ISI Helps TV Studio Save More Than $170,000 on Telecommunications

As management guru Stephen Covey once said, “Sometimes the main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing”. For one Chicago-based television and film production studio, however, keeping the main thing front and center meant missing an opportunity to dramatically reduce its telecommunications bill.

“As is typical in many companies today, this client had a good technical and financial team in place, but were limited in their time and expertise to deal with the multitude of carriers, contracts, and invoices,” wrote ISI (News - Alert) Telemanagement Solutions in a recent case study.

The production studio’s staff was preoccupied with the main task of producing television programs and films, as well as managing the expansion of its main facility into another building. The staff was just too thin to support a cost-cutting expedition through its various telecommunications bills.

Yet, the studio knew it needed to reevaluate its telecom spend, as they were shelling out more than $50,000 per month on telecommunications. And that figure was growing.

“Having recognized their limitations, the client was very comfortable bringing in ISI’s team of experienced experts to work with them in achieving their desired telecom cost reduction,” the case study noted.

After looking at the studio’s existing expenses, the savings that ISI identified were truly profound.  When ISI was done eliminating unneeded services, and optimizing those that were necessary, it saved the studio $172,000 in annual spending, and discovered an additional $13,000 of vendor credits due to billing errors that had caused the studio to overpay in the past.

The two biggest savings came from reducing cellular telephone expenses and renegotiating the studio’s SBC contract, as well as dropping AT&T (News - Alert) as a secondary vendor.

ISI was able to reduce the studio’s cellular costs by $31,600, a 25 percent reduction annually. With the SBC renegotiation, and the elimination of AT&T as a vendor, the studio saved nearly $100,000 per year.

Other areas where ISI found room to save included; optimizing pagers and cutting unused telecom services. ISI found that that it could reduce pager costs by 80 percent by renegotiating pager rates and eliminating unused pagers.

Moreover, identifying and cutting unnecessary services led the studio to save an additional $5,000 annually. This cost shaving, which lead to the $172,000 in annual savings was only the first part of ISI’s solution. From here, ISI paved the way for easier telecommunications bill management in the future by consolidating billing. This made it easier and less costly to manage.

So, while Stephen Covey might have had it right when it comes to focusing on a firm’s core business, sometimes it pays to bring in a second set of eyes to look over details such as telecom spend.

ISI Telemanagement Solutions (News - Alert) (News - Alert) Inc. is committed to providing solutions designed to increase organizations' efficiency, productivity and profitability, by providing reporting and recording tools for enhanced telecom management. We understand that each company's needs are unique and, therefore, we provide a robust set of tools to address every situation.

ISI's Solutions portfolio brings together time-proven technologies to report and record on your voice and video communications, including real-time wireless and landline Call Accounting & Reporting, Telecom Audit & Optimization, Voice & Video Call Recording, Invoice & Inventory Management, and Wireless Management. ISI's facilities, processes, and data security comply with ISO 9001:2008,SAS (News - Alert) (News - Alert) 70, HIPAA, Safe Harbor and other important standards.