XigoNow Customers Have Saved More Than 16% on Mobile Expenses Since April

Organizations Seeing Real Value from Better Management of Their Mobile Usage and Expenses

MANASSAS, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Xigo, the cloud-based solution that simplifies managing enterprise telecommunications costs, today announced that since the April 2011 launch of XigoNow, its free, Web-based self-service mobile expense management (MEM) platform, customers have been able to save 16.5% on their mobile expenses. This represents an average annual savings per customer of more than $5,500. By taking advantage of XigoNow’s ease-of-use and ability to instantly return savings recommendations, organizations have been able to quickly and meaningfully reduce their mobile expenses.

“It has been quite satisfying to change the way that mobile expense management is conducted and see our customers realize terrific savings at the same time,” said David Spofford, CEO of Xigo. “The long ramp-up times, complicated implementation processes and extensive wait for results that have long been associated with legacy telecom expense management (TEM) companies are a thing of the past. The mobile world moves fast, and so should MEM services.”

Since the April launch, Xigo’s researchfindings have shown that the average enterprise mobile phone user uses up less than one-sixth of their monthly wireless data cap—and that users with voice plans only use slightly more than two-thirds of their allotted minutes. As a result, organizations are clearly paying for considerably more data and voice bandwidth than needed. Without tools such as MEM, organizations would never be able to recognize and fix this issue.

Xigo has also seen unprecedented growth and success throughout 2011, with several new customers and partners using its suite of mobile and fixed telecommunications expense management tools, including XigoPro and XigoEnterprise, to lower costs and gain insight into how staff is using their mobile and fixed resources:

• XigoPro is an inexpensive, self-service expense management application that helps customers manage the more complicated workflow automation tasks associated with mobile expense management.
• XigoEnterprise is an expertly deployed solution for optimizing all of an organization’s fixed, wireless and global network communications costs. Unlike typical TEM solutions, XigoEnterprise is cloud-based and provides a unified view across the entire organization of all voice, data and mobile information.

Industry Recognition

Following the launch of XigoNow, Gartner evaluated the product and issued a report entitled “Free, Cloud-Based XigoNow Service Could Be Disruptive to the TEM Market,” co-authored by Eric Goodness and Phillip Redman. The report detailed challenges that keep traditional TEM solutions from delivering on their promised value and discussed that the product presents a high level of value for a free service.

Xigo’s Role in Combatting Cramming

Cramming is a deceptive practice that adds unauthorized third-party charges to millions of companies’ and consumers’ telephone bills each month. Each year, telephone companies place approximately 300 million third-party charges on their customers’ wireline and wireless phone bills, amounting to more than $2 billion worth of unauthorized fees.

In a hearing on July 13^th, 2011, Xigo CEO Dave Spofford joined Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Vermont Assistant Attorney General Elliot Burg and Walter McCormick of the U.S. Telecom Association to testify in front of the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation about the $2 billion worth of unauthorized charges appearing on phone bills each year. The Committee issued its report that day.

Through Xigo’s research of its customers’ telecom bills, it found the following:

• 40,000 instances of cramming in just three years
• The average monthly amount for a cram was approximately $18
• 71% of Xigo customers have experienced a cram charge during the past three years
• An estimated 80% of businesses today have experienced at least one cram charge
• More than 600 vendors are actively engaging in cramming

Customers and Partners

Customers and partners from various industries have continued to work with Xigo to improve mobile expenses for themselves or their clients:

• Xigo was recently selected by a global 500 consumer packaged goods organization to provide both telecom expense management (TEM) and mobile expense management (MEM) services. The consumer packaged goods organization is implementing Xigo Enterprise to manage the fixed and mobile expenses of its growing fleet of more than 4,000 corporate-liable devices, located in more than 20 countries.
• Corporate agents and consultants tasked with identifying unnecessary corporate expenses and recommending strategies for reducing budget waste should start their research with telecom expense management – particularly mobile expenses, where savings can be realized from a closer examination of specific data plans, overage charges, roaming fees and phone insurance. Xigo’s premium MEM solution, XigoPro, can help recommend cost savings and operational efficiencies to clients. Consultants can also utilize the free Web-based tool XigoNow to analyze client wireless invoices and see recommendations for immediate savings in a matter of minutes.
• Carousel Industries, a leader in data networking and converged communications including unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure, is providing Xigo’s MEM tools to its customer base. This first-of-its-kind service is a great example of a consultant/provider, as described above, providing access to Xigo’s powerful yet easy-to-use tools to attract new business and offer existing clients another level of cost reduction support.

About Xigo

Xigo instantly reduces and controls mobile, fixed and global telecommunications costs for organizations of all sizes. The company provides the first and only solution that uploads wireless bills and automatically generates immediate cost and time-saving results – in minutes, not months. Xigo’s single, cloud-based platform accommodates company growth without adding complexity and satisfies the full range of enterprise communications expense management requirements. Xigo’s success is attributed to customer-centric innovations and industry firsts with more than a decade of expertise spanning wireless and wire line communications. For more information visit www.xigo.com, email [email protected] or follow @XigoNow on twitter.

fama PRJeff Drew, 617-986-5004
[email protected]

Source: Xigo