ZiCi is one of New Zealand's leading telecommunications expense control and activity management business intelligence specialists.

Established in 1992 as Phonewatcher. In 1998 the company embarked on a long-term program of research and development and changed its name to Optimex SPS Limited. After the purchase of a competitive company’s customer base, ZiCi was formed as the new company, in 2002.

We operate in the New Zealand, Australian, UK, and US markets. The company has a high degree of in-house specialist knowledge and expertise that develops and deploys customer driven solutions.

Our customers include national and local government departments, multi-national financial institutions, multi-national manufacturers, multi-site learning institutions, legal institutions and multi-national contact centres as well as a variety of single-office businesses.

The ZiCi Reporting service delivers targeted information directly to individuals without the need for complex technical support and administration. The comprehensive online reporting options comprise of over 140 templates showing outgoing and incoming calls, an ad hoc reporting tool for individual report creation and an executive dashboard summary delivering benefits in cost management, network performance and human resource management.

ZiCi Reports can be tailored to meet client’s specific information requirements and the method of report delivery is highly flexible i.e. reports can be accessed online or emailed directly to individuals in time to meet monthly reporting deadlines. A variety of report formats are available, some of which allow easy data manipulation and additional analysis.

The company has a high degree of in-house specialist knowledge and expertise that develops and deploys customer driven solutions providing seamless deployment, full servicing and technical support.

Zici is a boutique company of software developers, engineers, technicians, network designers and an Enterprise Architect. Formed in 1992 Zici is owned by two New Zealanders and concentrates in the NZ and Australian markets.

Managing ICT cost and provision is extremely complex with confusing bills and competing offers, with emerging technologies, legacy equipment, custom applications and so on. With your priority of running your business it's difficult to get and maintain a market view of best practice, technology choice and true costs. Excess cost in provision and consumption will always be prevalent.

Zici has built a deep data mining and translation capability specialising in telecommunications usage and cost data. This capability supports an online call accounting/business intelligence service called Zici Reporting and an alliance of telecommunications consultants called The aKnowledge Alliance.

The aKnowledge Alliance is an exclusive, membership only collaboration between a few chosen telecommunications consultants. Where no governing or accreditation body exists they have created a self regulating alliance built on peer endorsement.

Each customer engagement is quite different, as are their needs. This means that it is difficult to describe our service in detail, except to say that we chase the money by identifying and sometimes removing excess telecommunications costs. This can encompass a lot of services from benchmarking to full RFP writing and evaluation. Our competencies require continuous renewal which is achieved by consulting to an average of 22 different corporations a year. Zici also maintains an ICT cost and usage reporting service to 56 enterprise customers, where true costs and best practice is measured monthly.

It is important to differentiate ourselves from those who focus on rates. Pricing and rate negotiation is an unsophisticated and blunt approach better left to cost consultants. We build our network and credibility through relationships and endorsements. This slow time investment enables us to avoid hard selling and overt marketing, we network and remain in touch without being a nuisance.

Normally we would start with a free, initial audit to see if there is any savings worth pursuing. This may result in a clean bill of health, but we do look very hard! What is found will determine what and who should be deployed, and what the price would be to detail and or realise the savings.

ZiCi values are based around the model of 100% customer retention with all key business strategies directed towards this aim.

ZiCi does not demand a term contract to bind our customers, instead offering a one months notice period, being supremely confident in providing added value to our clients on an ongoing basis.

This ensures our complete focus in delivering sustainable benefits to our customers every single month, reacting quickly and providing innovative service in step with a changing technological environment.

Most businesses overspend for voice and data services. And, given the significant outlay for telecommunications services, those excess costs often impact on bottom line results.

ZiCi is a locally based international company specialising in telecommunication expense and performance management. We deliver significant cost reductions to our clients while simultaneously improving their overall telecommunication environment. Each of our powerful cost-saving services can be individually selected or alternatively, bundled together to address unique telecommunications management needs.

Reporting

The ZiCi Reporting service delivers targeted information directly to individuals without the need for complex technical support and administration. The comprehensive reporting options comprise over 140 reports delivering benefits in cost management, network performance and human resource management.

Types of Reporting Functions

• Full summary reporting of monthly call costs versus previous month and year, ability to customize to add infrastructure costs and budget
• Exception reporting includes extension league tables analyzing most expensive calls and extensions
• At-a-glance historical trend analysis to facilitate budget forecasting and control
• Actual relevant call patterns and tariff information to strengthen carrier negotiation positions
• Identification of optimal infrastructure requirement
• Analysis of key answer point performance for operators (or other incoming call answer points). Clients can determine how many operators are needed and when, and how quickly incoming calls are answered
• Identification of specific types of phone usage to allow monitoring and control of fraudulent activity, or to create and tighten corporate phone usage guidelines
• Incoming call analysis to identify regions from which incoming calls are received. Among other things, this allows clients to measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns
• Consolidating fixed and mobile call costs. Clients can identify total combined costs right down to individual user level

Contact us and ask how Zici Reporting can enhance your business intelligence.

Reconciliation

ZiCi Bill Reconciliation works with the key elements of telecommunication expense management, this enables us to audit and evaluate your billing accuracy and telco expenditure. It provides savings, in the forms of credits and optimisation. This requires an audit that covers 3 billing cycles (months) and the installation of ZiCi Reporting.

The bills provided by vendors often are lengthy and difficult to review and understand. They vary from month to month according to business activity, number of working days in the month and the services used.

Research has also shown that on average telco bills are 10% inaccurate.

The ZiCi Bill Reconciliation service is designed to cut through this complexity and answer the key questions:

• Should this bill be paid?
• Do I fully appreciate what I am paying for on my telco bill?
• Am I sure my telco bill is accurate?
• Are there any major variations outside the norm that need to investigated?
• Am I receiving the loyalty discounts I was promised?
• Am I paying for services that are no longer required or used?
• Have I received all the credits I was promised?

As part of the monthly review ZiCi provide a bill reconciliation report that outlines:

• The compliance to pre-agreed key indicators such as total spend, credits owed, variation to actual bill, variation to budget
• Bill summaries with monthly running total for each main category of spend. This includes an explanation of any variation from the previous month and whether any action is required
• A comparison to the previous year’s spend for that particular month
• Details of any new services that have appeared on the bill and associated approvals
• Measurement of internet usage on the bill and excess charges paid
• Monitoring of loyalty and other contract credits payable

Consulting

ZiCi Consulting provides telecommunications and data cost reduction services that have reduced costs between 20% and 44%, and ensures that this is sustainable.

We don't charge until the projected savings are achieved.

This works by:

• Using our reporting systems to measure overall costs and uncover main problem areas
• Cutting out wastage
• Benchmarking costs against our 160 other sites and then rebalancing the rates charged by the vendor to address main problem areas
• Using reporting systems and regular reviews to maintain cost control

We engage our clients by:

• Benchmarking the major aspects of telecommunications and data services to ascertain if our services are of value to the client. This discovery process is free of charge
• Conducting an audit to reduce wastage, ascertain services required and negotiating market rates. This audit is charged on value provided
• Ensuring control, monitoring and review systems are in place to ensure value is maintained. The monthly monitoring attracts a small monthly fee.

Credibility

ZiCi's experience over 18 years has shown that telecommunication costs can be cut by as much as 40%. The ZiCi customer base represents all business, government and tertiary sectors. This provides us with a view that is updated monthly of current usage, cost of ownership and technology solutions in NZ, Australia and the UK. Our independence is important, and we receive no benefit from any third party other than our direct customer. ZiCi works with all carriers and proactively tracks all service offerings. We are carrier agnostic, which means we work for you.

Untangle the Confusion

Every customer is different; their business and requirements, recent acquisitions, strategic priorities, mobility, technology etc. Every ZiCi Audit is different.

ZiCi specialise in telecommunications management, audits and benchmarking. This focus and dedication has made us an industry leader keeping us in the forefront of new technologies, pricing and emerging best practice.

The Audit will include

What you pay for...

Bill Validation

10% of all Telecommunications bills are inaccurate and require detailed analysis. We validate your invoice against your vendor contract to ensure accuracy and eliminate added cost.

What you have...

Dimension Network, Identify Excess

Measuring the usage and capacity of your infrastructure and network; PRAs, trunks, data capacity, handsets/mobile phone allocation and usage, etc.

What you use...

Remove Excess

This is a program of work that you approve, and ZiCi deliver. Caution is exercised where redundancy and/or operational risks are known or suspected.

The Audit might include;

Benchmarking

What's unique about our comparisons is market access; all our Customers telecommunications usage and costs are updated monthly.

What you need...

Process Improvement

ZiCi has developed a wide understanding and knowledge of the way customers and different industries use telecommunications. Their best practice is driven by their competitive business needs and forms the basis of our recommendations.

What you need...

Alternative Technologies

New telecommunication technologies are now better proven and supported. Services from tier 2 and 3 vendors now can be seriously considered, even by risk averse organisations. SIP in particular is enabling a lot of viable alternatives that can decrease cost and add valid functionality.

What you need...

Review Supply

• Write RFP
• Evaluate Responses
• Implement Change

ZiCi can manage the procurement process to ensure that like for like comparisons can be made against your business criteria. This engagement will deliver either parts of, or all of the procurement process, depending on what makes sense to outsource.

If required ZiCi can develop a strategic plan to optimise your telecommunications infrastructure. This may include redesigning services, optimising under-utilised bandwidth, converging voice and data and evaluating new technology.

Monitor and Manage

Outsourcing telecommunications management and monitoring to ZiCi will cost less than a part-time employee. ZiCi provides a monthly reconciliation of your bill and analysis of your usage utilising our specialist skills and market knowledge to keep costs under control.