An Approach for Reducing Telecommunications Costs

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2011

About three years ago, the management and support for County telecommunications was transferred from the Department of General Services to the Department of Information Technology (IT). Henrico County spends a significant amount annually on telecommunications, making this an ideal target for identifying and reducing costs. Using the Oracle Application Express (Apex) software environment, IT staff developed a customized, comprehensive web browser based system referred to as TELE with functionality including inventory, work orders, call history, and automated departmental billing. The creation of the database permitted detailed analysis of telecommunications costs which led to appreciable cost savings. The TELE application has also allowed the County to do all intradepartmental billing paperlessly with Interdepartmental Transfers (IDTs) automatically generated and processed into the County’s Oracle eBusiness Suite. Additionally, IT staff downloads data from phone service providers into the TELE system and uses customized discrepancy reports to help identify areas of concern regarding billing issues, such as cramming charges (a charge to your phone bill for a service you didn’t agree to, order, or use) inappropriate tax charges, significant changes in month-to-month billing totals, and so forth. Recent new functionality includes the implementation of credit card payment for telecommunication services. This has eliminated the need to manually produce and mail many checks each month, as well as allowing the County to get a rebate on paid phone charges from the issuing credit card company.