How do you define and manage a giant telecom tariff project? For some, it might be one massive filing to address issues in a company’s tariff for a single state operation. For others, it might be facilitating the same rate / description change in multiple state filings, requiring thousands of man-hours to complete. As an experienced consulting firm for telecommunications providers of every description, Technologies Management, Inc. (TMI) defines a large tariff filing project as a multifaceted challenge that we can expedite and provide positive end results for our telecom clients. Over the years we have undertaken many large nationwide tariff revisions.
Customarily, such a project would require your staff to determine the products and services to be revised, to adjust the rates based on company directives, and to accurately revise your company’s tariffs to reflect the changed rates. Our systematic approach to this project utilized the TMI Rates Management System ("RMS"), a service to which the client subscribes. The RMS maintains a historical and current inventory of all of the clients tariffed services. I like to refer to the RMS as the difference between a black and white snapshot and a video. Both tell a story but the video provides greater depth to the experience. For this project, TMI’s Rates Management System allowed me to identify the specific products/services being revised and then calculate the rate changes following the specific guidelines of the company. This process alone saved the client from diverting internal resources from normal productivity, which can be costly. The RMS also provided TMI’s Associate Consultants with a superior resource as outputs are identified by the tariff section, thereby improving the efficiency and accuracy of tedious tasks such as locating rate and product information and revising the tariffs.
There are other advantages in using TMI for your tariff/price list outsourcing. Those advantages include relieving your staff of the burden of maintaining extensive records and familiarizing themselves with the particular tariff and filing guidelines of each State Commission. Additionally, we make sure that your customers and Commission staff can easily find your updated tariffs/pricelists. For the aforementioned project, our internal tracking system provided a quick and effective tool allowing us to stay current with the filings we made on behalf of the client. We can also see copies of the tariff filings and export copies of each filing to the client, alleviating the arduous task of navigating through more than 9,000 sheets of paper. Through our years of experience, our team has developed intimate knowledge of the idiosyncratic rules of each State Commission, eliminating time spent on researching and interpreting them or on resubmitting filings due to procedural mistakes. Finally, to adequately respond to the posting requirement imposed by the PUCs, the client opted to use the TMI Tariffs.net portal to display the most current versions of the tariffs where Commission staff and customers alike can access the latest tariffs/price list directly from the client’s own website.
And that is how TMI defines, manages, and completes a large tariff project. Many of our clients refer to us as their outsourced Regulatory Department. Maybe you have grown through acquisitions to the point that you are now managing more tariffs and pricing guides than your staff can adequately handle. Perhaps your budget does not include the additional payroll to handle this type of non-routine project. If this sounds relatable, you too could have more than thirty years of experience, established processes, and reliable systems at your disposal. Could be time for some TLC from TMI!
