News from BBW Consultants Ltd - January 2008
 

NEW YEAR SALE ON TRAINING COURSES

Start your 2008 with the New Year Sales at BBW’s training subsidiary, CommsCourses.  The following courses are now 25% off, but book soon!

Telecoms Cost Savings – 29^th January - Was £575 now £430!

Introduction to Communications – 30^th January - Was £495 now £371!

VoIP Configuration – 23^rd & 24^th January – Was £995 now £745!

For full details on course content go to www.commscourses.co.uk.  To book follow the links or email training@bbwcomms.co.uk.

What is the problem with 0845?

The 0845 prefix is well known by the British public and is well publicised as a non geographic number which is charged at the “local rate”.  However this is very misleading for the following reasons:

• Calls to 0845 numbers are typically charged at much higher rates than the actual cost of local calls.  Calls to 0845 numbers costing three or four times the local rate are not unusual.
• Calls to 0845 numbers are typically not included in discount packages or inclusive minute packages.
• The cost of calling 0845 numbers varies considerably between operators.

As a result, 0845 numbers are receiving increasingly poor publicity.  A simple Google search for “0845 rip off” generates over 18,000 results.  Ofcom, the UK regulator, recommends public bodies avoid, or use considerable caution, when using these types of numbers.

Despite these limitations, 0845 numbers do have real advantages to many organisations; i) They don’t identity the geographic location of the organisation, ii) They present a national image, iii) They allow advanced routing to take place in the public network, for example to route calls to local contact centres.

Due to the poor publicity we would recommend extreme care before moving to an 0845 number and to consider the 0844 and 03 alternatives.  For more information and independent advice on numbering, please contact BBW at support@bbwcomms.co.uk.

New Year Resolutions

We all consider New Year resolutions, how often have you heard the get fit resolution?  This year may be more important than most to set professional resolutions for both yourself and your organisations comms strategy.  By many accounts 2008 looks to be a difficult year and there are some real challenges facing the communications strategy: i) Cost reduction, ii) Flexibility, iii) Security.  We would propose the following: 

1. Minimise Long Term Contracts – In an unclear economic situation it is possible that organisations will wish to close offices, relocate or increase home working.  Therefore 2008 is probably not the year to commit to long term contracts, unless there is a great deal of flexibility written in.
2. Cut Costs – Cost reduction is something we should always be considering but now is the time for a real focus on this critical area.  Consider independent advice from BBW or our telecoms cost savings course.
3. Boost Security – With recent public about the Government losing CD’s with records of the public, data security has taken an even higher public profile.  A security audit is essential and should be a focus throughout the year.
4. Skills – At difficult times it tends to be those with the best skills who are retained and, if things go wrong, find new jobs.  Its time to update your skills, visit www.commscourses.co.uk.
5. Be Flexible – A sign of good management is the ability to step back and think flexibly.  How do you currently procure, manage and support your communications infrastructure.  It is time to review your strategy?  Could support be provided at a lower cost and higher quality?  How do your services benchmark against others?  Is it time to review?

One consistent trend over the past 10 years has been the reduction in landline costs and the increase in mobile costs.  It is, perhaps, no surprise that landline suppliers now offer free evening and weekend calls to other landlines.  These types of calls make so little money it is worth enticing customers in so they can spend calling mobiles.

Despite all of their benefits, mobiles do have a number of major limitations, due to the limitations in management, these include:

• No effective control – Staff are out of sight and can make as many calls as they wish to whomever they like.
• Information Overload – Management find it difficult to manage calls due to the shear amount of information available from billing reports.
• Private Calls – No effective charging of personal calls.
• Tax Liability – A major risk for Income Tax (Which legally must be declared in P11D) and VAT liability for personal usage.
• Inventory – Again in terms of tax liability of PDA and Smartphones.
• Security – Lost or stolen handsets create a risk to corporate security in terms of fraud and, most seriously, lost data.
• Management Overhead – Ordering, changing, replacing lost and broken handsets and accounting for mobiles is both expensive and time consuming.

• Ensures Tax Compliance
• Removes the in-house management overhead
• Drives down costs
• Pro-active ongoing cost management

Corporate Provision of “TV Like” Services

Many clients are considering the addition of television style programmes on their web sites for marketing or public information purposes.  Potentially this will lead to a range of programmes available on demand from organisations as diverse as local councils to FTSE 100 companies.  The regulation of these types of services is complex and we would be pleased to advise on you on the details.   For more details please contact BBW at support@bbwcomms.co.uk.

You may also wish to visit http://www.atvod.org.uk/.