Users are being urged to share information about their
network and telecoms contracts in order to build a new benchmarking
service.
Members of the Communications Management Association have been
invited to form closed benchmarking groups, in response to the
increasing trend to outsource network management and services to
third parties.
The CMA membership survey, released at the organisation's annual
conference in London in February, revealed that 29% of members
planned to outsource more telecoms services over the next 12
months.
Fifty five per cent of respondents expected their level of
outsourcing would be similar to last year and only 14% said they
would outsource fewer services over the next year.
The CMA has begun working with consultancy Mason Communications to
set the parameters for benchmarking companies of various sizes. It
hopes to gather enough data to allow businesses of similar size
operating in the same sector to assess whether they are spending
too little or too much on networks and telecoms.
The CMA is using a confidential closed-group model to gather
benchmarking data, where participants release confidential contract
details and performance levels to the CMA which can then be matched
with information from others in the group.
The CMA said participants would be provided with regular reports
highlighting the best deals available, but the identities of the
participants would not be revealed to other members.
Phil Sayer, CMA enterprise sector director, said, "The service is
in response to suggestions from members who want help with
benchmarking at a competitive cost. "Commercial benchmarking
studies can cost participants as much as £50,000 or more. Ours will
be a fraction of that."
The benchmarking initiative is only open to companies employing at
least one CMA member. The plan is to provide price and service
updates once or twice a year to make sure the results remain
current.
David Hartley, associate director at Mason, said, "We plan to
provide benchmarked results for both international and national
outsourced networks."
Further
information
psayer@thecma.com