for enterprises looking to receive the greatest benefit possible from wireless services, industry experts urge that it’s imperative to implement effective telecom lifecycle management practices.

According to Troy McCracken, CEO of Spectrum, the primary benefits of corporate liable versus individual liable wireless devices include:

• Corporate control over handsets, e-mail and data that reside on a handset. When an employee leaves the company, devices returned and all confidential information can be retained or destroyed.

• Corporate control over applications that can be downloaded or, purchased.

• Control of costs by optimizing the enterprises spend across all employees rather than employee by employee.

• Control cost by aggregating the total spend for deeper discounts, better feature pricing and better negotiated contract terms with the carriers.

• Centralized management of corporate assets.

• Ability to share minutes or pool from across the enterprise.

• Reduction of manpower hours and end-to-end cost of processing expense reimbursements and vendor payments.

• Devices can be provisioned to provide behind the firewall applications with corporate IT security policies in place, allowing the users to be more productive and efficient while out of the office.

• Streamlined helpdesk support for company approved devices.

• Improved technical knowledge of approved devices while increasing helpdesk efficiencies.

• Economies of scale in spare parts, accessories, etc.
  

Gartner also advises companies to move from individual liability plans to corporate liability plans that allow for better control of costs through the optimization of wireless services and corporate discounting.

“The adoption and standardization of corporate liable mobile phones in the enterprise has been driven by the use of smartphones, wireless e-mail and the integration of these phones into IP telephony systems, while improved in-building coverage and lower mobile service costs have also played a part,” said Phil Redman, research vice president at Gartner.

According to Gartner, 80 percent of enterprises will overspend on their wireless service costs by an average of 15 percent through 2014, so it would appear that on the whole, companies are not adequately managing their wireless expenses.

“What we are seeing almost across the board in companies is that the wireless expenses are not being allocated back to specific departments or cost centers,” McCracken said. “This becomes an issue when overages occur and the question is who gets that additional expense applied to their department or cost center.”

However, it depends on the individual company and the resources they can allocate to the management of their wireless infrastructure.

“Many enterprises are in-process of evaluating organizational benefits from a corporate or employee responsible policy. It’s an issue we hear frequently,” said Timothy Colwell, AOTMP`s vice president of knowledge operations. “Oftentimes, the lines of personal and business are crossed, imposing liabilities that could be negative for the company.”