21% cut from Richmond University call bill

Richmond, the American International University in London, embraces a community of students and staff from around the globe.

Universities are notoriously expensive to run, often with budgets that surpass those of large companies, sometimes even enough to rival small cities. At Richmond, with students and staff hailing from more than 100 different countries, their telecommunications call profile was very geographically diverse.

"We engaged ERA initially to review our communications spend which was spread over five sites and two suppliers.” Bill Scott, Director of Finance for Richmond University explained.

Given the university’s massive telecommunications needs, Expense Reduction Analysts Consultant Andrew Lees decided that it would be prudent to call in fellow consultant and communications expert Tobias Morris to undertake the review.

Tobias began investigating the university’s telecom supplier contracts seeking ways for such a large client to take advantage of better terms and to negotiate far better service provision and charging.

After careful analysis of the information gathered by the investigation, Andrew and Tobias were able to identify and achieve impressive savings of £27,500 within this area of expenditure alone.

With several other Expense Reduction Analysts projects being undertaken at Richmond at the same time – all of which were delivering substantial results – Bill was deeply impressed by the savings being delivered.

"I was pleasantly surprised with the savings which Andrew and Tobias identified, as well as much improved management information and ongoing monitoring. We have since asked them to review our level of expenditure on energy and once again, they have delivered savings – this time of £33,000 (35%).”

“These [results] have been achieved much more quickly than would have been the case if we had conducted the analyses internally,” he said.

Speaking about his experiences in dealing with ***

Expense Reduction Analysts, Bill concluded, "I have been very impressed by ERA's professional and unobtrusive approach both to our staff and suppliers and have no hesitation in recommending ERA to any business or organization that wishes to reduce its overhead costs."

Source: ERA