Alliance Medical

At a glance

The issue:
Lack of cost control and user profiling

The project:
Optimise spend, control cost, and make mobile easier to manage

The outcome:
A culture of continual improvement to ensure best practice is always maintained, and that management is a continual process in conjunction with a trusted partner

The Background

Alliance Medical chose Maintel as a trusted partner to refresh its mobile estate.

Maintel has made the Alliance Medical employees more productive and effective through use of digital workplace technology, securely connecting them to their applications and data.

The Challenge

Lack of cost control and user profiling

Alliance Medical had several challenges that led to this project. These challenges were:

• Escalating usage: For both voice and data, heavy users were overspending on the existing tariff.
• Lack of control: Management of this estate had got out of control, with Alliance Medical aware that it was paying for unused connections but no idea how many.
• Multiple networks, multiple accounts: This made it difficult to manage all suppliers and optimise the spend accordingly.

The objectives were to regain control of unnecessary spending and make it easier for the IT department to manage. The company also wanted to:

• Right-size the estate, continually reviewing existing user profiles to make sure they were on the best possible tariff for each user type
• Cancel unused connections
• Understand and control usage.

The Solution

Phase 1 – Understand usage and reduce spend

Each user type was analysed for their usage, and recommendations were made to move to a more appropriate tariff. Heavy users were moved to a cost-saving unlimited tariff and light users remained on a pay-as-you-use tariff. As a result, Alliance Medical made savings over £50,000 per annum.

This continues every month, with Maintel providing detailed reports profiling high usage, spend that can be controlled, and recommendations for reducing cost.This has allowed Alliance Medical to highlight and recoup unauthorised usage from errant users.

Phase 2 – Move to a single-supplier model

In this phase, Maintel moved the data connections in the mobile scanners to its management. This was necessary because of very low levels of support from the incumbent supplier, exacerbated by lack of any detailed understanding of usage.

Alliance Medical’s fleet of over 40 vehicles offers immediate capacity to both NHS and private sector hospitals, providing bespoke mobile imaging services when and where needed. The vehicle is fitted with mobile technology to facilitate rapid turnaround of scans. The whole unit is mobile and can go to wherever the patient is, in any part of the UK, helping to support rural areas and community settings.
As a result, Maintel now provides monthly reports highlighting key usage, and optimises the correct tariff based on the usage which varies according to how and where the vehicles are deployed, as well as the volume of patients and scans.

Phase 3 – Optimise for the future, move to a single network

Now that Alliance Medical’s primary objectives have been met, gaining visibility and understanding of unnecessary spend, plus insights into usage patterns, the company is jointly working with Maintel to move all its connections to a single mobile network.

What are the benefits?

This will bring the following benefits:

• Easier to manage a single account and single network provider
• Implement a single shared data pool across all users, to eradicate out-of-bundle spend
• Align tariffs across the estate, making it easier to manage
• Take advantage of tariff changes and commercial flexibility to move all users to a consistent unlimited tariff, without increasing costs and still retaining control
• A culture of continual improvement to ensure best practice is always maintained, and that management is a continual process in conjunction with a trusted partner.