iPass Mobility Expense Calculator: Shining a Bright Light on the Black Budget

It's easy to use, doesn't cost a thing, and it could give you the information you need to save your company money. It's the new iPass Mobility Expense Calculator.

Mobile Workers Mean Well—But They're Wasting Your Company Money
Few things can undermine profitability more effectively than the dreaded "black budget." A black budget is one that is not accounted for in an organization's standard budgeting systems. As important as mobility is in today's enterprise, mobile employees tend to be among the worst offenders when it comes to black budget expenses. They rightly believe that getting their work done efficiently while on the road takes top priority. But if their company hasn't given them a comprehensive remote and mobile access service, they do whatever it takes to get connected—such as buying Wi-Fi day passes or monthly subscriptions at full retail prices—and then charge the costs back to the company. According to a leading analyst firm, up to 70 percent of employee broadband usage is charged back on expense reports. Besides paying a higher price than the company could have negotiated in volume, they buy subscriptions that they only periodically or rarely use.

Because these expenses are often buried under "telecoms expenses" across dozens or hundreds of departments, it is difficult to see how much they can undermine profitability on a company-wide basis. When employees charge unbudgeted expenses back to the company on their expense reports, the funds have to come from somewhere else. And that means cutting expenses in a formally budgeted area, or else cutting directly into the bottom line.

iPass Can Show You Where the Money Is Going
So how do you get a handle on the true costs of remote and mobile connectivity, without sifting line-by-line through piles of expense reports? iPass has the answer.

The online iPass Mobility Expense Calculator estimates mobile access expenditures, based on the answers to a few simple questions about your mobile workforce. We created this easy-to-use online tool in response to numerous requests from customers who want to gain visibility into their mobile connectivity expenses. By understanding their expenses, they are able to justify a centralized solution that cuts costs and increases control over these expenditures.

As an example, a North America-based company with 5,000 mobile workers would spend on average $288,000 per month, or $64 per mobile worker per month. Local road warriors would cost their company an average of $51 per month per user while intercity business travelers would accrue $80 per month in connectivity expenses.

The Mobility Expense Calculator is just one of the useful features you'll find on the new iPass Mobility Central web portal. There, you'll find a complete toolkit of free resources to support your mobile workforce, including the iPass Hotspot Finder, iPass Wi-Fi Hotspot Index and iPass Hotspot Bulletin. We'll be adding even more mobility tools in the coming months.

There's a Better, More Cost-Effective Way to Manage Mobility

"Mobility can be a double edged sword," says Joel Wachtler, the vice president of marketing and strategy at iPass. "It provides increased flexibility on one hand, but opens companies up to increased cost and risk on the other. Our customers have been asking us for help in quantifying and communicating their mobile access spend, and with the Mobility Expense Calculator, we're providing them with a solid starting point."

For companies looking to move beyond the starting point to achieve a comprehensive solution, iPass Mobility Management offers the wireless industry's most effective package for consolidating and centralizing mobile access—and lowering mobility costs in the bargain. With iPass Mobility Management, you get our award-winning global access, connection management and device management capabilities, all at an affordable, flat monthly rate.

Now you can manage your constantly changing portfolio of mobile connections and devices with minimal upfront investment, a single bill, and less worry over unexpected costs, uncapped usage or paying for unused individual subscriptions.

Give It a Try—You Have Nothing to Lose and Everything to Gain
Take the first step today. Try out our iPass Mobility Expense Calculator and gain true visibility into your mobile access costs. It could also be the key to big savings opportunities for your company.