This is a true tail about a CEO, his tablet, and international data charges. If you are deploying tablets, register for a webinar on Taming the Tablet Tiger and learn from this true story.

Taming the Tablet Tiger by Elizabeth McKee, Vice President of Sourcing, MDSL

Here is a cautionary tale based on a recent true story. The CEO of ABC Inc flew from New York to France the other day, to meet the new EMEA sales team. On the way and while there, he took the opportunity to try out his new tablet to respond to his email and review the new company website—including the exciting new video customer case studies, available online for the first time.

ABC Inc’s French office is outside Paris so he hired a car from Charles de Gaulle airport but, conscious of costs, declined the satnav option, knowing he could rely instead on his new tablet's GPS capability, which he'd luckily thought to have IT activate for him before he left. Unfortunately, his flight was delayed on the return leg so, rather than waste money on an overnight stay, he opted for a later flight and downloaded a film to watch while he waited.

Anyone who knows anything about international data rates knows what's coming next. To put a new spin on old adage: Hell hath no fury like the CEO who's just been presented with his company's roaming charges.

Catch that tiger

Meanwhile, here are some figures to strike more terror into the heart of any IT manager than a marauding CEO. According to Cisco in a White Paper released in February, 2011: “In 2010, 3 million tablets were connected to the mobile network... each tablet generated 5 times more traffic than the average smartphone. (In 2010) mobile data traffic per tablet was 405MB per month, compared to 79MB per month per smartphone”.

At the same time, Gartner forecast: “tablet production... will increase from 17.1 million units in 2010, to 186.9 million units in 2015... a compound annual growth rate of 61.4% for the period”.

Partly as a result, and from the same Cisco paper: “Global mobile data traffic will increase 26-fold between 2010 and 2015. Mobile data traffic will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 92% from 2010 to 2015, reaching 6.3 exabytes per month by 2015”.

Did anyone ask IT?

While tablet manufacturers may be rubbing their hands in glee, for IT managers everywhere tablets create a whole new area for potential risk and sleepless nights. For one thing, tablets don't actually replace laptops or mobile handsets, so users end up carrying all three devices. That’s yet another device to try to track and control; it’s also yet another opportunity for new hardware to get lost, stolen or just broken.

There are two other main pain points. The first is Security which, while a huge issue, is outside the scope of this article and we therefore won’t be discussing today. The second is Cost – and, in particular – the high cost when roaming.

Show me the money

The problem is that the traditional model – where you simply compared current operating costs against the proposed operating costs of the new plans and devices – no longer works.

Under that traditional model, you compared the vendor's proposed pricing and rate plans against what you're paying today. The difference represented the savings and you built those into your business before presenting it to the CEO for approval. Unfortunately, in today’s wireless world, that model’s become meaningless.

To understand why that’s so, cast your mind back to those earlier figures from Gartner, where they predict data usage is going to grow by over 61% between now and 2015. In other words, you have no hope of projecting your savings forward, because usage growth will make you a liar.

So here's the challenge: in a world of corporate down-sizing, how do you budget for that? More importantly: how do you protect your own position and manage executive expectations, in an increasingly expectant but highly uncertain world?

And the answer is...

Happily, while there is no single solution, there is action you can take now to develop and execute your plan and your CEO can get some pain relief if she or he washes down their headache tablets with a decent TEM solution.

1). Review your current data usage and apply pertinent multipliers to it based on your future wireless strategy. If you don’t yet have a strategy, apply multipliers that make sense for your business. The link below will help identify trends that may assist you in this exercise. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns525/ns537/ns705/ns827/white_paper_c11-520862.html

2). Manage executive expectations NOW about the budgetary impact of future costs, based on your analysis. Be prepared to articulate your plan for managing costs. Be out in front of the problem, rather than struggling to react. As part of your plan, you may want to include the following:

3). Monitor and Manage-Optimise monthly/quarterly based on quarterly usage data, and watch usage anomalies and growth trends carefully.

4). Negotiate (or re-negotiate) the best deal possible with several wireless carriers, consistent with your future strategy and future volumes. In the absence of a fully developed strategy, don’t wait. Focus on the significant progress that can be made in the short term to improve both the current and the future pricing picture, based on both a current and future cost analysis. Understand the tools the carriers can provide to control and manage usage.

5). Update your wireless policy to reflect the new realities, and ensure that every Corporate device user has signed it.

Elizabeth McKee will be discussing the above issues in more detail and taking questions in a webinar on 15 June, hosted by TEMIA (Telecom Expense Management Industry Association). The webinar is free to join but places are limited – to be sure of your place, register now at: http://tinyurl.com/6a7jpnx

About MDSL

MDSL is the market leader in international Telecom Expense Management (TEM) and Market Data Management (MDM) solutions with offices in London, New York, Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong. The company features in the 2010 Gartner TEM Magic Quadrant, and is one of very few TEM providers to carry ISO 27001, ISO 9001 and Safe Harbor certification.

Established in 1995, MDSL’s award-winning software and services assist enterprises around the world to manage their communications and market data costs more efficiently, and achieve significant cost savings on a global scale. With a range of solutions covering the full life cycle, from procurement to invoice reconciliation, more than 150 customers in over 34 countries trust MDSL products and services to deliver tangible and measurable benefits to their bottom line.

MDSL is a member of the TEM Industry Association (TEMIA). The company is ranked in the Top-25 UK companies in the Sunday Times 2011 International Track-100 list and is currently short-listed as “Best Supporting Services Provider” for the 2011 Inside Market Data Awards.