Telecom Expense Management (TEM) is the discipline of auditing, managing, and optimizing all telecom and mobility costs—circuits, voice, data, wireless, UC, and cloud connectivity. If you’re asking what is Telecom Expense Management (TEM), it’s the system that gives finance and IT a single view of contracts, inventory, invoices, and usage so you pay only for what you need and use.
We often see leaders turn to TEM when growth, mergers, or decentralization create duplicate services, zombie lines, and bill errors. A good TEM program centralizes data, enforces policy, and turns disputes and credits into measurable savings—without slowing the business.
Core capabilities typically include:
- Inventory & catalog: Clean, current record of services, devices, and owners.
- Invoice validation: Rate/usage checks, tax/fee audits, and automatic dispute filing.
- Contract lifecycle: Term tracking, renewals, and benchmarked negotiations.
- Mobility management: Plans, pooling, device lifecycle, and policy compliance.
- Analytics & chargeback: Cost allocation, trend analysis, and showback/chargeback.
- Governance: Approval workflows and standardized adds/moves/changes.
Our take? TEM replaces guesswork with control—freeing budget for initiatives that move the needle while reducing risk and waste.
Want a practical blueprint to cut spend and clean up inventory? Explore our Telecom Expense Management (TEM) Guide for rollout steps, chargeback models, and negotiation tactics that deliver results fast.
