Just $1

By Kathie Zentgraf, CHR Solutions

If you had just $1 to spend on your business, how would you spend it? Seems like an appropriate question given we’re approaching that time of year when budget planning begins. Since no two providers run their businesses alike, please keep in mind that the following comments are merely generalizations to get you thinking.

So how would you spend your dollar? Perhaps you would spend it equally among business operations, network operations, and customer service. If that’s the case, you’ve just left out new revenue opportunities. Now that I have your attention, let’s focus specifically on business operations. Say you set aside 60¢ for daily business functions. How much of that 60¢ will be spent performing redundant processes, manually updating accounting records, stuffing bills by hand, etc? Have you thought about how many of those daily operating tasks include cost recovery? Or maybe you set aside 40¢ for network operations. How much of that 40¢ will be used for new business activity vs. daily IT backups and support functions?

Running fast and cheaper is in everyone’s business strategy, but doing this cost effectively requires some ingenuity. There are ways to better spend your dollar, you just have to get creative and take a closer look at all the daily, redundant, and often mundane functions that go along with running a business. You’ll likely uncover a few “pennies" you could be spending somewhere else.

Kathie Zentgraf, vice president of software practices for CHR Solutions, brings 20 years of experience serving rural telecommunications service providers to the position. With expertise in all operational facets of the business, she has consulted with rural carriers on BSS/OSS installations and operational efficiencies, sales and marketing activities, customer service, staffing, financials, system design, site acquisition and construction, regulatory, federal and FCC mandates and issues, as well as contract negotiations, interconnection agreements and roaming contracts.