FEATURE

TOTAL COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE (TCMS)

Total Communication Management Solution (TCMS) is the next generation of telecom expense management and its predecessor call accounting. Today the means of communication is not channelled through a single pipe — the PBX. It is not prudent to examine telecom expense through the single source of call detail records (CDR).

Communication facilities are rapidly evolving, changing and converging. There are many methods of communication including wireless, VoIP and traditional PSTN. Most companies have an array of communication devices including cell phones, hand held personal devices, instant messaging and the good old receiver. Industry giants like Microsoft, Cisco, Nortel and others are feverishly working to forge alliances and integrate technologies and deliver unified communications.

Integrating communications is no small task. Such applications as email, instant messaging, telephony, conferencing, video, web and file sharing will need to be scalable, seamlessly deployed and integrated within the enterprise. The new world unified communications standard will promote greater connectivity encompassing person-to-person, person-to-machine and machine-to- machine communication at a global scale.

The evolution of these new converged communication facilities is spawning next generation total communication management solutions that encompass non-traditional expense management solutions. At the core of every robust system remains a transformed web enabled call accounting system. The new call accounting package now includes tools for consolidating multiple communication expenses under one roof. The new age call accounting system provides management tools for mobile, wireless carriers, conference calls, IVR systems, paging, auto attendant, voice mail, calling card, ACD, internet usage and, of course, CDR. Traditional systems ignore traffic that is not reported in the PBX call detail information.

Shadow CMS by Resource Software International Ltd. (RSI) is a multi-vendor, multi-platform enterprise solution that makes sense of the multitudes of communication facility logs. This information is translated, analyzed and delivered to the appropriate personnel.

Now more than ever call accounting or more accurately TCMS is necessary to ease companies in transition. Communication is the lifeline of every business. It is imperative to attain the proper metrics to assess the health of the network and obtain quantitative results for future network planning.

The continuous innovation of new technologies and adoption of business convergence solutions is fostering greater need for communication usage management. Call accounting is now a single element in a multi-pronged approach to a total communication management solution (TCMS).

Enterprises are still concerned about telephone misuse and abuse but now want to consider a broader range of devices. Here are some of the questions that a TCMS can answer:

How long did Jimmy spend chatting on his business cell phone?
How many times did Jimmy surf the web and visit poker sites?
How many toll calls could have been directed over VoIP or other more cost effective carriers?
Did Jimmy readily return his voice mail messages?
How effective is the corporate auto attendant and CCR Tree?
Who called 911and from where?


There are many vendors that have evolved their call accounting offerings to address the changing needs of telecom and IT managers. Every successful company will seek out a solution that best fits their business requirements. Companies with the foresight in deploying a total communication management solution will undoubtedly be rewarded with a concrete unified picture of communication spend, greater productivity and a more lucrative bottom line.

RSI is recognized as an industry leader in the field of communication management. The communication management product portfolio includes tailored integration to the most popular switching and network manufactures. RSI has been granted Nortel Developer Partner status with recognition for its core portfolio as Compatible Products. RSI is a Cisco Technology Partner, Siemens HiPath Ready Standard certified, Avaya DeveloperConnect Member, Mitel MiSN Member, Adtran Complementary Solutions Provider, ShoreTel Technology Partner, NEC Univerge Partner and Alcatel Applications Partner