The ProfiTel Group has helped a number of firms of various sizes in different industries recover overcharges and negotiate new contracts for their telecom services. The following are descriptions of three recent assignments.

1). Retailer Saves More Than $4 Million Annually

A Fortune 500 retailer was spending more than $1.1 million each month on voice and special access services. Even though the engagement began only six months after the client had signed a 48-month contract, we convinced the vendor to renegotiate the contract. The result was a savings of 28%, or almost $4 million annually. This client will save more than $12 million over the remaining term of the original contract. Additionally, the terms of the revised contract contained several unquantifiable, yet highly valuable, improvements such as stabilized rates.

2). International Grocer Saves Nearly $10 Million Annually for Reconfigured Network

Our engagement with this international grocery retailer began with an audit. We identified a conflict between the carrier's tariff and the client's contract for frame relay services. We recovered past overcharges and also reduced the rates going forward. This along with the discovery of manual billing errors made by the carrier's account team resulted in a total recovery of over $600,000. Due to the success of the audit, this client hired us to negotiate a new contract with the existing vendor. We were successful in negotiating a contract that saved 28%, or $1.6 million annually, based on their current network configuration, or nearly $10 million annually based on a planned reconfigured network, which had been delayed due to the high cost. The magnitude of the savings allowed them to immediately proceed with the planned reconfiguration.

3). Medical Software Company Avoids $2 Million Penalty, Recovers Over $1 Million through Telecom Bill Audits, and Saves $740,000 Annually

This medical software company was growing through acquisition and had recently signed a new long distance contract for voice services with their primary vendor. Our comprehensive contract review and telecom audits revealed that the client had over-committed and would be subject to underutilization penalties. We successfully renegotiated a lower commitment, which saved over $2 million in penalties over the contract term. Thanks to the telecom bill audits, we identified and recovered $145,000 in billing errors, and $88,000 in annual optimization savings.

We also identified and recovered $480,000 in private line billing errors and negotiated a new contract for those services resulting in additional savings of 40%, or $595,000 annually.

For the client's secondary long distance vendor, we identified and recovered $405,000 for a variety of billing errors.