Telecom Audit and Consulting - Boston Massachusetts

Telecom consulting can help you cut costs, save time, gain

knowledge, and increase security for your business.

	Are you able to read and understand your telephone bills each month? Are you confident that they are accurate? Are you receiving the best value?

If you could save 20%-30% on your communications costs each month what would you do with the extra money?

§         Hire additional staff?

§         Add it to your bottom line?

§         Improve productivity by updating office technologies?

We will save you time and money

§         As telecom consultants, we analyze your communications bills on a quarterly basis and if we can't find savings for you, there is no charge for our analysis. Therefore, we can only improve your bottom line.

§         70% of the time our savings recommendations are with your existing service provider

We are Independent & Objective!

§         We don't sell any provider's products or services.

§         We don't receive commissions or any form of payment from suppliers

§         We do diligently focus on your organization's unique business issues and empower you to solve your business problems.

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Managing Partner, Boston Office - Deryck Jones

Deryck Jones of Schooley Mitchell's Boston telecom consulting office is a senior executive with over thirty years technical management experience. He has worked throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia and has managed projects up to $50M and worked for organizations ranging in size from under a million to over $3.4 billion dollars.

A 2002 Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leader Award Winner and featured speaker, Deryck has led international teams in the development and deployment of award winning solutions for the education, construction/ engineering, DoD/DoE, medical, entertainment, staffing, financial services, public relations, and telecommunications industries. 

Deryck holds an MS in Digital Communications and a BS in Industrial Technology with concentrations in Manufacturing and Electrical Engineering from East Carolina University.  A software development expert, Deryck also holds numerous certifications in networking, advanced electronics, avionics, GPS, process engineering and project management.  Deryck is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran.

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The core services that we provide to our clients fall into two broad categories:

OPTIMIZATION SERVICES
Schooley Mitchell Telecom Consultants will analyze your organization's existing telecommunications services and systems to identify billing errors and opportunities to reduce costs while maintaining or improving service.
Click here for more information about Optimization Services.

PROJECT SERVICES
Schooley Mitchell Telecom Consultants will provide advice, guidance and recommendations to help your organization make the right decisions regarding your telecommunications projects.
Click here for more information about Project Services.

Professional Services

§         Needs analysis

§         Telecom audit and review of options or proposals

§         Vendor, equipment and application recommendations

§         Implementation services

§         Project management services

Client Guidance

§         Hardware upgrades and replacements

§         System and application upgrades and replacements

§         Office moves and relocations

§         Business expansion or downsizing

§         Acquisition and integration of another business

§         Creation of mobile or remote offices

§         Adoption of new technologies

§         Network integration

Expert Recommendations

We will consult to you regarding any or all of the following telecom-related issues:

§         Local telephone service

§         Long distance, toll-free and international services

§         Cellular and wireless services

§         Telecommunications security and fraud protection

§         Telephone systems and equipment configuration

§         Traffic and usage studies

§         Disaster recovery and business continuity planning

§         Data networking

§         Broadband services

Telecom Audit & Needs Analysis - Existing Systems & Services

Our clients realize that they derive the most benefit by concentrating their efforts on their core service or product. Most business people simply do not have the time to analyze technology, suppliers and pricing alternatives in today's constantly changing telecom world. Schooley Mitchell Consultants audit existing systems and services to identify the most beneficial alternatives for you. The telecom audit can consider the entire telecommunications system, including local services, long distance, equipment configuration, toll-free, cellular and wireless services, faxes, modems, internet access and past billings, with the goals of identifying and providing:

§         areas of cost saving that won't entail sacrificing service;

§         how efficiency can be increased;

§         billing errors that may be recoverable; and

§         a full inventory of all telecom equipment and services.

Contingency Billing - No Risk

Many of our clients choose our no-risk method of billing. We will complete a full telecom audit and our only fee is a sharing of the savings that our recommendations generate. You must approve each recommendation. If you approve our findings, then we share the savings realized over the term of our agreement. After that time, all savings accrue to you.

Hourly Billing

Some clients choose to have their systems reviewed for an hourly rate or fixed fee. Regardless of your preferred method of billing, all reviews are designed to achieve maximum savings and to meet your specific needs.

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At Schooley Mitchell Telecom Consultants, we take pride in providing you with expert project management services.  Whether it’s dealing with your next big telecommunications change or managing an OS migration, we can provide professional project management services that will allow you to optimize your resource utilization and get the job done on time and within budget.

On occasion, your telecommunications systems may require modifications for a variety of reasons; including: expansion, downsizing, amalgamation, telecommuting, new technology, relocation, system replacement, and data network integration. Schooley Mitchell Telecom Consultants can help you with transitions to satisfy your telecom and data needs by identifying the optimum package of equipment and services. Examples include:

§         Needs analysis - present and future

§         Comprehensive telecom audits and technology reviews

§         Preparation of requests for proposal and requests for quotation

§         Vendor assessment

§         Supplier negotiation and management

§         Implementation project management

§         ISO audit preparation

§         Capability Maturity Model Integration

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Let our experts help you understand, command, and control your IT resources to the optimal benefit of your organization.  We have decades of experience guiding organizations just like yours.  We can help you manage the cost, maximize the benefit and deliver results to your bottom line.  Just ask us how.

Here are just a few of the areas where we can provide benefit:

Understanding VoIP - TCO, QoS, Security & Deployment

§         Are you concentrating your IT spending on optimization of operational expenses while leveraging your existing asset base? 

§         Are you strategically building customer-focused solutions that enhance your competitive advantage?  This type of incremental approach is designed to reduce capital expenditures while minimizing your risk; it drives obtainable business objectives such as reducing operating costs. 

§         Do you look at Return on Investment (ROI) in your capital investments; e.g. a capital purchase in terms of a financial transaction – “What is the return on capital spent?”  Unfortunately, ROI doesn’t consider the cost impact to your annual budget, staffing levels, and other ownership issues.  It is important to perform a time-based Total Cost of Ownership study.  TCO is complementary to ROI because a lower TCO will yield a higher ROI.  A TCO assessment integrates your operational budget and provides a long term management of network spending.  This goes well beyond the scope and time of your typical sales representative.

§         Do you understand the step-by-step approach to VoIP deployment?

§         Do you understand the role of quality of service (QOS)?

§         Have you planned for your VoIP security and risk management?

Aligning Business & IT Goals

§         Is your staff comprised of telecommunications experts?  Learn a stepwise approach to the complicated web of technology and apply best practices to the management of your IT enterprise.

Voice & Data Convergence

See the following article: Google wants 'dark fiber'

It’s inevitable that a great many companies will be acquired, change drastically or just go away.  This has been and continues to be the telecommunications arena.  What is the impact of this on your telecommunications spend?  Do you even monitor it?

There may be other potential realignment paths, as well.  The intermingling of wired voice, wireless voice, data and video (the battle for the North American couch potato) creates a different and far less rigid landscape than that which existed a decade ago.

It’s possible to see this already. The emergence of VoIP, for instance, has forced old line telephone companies to compete head-to-head with cable companies and VoIP-specific upstarts such as Vonage and Skype. Likewise, telephone and cable companies are slugging it out in the world of bundled services.

It’s amazing that these companies are competing on so broad a playing field. The emergence of IP as a near universal internetworking protocol means that there are far fewer barriers than in the past.

So, the questions for you are simple.  Are you aggressively monitoring these changes and adapting and adjusting accordingly?  If you’re not – you are giving money away from your bottom line.

Managing Outsourcing Initiatives

Run Your Outsourcing Initiatives Like the Pros

Outsourcing — when and how to do it — is the biggest issue facing business today, but few managers understand all the varied aspects of outsourcing initiatives. We can show you how to create every key document you need during the outsourcing process and teach your staff how to effectively manage this process.

IT Regulatory Compliance

The pressure to demonstrate compliance with regulatory mandates continues to increase, with some organizations now subject to five or more regulatory mandates. Most firms, however, are currently subject to three "most pressing" regulatory compliance mandates requiring that they demonstrate IT security through internal or external audits. There are four prioritized pressures driving regulatory compliance among organizations today.  Learn how you can reduce the costs associated with compliance — while still achieving leadership status.

Leveraging Open Source

§         Do you understand the implications of open source?  Not all open source can be treated the same way.  Different licenses demand differing approaches for the modification and distribution of the end product.  Even licenses that have been certified by the Open Source initiative have varying terms.  Combine this with the willingness of the U.S. Patent Office to grant more software patents and you have a battle ground fraught with peril.

§         Are you aware of the lack of uniform commercial-grade support for many open source products? Although these issues will resolve as open source matures, businesses today should be aware of these issues and have an approach for managing this problem.

§         This being said, there can be significant advantages to working in the open source realm.  Understanding the lay of the land will help you make the right decision for your business.

Benefits & Challenges of Virtualization

§         The explosion in servers in today's datacenter has led to exponential increases in data-transfer volumes and bandwidth bottlenecks. This growth poses significant problems for IT managers as they struggle to identify more cost-effective, scalable ways to manage the increasing complexity of servers and their associated LAN and SAN environments.

§         Have you reached the point where virtualization, as a systems management strategy, should be considered?

Data Protection & Risk Management Strategies

§         Assess disaster recovery readiness

§         Identify disaster recovery planning needs

§         Write your own Disaster Recovery Plan

§         Test your documented Disaster Recovery Plan

§         Evaluate your Disaster Recovery Plan performance

The Problems with Conventional IT Infrastructure

§         Is your IT infrastructure optimized to meet the needs of a demand-driven business world?   Is it prepared to support computationally intensive tasks such as the creation of demand projections, supply plans, and the optimization of both supply and demand within a defined business strategy?

§         Did you know that IT studies have shown that the average server utilization rate is an incredibly low 20-35%.  Do you know how to break down the physical barriers, pool the resources, and share any excess capacity between applications as they need it?

§         Do you understand the role and power of middleware?  This is the virtually invisible layer of software that operates between the data repositories and business applications.  Middleware is proving to be of strategic value to businesses who are seeking to gain a competitive advantage.  Research is showing the growing strength of middleware as organizations seek out product suites that empower their IT organizations to support rapidly changing business processes.

Schooley Mitchell’s teams of telecommunications experts are positioned to support you.  Whether it is cost recovery or optimizing data utilization – Schooley Mitchell can help you strategically compete in an ever changing landscape of technological innovation. 

 CALL US TODAY

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