Quocirca Straight Talking: Death to desk phones?

Mobile workers just don't need them...

Many organisations are wasting a fortune on unnecessary telephony costs, simply because they do not understand the behaviour of their mobile users.

In a recent Quocirca study, commissioned by Ericsson and the EVUA (European VPN Users Association), over 80 per cent of the 150 organisations interviewed said there was an element of mobile working amongst their employees, with over half indicating the level of mobility was increasing.

These figures will probably not come as a surprise; neither will finding that the vast majority of mobile workers are issued a company mobile phone. Something we don't often think too much about, though, is the fact that over 95 per cent of corporate mobile phone users also have a fixed-line phone sitting on their desk.

At first sight, this seems like a reasonable state of affairs. Whilst we might class many employees as mobile workers because, say, they travel on business for a couple of days a week, they might also spend a significant amount of time at their desk. When working in this fixed environment, it makes sense for them to use their desk phone in preference to their mobile phone as the cost of making calls is clearly going to be cheaper on the fixed line. Furthermore, the fixed line allows them and the company to benefit from all that great functionality embedded in the corporate telephone system - switchboard monitoring and routing, consistent direct dialling from the outside world, short codes for internal calls to other extensions, hunt groups, conferencing, voice mail and all kinds of other goodies.

That's the theory, at least. But what happens in practice is often quite a different story.

Over half of the IT and communications managers in the Quocirca study indicated that mobile users had a tendency to use their mobile phone in preference to their desk phone when sitting at their desk, usually because their mobile is the place where they maintain their frequently used numbers. Whether this is put down to user laziness or simply users adopting the most effective way of working in a fast moving business environment is something that can be debated. Whatever the reason, it is still common behaviour.

Ed Vonk, CEO of the EVUA, an industry association made up of some of Europe's largest multinational companies, confirms the problem. As he puts it: "We know that there are huge numbers of employees in EVUA member organisations using their GSM phone as if it was a DECT set. The problem is that companies do not usually know the extent to which this is taking place." Given this feedback, it is likely respondents in the Quocirca study were, if anything, underestimating the problem.

Vonk also confirms related behaviour has become common practice. When trying to contact someone not often at his desk, for example, employees tend to dial that person's mobile number in the first instance. Why bother with a desk number that will probably not be answered? The mobile phone will always be picked up if the individual is in a position to take a call.

This leads to the ludicrous situation of employees burdening the company with high-rate mobile phone charges when calling a colleague that might be sitting in the same building. If the first person has the second person's mobile number programmed onto his mobile phone, this might even be a cellular-to-cellular call, which is the worst possible scenario from a cost perspective.

There is then the practice of mobile users auto-forwarding their desk phone to their mobile phone, which leads to the company effectively paying for all incoming calls to the user's corporate direct-dial number - again at high cellular call rates.

Meanwhile, the company is still footing the bill for telephony equipment on the desk that is at best under-utilised and at worst completely redundant.

Of course one way of trying to avoid the incremental uncontrolled costs we have discussed is to implement and enforce strict policies for when and how workers use their mobile phones. The fact of the matter is, though, that for many the mobile has rapidly become the default telephony device for both incoming and outgoing calls. Users do not want to juggle with two devices and two contact numbers when one is much more convenient for both them and the people who have to call them. As many companies have already found, trying to enforce unnatural behaviour is frequently resisted and is probably counterproductive in terms of user productivity and customer relationship management anyway.

Doing away with the desk phone completely for mobile workers is an alternative solution. All of the user's problems and objections are dealt with and there is the potential to save in the order of 20 per cent on overall telephony costs associated with the mobile workforce, according to some suppliers. Savings come from having to install, manage and maintain less desktop equipment and the ability to create a powerful lever when negotiating with mobile operators. The logic here is that the cellular minutes are being clocked up anyway, so you might as well push for better tariffs from the mobile operator.

Logical though this might seem, less than 10 per cent of respondents in the Quocirca study said they were heading in this direction, despite over 80 per cent acknowledging the usefulness of it. The EVUA's Vonk points to lack of information as a blocker for many organisations getting rid of desk phones. Apart from companies not understanding the extent of the issues, he says: "There is generally limited information available on TCO figures for mobile handsets, which makes it difficult to create a formal business case for fixed/mobile substitution."

There is an obvious opportunity here for mobile operators to take more of a 'thought leadership' role in helping their business customers understand the issues and opportunities. The mood amongst members at a recent EVUA gathering in Lisbon, however, suggested a reluctance to commit more to suppliers who have yet to demonstrate they have listened on issues such as international roaming charges.

This again underlines the need for suppliers and customer to communicate objectively to create win/win opportunities.

A copy of the report discussing the full findings of the study referred to in this article may be requested free of charge from Quocirca's website.