According to a Transparency Market Research report, technology expense management (TEM) will be worth $4.92 billion in the US by 2024. But, TEM remains an underutilised asset in Europe, the Middle East and Africa — despite the savings it could bring companies.
The COVID-19 pandemic may have opened up EMEA markets more to TEM. With a shift towards remote working, an uncertain landscape has put the need for secure and cost-effective telecom environments in the spotlight.
In this guide, we’ll explain where the technology expense management industry is heading and how it could help your organisation save time and money.
The Evolution of the Technology Expense Management Industry in EMEA
Europe
The technology expense management market in the US is estimated at $1.4 Billion in 2021. Meanwhile, in Europe, Germany is forecast to grow at approximately 10% CAGR while the “Rest of the European market” will reach $451.1 Million by 2027.
It’s clear from these figures that the US holds a strong position on the TEM market, while the EMEA market is lagging behind. However, during the pandemic, companies have had no option but to turn to their telecommunications to sustain them, marking a pivotal turning point in EMEA’s adoption of TEM.
Remote working has made telecommunication systems more complex, while the consumption of telecom services has increased to support — in many cases, permanent — work-from-home arrangements. For example, the emergence of Zoom and other per-seat licensing tools has changed the face of organisational communication and driven the need for TEM.
Middle East
Meanwhile, in the Middle East, rising digitisation and automation across the oil and gas industry and significant investments are driving the IT and telecom sectors. This trend is likely to boost TEM market growth in the coming years, which could result in an 18.7% CAGR from 2016 to 2024.
Africa
Similar to the Middle East, Africa too has seen a rise in digitalisation and automation across its petroleum industry.
In Deloitte’s recent report, The Future of Telecoms in Africa, the key drivers of the African telecom sector include diversifying services, integrating cross-border and in-country operations, consolidation and acquisition efforts as competition heightens and the strategic outsourcing of infrastructure to other countries.
Within Africa, South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya are among the most active telecommunication markets, while Ethiopia is opening its telecom market and is expecting new investors to target the country.
Beyond EMEA: Asia
Asia has also been undergoing a significant shift in telecommunications, with more organisations migrating business-critical infrastructure to the cloud. All of these aspects lead to an increased need for TEM.
On the whole, Asia is expected to witness significant growth in the upcoming years on the TEM front due to an increasing population and flourishing IT and telecommunication sector. In fact, in Southeast Asia alone, telecommunication investment in the region is projected to reach $166 billion by 2030, growing at an average of $13 billion per year.
How Sectors Benefit from TEM
Businesses across most sectors can benefit from TEM, but particularly:
- Banking, Financial Services and Insurance
- Retail
- Healthcare
- Transport and Logistics
- Manufacturing
- Government and Defence
There are three main ways in which TEM benefits businesses from a whole range of sectors:
Reduce unnecessary costs
The main purpose of a TEM solution is to give organisations visibility over their telecom expenditure. With TEM, it’s easy to identify historic billing errors and redundant or unnecessary services to free up the budget for business-critical tasks.
For example, the TEM solution by Calero helped the Scottish Government save almost £450,000 by providing a detailed inventory of its telecom estate and enabling it to identify billing errors and reprice services. No matter how insignificant it may seem, continuous needless spending adds up and can increase a company’s overheads.
Optimise telecom spend
With TEM, it's easy to audit usage and who has access to telecom resources. Tracking communication usage across voice, video and data can help organisations justify costs and spot abuse through real-time data insights. This in-depth analysis also makes it easier to budget and forecast future spend for more informed decision-making.
Drive efficiency
Streamlined, centralised expense management goes beyond simple cost-savings. TEM automates the entire expense lifecycle from procurement through to payment, meaning teams can reduce the time spent on tedious tasks like validating billing and approving invoices. TEM automation also eliminates the risk of human error — a common problem in old-fashioned manual approaches.
Effectively managing telecom expenses allows organisations with large telecommunications infrastructures to capitalise on savings that often fly under the radar. No matter which sector, most enterprises in the 21st century will be feeling the strain of monitoring telecommunication infrastructure, especially when handling multiple offices and providers across the world.
Trends in the TEM Industry
According to Gartner’s “Market Guide for Telecom Expense Management Services 2020”, three key trends defined the 2020 TEM industry:
SD-Wan deployments
Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN) deployments are set to continue transforming network management in 2021.
In fact, the SD-WAN market is expected to grow from $1.9 billion in 2020 to $8.4 billion by 2025 due to organisations moving away from Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and adopting SD-WAN for greater cost savings.
SD-WAN deployments ensure bandwidth efficiency and a seamless on-ramp to the cloud, and TEM supports this network transformation to provide visibility around savings.
Increased automation
TEM providers continue to invest in platform automation to strengthen their platforms’ performance in the form of robotic process automation (RPA).
Industry research conducted by Statista concludes that AI, ML and automation are in the top five investment priorities according to 41% of industry professionals in 2020.
It’s also expected that AI and machine learning will take TEM to the next level. Unlike basic automation, AI and machine learning add a human element by reading data to identify patterns and find anomalies that would otherwise go undetected.
Deeper analytics
Technology expense management platforms are being used more and more to unlock deeper analytical capabilities and generate predictions that IT leaders can transform into cost-effective change.
Using machine learning and AI-driven analytics, TEM can uncover the context of data (for example, locations, roles and business sites) and identify patterns. Users can then obtain an overview of IT investments, budgets and inventory to help contract negotiations and enhance processes in different contexts to reduce future spend.
Unlock the Power of Technology Expense Management with Calero
Telecom expenses don’t need to be a mystery anymore. Gain visibility over your expenses and unlock efficiencies and optimisations with our TEM solution.
Contact our experts today for a free consultation and discover how your organisation can start saving time and money with technology expense management.
