Companies should be able to manage all their mobile lines in a simple, centralised manner. This includes lines for operations teams, sales teams, and other corporate lines for employees. Unfortunately, that’s not how it typically works today. The current state for most medium and large businesses is way more disorganised.
Providing that simplified, centralised method of managing all mobile lines is the innovative service Brazilian B2B MVNO Salvy is delivering for its clients.
Time to re-think the status quo
Artur Negrao, CEO of Salvy, is working hard to solve several common challenges for clients. These are:
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Distant, ineffective relationships with the carriers and MNOs
Businesses fall into ineffective relationships with MNOs for many reasons. The primary one is that the market is extremely concentrated.
Artur Negrao, CEO of Salvy (AN): “Although there’s around 55 million B2B mobile lines in Brazil, excluding IoT, three MNOs own roughly 99% of that. And because of that, they focus mostly on those with 50,000 or 60,000 lines.”
“So, for companies with around 2,000 lines, for example, which isn’t even that small, they tend to have a very ineffective relationship with their MNO.”
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Long-term loyalty contracts are the status quo
Most businesses sign two-year long contracts, which prevents them from cancelling a line whenever they need to. Salvy believes this is a poor approach. It also requires businesses to add new contracts each time they order new lines. When growing fast, that becomes a problem.
Salvy has encountered companies with more than 100 signed contracts. In cases like that, even the MNO may lose track of exactly when a line is going to expire, or how much the size of the will be if it’s cancelled.
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Lack of capable software to manage these lines
It’s not unusual for a 2,000-line company to still use a basic spreadsheet to manage all their lines.
Of course, MNOs aren’t software companies, they’re telco companies, with a complicated set of systems. One prominent carrier, for example, has 12 different billing systems to manage. This makes building capable software difficult for MNOs, and often leaves their clients using inefficient, manual spreadsheets to manage lines.
But there’s a better way to operate, according to Artur, and that’s why he founded Salvy.
How to gain control back over your mobile lines
The unique approach Salvy uses to solve these problems is as follows:
- Establish a collaborative, direct relationship and work closely together
- Use AI to audit the existing line portfolio and identify inefficiency
- Remove loyalty contracts so companies can cancel a line whenever they want
- Use intelligent software to manage all the lines efficiently.
- Introduce an easy-to-use dashboard to centralise management of all lines in one place.
AN: “Software is useful in allowing MVNOs to add custom management capabilities like data analytics, cost centres, integrations with other departments, and more.”
“Dashboards allow simple access to consumption history, line history, and anything else required. Replacing spreadsheets, this approach provides great benefits in more accurate, up-to-date, and intuitive management of all lines within the company.”
Additionally, Salvy also differentiates its service by helping clients manage the lines they have with MNOs as well, to further consolidate the responsibility and make life much easier.
Incremental approach, big impact
After auditing the existing lines, it’s wise to take an incremental approach to migrating this over to a new MVNO like Salvy. It’s not sensible to migrate all lines to a new partner in one go.
Artur recommended first finding the inefficiencies and biggest opportunities to make an impact. This usually includes unused lines that are being paid for, unnecessary management costs, and other wasted spending. Then, the priority lines should be migrated first.
It’s also beneficial to audit when all the lines will expire, and create a migration plan based on the appropriate dates and timelines.
Ideal support for busy IT managers
Most internal IT managers aren’t just managing their telco services, they’re also managing hardware and software throughout the company as well.
This is another area where businesses benefit from value-added services from their MVNOs, and Salvy provides exactly that for its clients.
A case study Artur highlighted is a client called Alice, which is a health company in Brazil with 800 employees.
Working with Salvy to transform their approach, Alice has saved $56,000 in a year.
Those savings have been found in eliminating over-spending on unused lines and reducing their management costs.
An intelligent pricing model
Perhaps most interestingly, this service means that Salvy isn’t competing with MNOs on price. As mentioned in our recent report, that’s almost always a dangerous game to get involved with for MVNOs.
Instead, Salvy sets its costs based on optimisation.
AN: “We’re not offering cheaper data plans or cheaper mobile plans. What we’re offering is efficiency, so we don’t have to fight the MNO for price. MVNOs shouldn’t be doing that. Our service is optimisation and efficiency.”
How did that work with Alice, specifically?
Salvy’s audit revealed the opportunity to cancel 350 lines, which was a valuable adjustment for the company. Before the audit, they didn’t even know those lines weren’t being used, let alone that they could be cancelled.
First, 27 lines were ported, with a migration plan in place for the rest, and then, over time, another 323 lines were ported. Today, Alice is also now using Salvy’s device management software, bringing their relationship even closer and offering more value.
Efficiency breeds success
Working with clients as an MVNO focusing on mobile line management, Salvy has also discovered more opportunities to help its clients cut costs.
AN: “We often see that clients are not only over-spending on telco, but they’re also overspending on SaaS, because 38% of SaaS goes unused in an average month. The same goes for devices. Over-spending is so common for IT managers.”
“So, what we’re doing as a strategy is using telco as a gateway to provide clients with a broader solution. That is an all-in-one solution to reduce costs and become more efficient with IT management.”
Not only can Salvy now report excellent results of multiplying growth by a factor of five in the past 12 months, with excellent customer retention, but it also has an NPS of 86, which is more than triple the market average of 27.
Key takeaways: Salvy is a great case study for new B2B MVNOs looking to achieve success quickly. Simply identify a painful problem and think outside the box to create effective, innovative solutions. Software-based offerings and intelligent pricing provide an excellent way to build relationships with new customers. Then, the opportunities will arise to deliver more diverse services within those established relationships, driving customer retention, loyalty, and growth.
