Company: Department of Veterans' Affairs

Web: www.dva.gov.au

Key business focus: Veterans' Affairs is responsible for carrying out Government policy and implementing programs for veterans and their dependants. It also provides services to serving and former members of the Australian Defence Force.

Key challenge: To implement a new mobile telephony solution that would address the Department's goals of reduced call costs, increased visibility of mobile phone assets and usage patters, and measure compliance of mobile usage to the Department's workflow processes.

Macquarie Telecom products and services: GSM and CDMA mobile telephony carriage; FleetView management tool for mobiles

Key results:

• 55 per cent reduction in call carriage costs
• Reduction in monthly reporting time from four days, to three hours
• Increased capacity to monitor and alter user profiles
• Meaningful reports generated on mobile phone usage
• Seamless transition from old mobile provider to Macquarie Telecom

Competitive pricing and web-based management tools help DVA reduce mobile costs by 55 per cent

“Macquarie Telecom provided the level of support and account management we sought, and has set up our fleet according to specific Departmental needs. The company demonstrated a flexibility and willingness to please that is most welcome in today's complex telecommunications environment.”
Ian Fletcher,
Director, Voice Services

Overview

Any business with a large number of mobile phone users understands the monthly burden of billing. Not just the burden of call carriage costs, but also the detailed task of processing and reporting on those monthly bills.

For the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA), a Commonwealth Government department with 470 mobile phone users spread across Australia, these difficulties presented a significant challenge.

Regional branches managed their own mobile telephony, which meant there was no consistency across the Department on key factors such as plans, rates and coverage options.

“We needed increased visibility into our mobile telephony fleet – knowledge about which employees were using phones, how much they were spending and how well they adhered to our usage policies,” said Ian Fletcher, Director, Voice Services, DVA.

In December 2004, DVA switched to a Macquarie Telecom mobile telephony solution, incorporating GSM and CDMA handsets and the FleetView mobile management tool.

Since making the switch, DVA has won on all counts.

The Opportunity

The Department had three primary goals in overhauling its mobile telephony fleet.

“Making the change to a single provider was always going to be significant – we needed to find a solution whose benefits presented a compelling offset to that change process. We set three goals to ensure the change would be viable for the organisation.”

The goals were:

1. To ascertain whether market prices had reduced and take advantage of any cost reductions as soon as possible

2. Gain a real-time insight into mobile phone assets and usage patterns

3. Measure compliance with the existing departmental usage policies and redefine these to better align with goals and workflow processes

“The telecommunications market is a shifting beast, but at end of day most telcos offer similarly competitive pricing models. What we really looked for were the services and support that would be delivered in addition to pricing,” Fletcher said.

The Solution

Following an independent evaluation of nine providers, DVA awarded Macquarie Telecom the contract for carriage of its mobile fleet.

“Macquarie Telecom emerged as a clear winner due to its competitive pricing, its high levels of service and support, and the reporting power of FleetView management tool,” said Fletcher.

Macquarie Telecom began switching user handsets over to proprietary GSM and CDMA mobile phones in December, matching individual user profiles to one of the two coverage options.

Now, 440 phones in the DVA fleet are supplied and reported on by Macquarie Telecom and DVA is recording significant cost savings.

Macquarie Telecom's web-based fleet management tool, FleetView enables the Department to better analyse, manage and control the use of its mobiles, with an ability to monitor usage patterns across different criteria and analyse and implement usage policies.

“FleetView has automated our reporting, billing and mobile phone inventory management. This gives us the flexibility to make ‘real time' changes to user profiles to accommodate business travel requirements, annual leave and a range of other changes of circumstances,” said Fletcher.

For example, some DVA employees travel to commemorative ceremonies overseas, so global roaming is a requirement for different people at different times.

“FleetView is a powerful tool that puts the management of the mobile telephony fleet back in the hands of the people who run the business.”

DVA has already reaped the benefits of FleetView, using features of the management tool to:

• Set alerts on phone usage
• Suspend lost phones
• Give regional branches visibility into their own groups while a central administrator can monitor the entire fleet
• Set work hours for phone usage on a branch by branch basis
• Restrict use of phones for private calls by making it easier for users to access a private, pre-paid account
• Give employees access to their bills online, to monitor their usage and check the balance of their private account.

The Results

Since moving to Macquarie Telecom just six months ago, DVA has recorded a 55 per cent drop in call carriage costs.

Administration costs have also been significantly reduced. Processing and reporting on monthly usage, which previously took between three and four days, now takes just three hours thanks to the online billing functionality provided by FleetView.

Fletcher is now able to scrutinise the monthly reports within categories aligned to the many DVA business functions. The new reporting functionality enables him to assess usage and develop user profiles to address areas of concern.

“Mobile costs can now be managed and planned for. We can also actively generate further savings by creating and enforcing usage policies more closely aligned to business functions,” said Fletcher.

Since moving to Macquarie Telecom and implementing FleetView, DVA has populated an asset management database that enables Fletcher to report on usage patterns across the Department, separate cost centres and individual users, in close to real time.

“Before Macquarie Telecom's FleetView management we had 470 individual users and a cumbersome, time-consuming administration process. Now we manage a fleet, which saves us significant time and money,” he said.

“Further, Macquarie Telecom provided the level of support and account management we sought, and has set up our fleet according to specific Departmental needs. They demonstrated a flexibility and willingness to please that is most welcome in today's complex telecommunications environment.”