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Who Is Berlin Pacific?
We are not a phone company, and we don’t sell for vendors. Berlin Pacific is an independent telecom consulting firm based in New York City. Companies who use us cut costs - increasing profits and freeing up budget dollars. We implement our recommendations, without costing the customer a dime or increasing their workload. Since 1998, we’ve provided business and IT consulting services for Fortune 500, financial and medium sized companies in the New York area. In addition to assisting companies manage the costs of telecom, we also help them source telecom and IT services.
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What Does Berlin Pacific Deliver?
- Proven ROI. For every dollar a client invests in our services, they get two dollars in savings year after year.
- Cost savings create value for owners.
- Cost savings are potential budget dollars available for investment in the business.
- Telecom Expense REduction's proven methodology optimizes the cost of the telecom services the business needs, and eliminates the rest. We review all costs – from phone and data lines to cell phones and conferencing.
- Client savings are extensively documented, and we don't charge customers until they save.
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Why is Berlin Pacific’s Telecom Expense Reduction Valuable?
Our clients are busy managing their businesses, and don’t have the time and internal expertise to manage telecom costs. Telecom vendors don’t present costs so that customers can easily determine if they’re being charged for services they don’t use, are being overcharged for services and tax and regulatory fees, and whether they’re getting the best possible rates. Clients who use our service gain cost reductions, while maintaining focus on their core business. We save organizations time and money.
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What is Telecom Expense Reduction?
Telecom Expense Reduction is a free service that helps companies cut telecom costs. We review all telecom costs from voice and data, to conferencing and cell phones. We implement our recommendations. We find three ways to save –
- Eliminating Billing Errors
- Eliminating Unused Services
- Getting the Best Market Price Cutting costs frees up budget dollars for other spending or permanently increased company profits.
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What is new about Telecom Expense Reduction?
Many clients haven’t done this, and if they have, they haven’t made it all inclusive, examining all the ways to cut costs. Especially hard is learning the best market rates – and these are falling every day. Vendors won’t tell their customers this though – so the customer ends up pay 20% to 100% over the market rate for commodity services, even when their telecom costs have gone down. We also do a full inventory of our client’s services, and run numbers to see how adding new services and configurations can cut costs the most effectively. While complicated to compile, it creates clear results allowing clients to make cost saving decisions.
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What Deliverables are Included?
Proposal – We initially offer a proposal, making it clear all the work we do, and how little our clients do.
Inventory – We inventory all bills and break them down by service, including by phone line and even sub-service (like caller id.) and we show how much they cost. Due to the complicated manner in which most vendors handle their reporting, many clients have no clue what exactly the bills are for, they only have a general idea. Client with an inventory gain visibility into their services and spending.
Option – Typically there are multiple money saving options, and they are Comparison presented in a format that allows side by side comparison of the leading possibilities
Site – Berlin Pacific keeps an extensive record of all service changes and Changes expected cost savings. Clients have a complete picture of how and when their services will change. Information includes the new vendor, quality of service, expected savings, and the individual responsible for deploying the change.
Scorecard – This lists and tracks all of our clients cost savings in a simple to read format.
Cost Savings Documentation – We extensively document all of our client’s cost savings so our clients can verify how much they save each month.
Monthly or Periodic Invoices – We show customers exactly how much they’ve saved each month by using our service.
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What are Optional Deliverables?
Contract Review – We will review new service contracts and help them make sure they get the best price. Sourcing of Services – We will order new services on their behalf, and ensure they receive a good deal.
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What are the Features, Advantages and Benefits?
No Work – We implement our recommendations. The client does no work except give us access to bills, approve our recommendations, and cut a check. Technical changes are usually seamlessly handled by their phone switch or PBX vendor. Occasionally we ask them a few questions about their services. Clients are too busy to do the whole job, and value our ability to make it possible.
Speed – Clients can start saving sooner by using us. Many clients are too focused on their business to do this themselves.
Eliminating Unused Services – Most customers have no idea exactly what they’re paying for. Their vendors don’t provide the information, and when they do it’s in a very difficult to read format. Vendors don’t look for services customers don’t use, and customers either don’t know how or are too busy. We make sure our clients are informed clients.
Eliminating Billing Errors – Most customers don’t know how to tell if they’re being billed the right amount, especially for tax and regulatory fees.
Best Market Pricing – Most clients don’t know how to get the best market price. Their vendors can highball them, and then negotiate down and still overcharge. It takes a network of contacts who know what’s going on in the industry and have access to the best deals. Keeping track of pricing is a full time job, and clients don’t know who’s in the know and has the authority to give them a great deal. We are able to help, or we know who does.
Implementation – We implement our recommendations. This means we achieve results.
Technical Knowledge – This isn’t a technical service, but we do have the expertise to understand the details of each service and determine if it’s being used, and how to replace it with a service that has equivalent benefits. Clients know they and their employees and vendors can communicate with us.
Competitive Advantages – We offer a full scale, all inclusive service that is flexible, yet maximizes the reduction of client costs. Many competitors only do part of our service. We cover all telecom services and all three ways to cut their costs.
- Eliminating Billing Errors
- Eliminating Unused Services
- Getting the Best Market Price
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What is the Target Market?
We focus on medium size companies. Most companies of this size don’t have an internal team, and are not being served by a firm capable of delivering this service. Many larger firms are already served. Smaller firms have potential, but the savings may not add up. Therefore, we help the un-served medium and large firms that can benefit. Companies always need to increase profits, and they can do that by increasing sales or decreasing costs. We help them decrease costs. Organizations are also under pressure to achieve many tasks with a limited budget. With Telecom Expense Reduction valuable budget dollars can be freed up, allowing the budget to be cut without pain, or additional projects funded without pain.
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What is the Typical Client Perspective?
This is a financial service, not a technical service. We help companies run their business for less. Clients achieve high ROI.
Our initial client contacts are C level executives. They understand that this takes none of their time; Berlin Pacific will do all the work with lower level employees and we’ll report back the financial results. They know that clients lose money every day they delay. Often the C level’s assistants help put us in touch with the right people.
There will be a manager who is responsible for telecom and can make decisions. This manager is responsible for managing the business, and appreciates that we’re experts in an obscure area they don’t have time to handle or learn. They may be an IT person or telecom manager, or an office manager or controller, or even HR or operations. Recommendations will be submitted for their approval and possibly, approval by their boss.
The first key milestone is giving Berlin Pacific copies of bill records. This gives us the information to inventory services. With a solid inventory one can give solid recommendations on actual cost savings, and then implement them. Berlin Pacific can come to the client site to copy or scan bills, but the client can also mail or scan and e-mail bills to us. The bills are collected from accounts payable.
After collecting the bills, it can take several weeks to create recommendations. We meet with our client and discuss cost saving ideas. We explain their options, giving the hard dollar amounts they can save. Sometimes it takes several weeks or a month to get approval. Once we get approval we implement the recommendations, coordinating as needed with the organizations technical employees and vendors. After the recommendations are implemented the clients are billed for cost savings. We charge 50% of every dollar we save our clients in the first year, plus 50% of every dollar they receive in vendor credits.
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Clients Win When?
Client’s win when they understand that this is a ‘no brainer’ - a simple way to cut costs that doesn’t cost them time or money.
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What is the Cost Saving Opportunity?
The typical engagement results in hundreds or dollars per client employee. A company with several hundred employees can easily save a hundred thousand dollars per year.
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What is the Typical Customer Profile?
Companies with 50-10,000 office employees – people using a phone and a computer. (Even smaller firms with many customer focused employees in sales and service can be good). Such companies have high enough costs to make this worthwhile, but are not serviced by a vendor or internal team. Typical clients have either not heard of this service, or have had it done years ago and understand the value. Some are doing it in house or have a consultant, however they are not using our holistic methodology and retain our services to boost their results. Our clients are serious about increasing profits and value to owners, and will take essentially free suggestions that decrease costs with no work for them.
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How Does Berlin Pacific Serve its’ Clients?
When the client hasn’t done telecom cost management
For our clients, this is a financial service, not a technical one. It doesn’t take much of our client’s time. They feel comfortable with our track record. Many clients don’t even know what they spend, let alone how little they could spend. If they do it themselves, there could be a delay of six months, so it would be cheaper for them to have us do it. This is likely something they won’t get around to doing.When the client has done telecom cost management
They know the value. They perceive the value as high, and are motivated to take action soon. If they do it themselves there could be a delay of six months, so it would be cheaper for us to do it. Since they are so busy, this is likely something they won’t get around to doing.When the client has someone else doing telecom cost management
Some of our clients discover that their review is not as large scale as ours. They get negative answers when asking the following questions. Does it cover all costs –voice, data, conferencing, cell phone, etc.? Does it help remove billing errors and unused services and give them the best market pricing? These clients do not have figures available as to how costs have decreased radically, nor do they have an inventory of existing services and costs. They realize they are not totally satisfied. Since we are happy to double check their work for free, and cover the areas they’re not covering, they use our services.You can contact Managing Director Anders Mikkelsen at 917-743-3741 to schedule a free consultation and ask questions about how you can cut costs with this unique free service.
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Who are some Berlin Pacific Clients?
ABM Industries ANS Atlantic City Convention Center Bank of New York Bed Bath and Beyond Central Park Media Daiwa Securities Fairfield University Garon Products Haskell Jewels Kirkland and Ellis Lucent Mamiye Brothers Protravel Reed Schwab US Trust.
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How can I get a free consultation?
You can contact Managing Director Anders Mikkelsen at 917-743-3741 to schedule a free consultation and ask questions about how you can cut costs with this unique free service.