Telecom, Cloud, SaaS & Devices — Transparent, Optimized, and Proven
Expense Management should do more than cut checks and nag approvers.
SolveForce runs spend as a system: inventory → contract intelligence → usage analytics → anomaly detection → optimization & approvals — all tied to business value and evidence you can hand to finance, security, and auditors.
Connected pages:
💹 Financial Ops → /finops • ☁️ Cloud → /cloud • 🖧 Networks → /networks-and-data-centers
🌐 WAN/Edge → /sd-wan • 📶 Mobility → /mobile-connectivity • 🛰️ Satellite → /satellite-internet
🔒 Security & Evidence → /cybersecurity • /siem-soar
📊 Data Platform → /data-warehouse • /etl-elt • 🧭 Governance → /data-governance
🧰 Ops → /noc • /circuit-monitoring
🎯 Outcomes (Why SolveForce Expense Management)
- Total visibility — clean inventory of circuits, links, mobile lines, cloud accounts, SaaS seats, and devices.
- Lower run-rate — contract right-sizing, plan pooling, commitment planning (RI/SP/CUD), and waste kill.
- No surprises — anomalies flagged within days, not quarters; disputes opened with evidence.
- Business alignment — spend mapped to owners, apps, and SLOs; unit economics you can defend.
- Audit-grade — invoices, contracts, approvals, and optimization actions export to SIEM/SOAR for proof.
🧭 Scope (What We Manage & Optimize)
- Telecom & Network (TEM) — DIA/Coax/DSL, SD-WAN underlays, MPLS/VPLS, wavelength/lit/dark fiber, satellite, POTS/PRI/SIP, usage & taxes/surcharges.
- Mobility — corporate & field lines, IoT SIMs/private APN, device lifecycle (MDM/UEM), eSIM pools, roaming controls. → /mdm
- Cloud (FinOps) — compute/storage/network egress, commitments (RIs/SP/CUDs), BigQuery slots, GPU nodes. → /finops
- SaaS — license tiering, inactive accounts, duplicate apps, SSO scope, renewals calendar. → /iam
- Hardware — device refresh plans, support contracts, spares & RMA economics.
- Contracts — rate cards, MRC/NRC, auto-renew traps, early termination math, benchmarking.
🧱 Building Blocks (Spelled Out)
- Inventory-as-Code
- Normalize all services to a canonical model (provider, product, location, term, bandwidth, IDs, cost codes).
- Continuous discovery from invoices, portals, and monitoring. → /circuit-monitoring
- Contract Intelligence
- Parse MRC/NRC, terms, SLAs, ETF clauses; map to services; renewal/notice alarms.
- Benchmark vs current market and planned usage.
- Usage & Analytics
- CDRs, mobile usage buckets, SD-WAN path stats, cloud $/resource, SaaS seat activity; pushed into the warehouse with dimensions (app/team/env/region).
→ /etl-elt • /data-warehouse - Anomaly Detection & Alerts
- Spikes, zeros, duplicates, zombie lines, roaming outliers, egress jumps, under-utilized commitments; tickets opened with evidence.
→ /siem-soar - Optimization Engine
- Circuit right-size/renew, mobile plan pooling, cloud commitments, SaaS de-dup & right-tiering; approval workflows with savings estimates.
- Chargeback/Showback
- Tags & cost codes enforced; unit economics ($/user, $/site, $/1k req, $/TB) visible to owners.
→ /finops
🧰 Reference Programs (Choose Your Fit)
A) Telecom Expense Management (TEM) Refresh
Full inventory, contract audit, tax/surcharge review, disputes & credits, renewal playbook, SD-WAN policy to shift traffic where cost fits.
B) Mobility Optimization
Pool plans, throttle roaming, retire ghost lines/IMEIs, enforce MDM compliance, private APN/IPsec to hubs; quarterly right-sizing.
C) Cloud FinOps Core
Budgets/alerts, commitment plan, right-size & autoscale, storage lifecycle & egress guardrails, per-team unit costs.
D) SaaS Rationalization
SSO census → seat activity → tier right-sizing; remove duplicates; consolidate vendors; renewal & security reviews aligned.
E) Edge/Remote Program
LTE/5G + satellite tertiary with SD-WAN policy; seasonal suspend/reactivate; evidence-based vendor disputes for outages.
📐 SLO Guardrails (Targets You Can Measure)
| Domain | KPI / SLO | Target (Recommended) |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage | Inventory accuracy (services/lines) | ≥ 98–100% |
| Tempo | Anomaly detection to ticket | ≤ 3–5 business days from invoice post |
| Savings | Run-rate reduction (first 2 quarters) | 10–20% TEM/Mobility; 15–30% SaaS (mix-dependent) |
| Cloud | Commitment coverage / utilization | ≥ 70–90% / ≥ 95% |
| SaaS | Inactive seat rate | ≤ 2–5% after quarter 1 |
| Disputes | Credit recovery success | ≥ 70–90% of valid claims |
| Evidence | Docs to SIEM (invoices/contracts/approvals) | ≤ 24 h post-event |
SLO breaches auto-open tickets and trigger SOAR (re-rate request, seat reclaim, plan change, commit adjust, escalate vendor). → /siem-soar
🔒 Governance, Security & Compliance
- Access — SSO/MFA to portals; least-privilege; no shared logins; vendor access through ZTNA. → /ztna
- Privacy — redact PII/PHI on bills; DLP egress controls; limit invoice distribution. → /dlp
- Evidence & Audit — retain invoices, contracts, approvals, disputes, and savings deltas; export packs for SOC 2/ISO/SOX audits.
- Change control — contract & plan changes logged; rollback plan for failed optimizations.
📊 Observability & Evidence
- Dashboards: spend by domain/vendor/site/team, QoQ deltas, unit costs, anomaly queue, dispute status, savings realized vs forecast.
- Data lineage: invoice → parser → normalized service → cost code → owner → decision history.
- All artifacts & events stream to SIEM/SOAR with monthly executive reports. → /siem-soar
🛠️ Implementation Blueprint (No-Surprise Rollout)
1) Discover & normalize — pull invoices/CSVs/APIs; build the canonical inventory & rate map.
2) Benchmark & model — compare against market and planned usage; set savings targets.
3) Instrument usage — SD-WAN/CDR/mobile/cloud/SaaS telemetry into the warehouse; tag gaps fixed.
4) Alert & approve — anomaly detections; owner approvals with forecast savings; implement changes.
5) Dispute & recover — lodge credits with evidence; track to closure.
6) Commit & renew — plan cloud commitments and telecom renewals; avoid auto-renew traps.
7) Chargeback — publish cost by owner/app/site with unit economics; hold quarterly reviews.
8) Operate — monthly optimization waves; QoQ savings reporting; annual contract cycle playbook.
✅ Pre-Engagement Checklist
- 📄 Last 3–6 months of invoices (telecom, mobility, cloud, SaaS) + contracts/renewals.
- 🗺️ Service inventory (sites, circuits, accounts, lines, SaaS tenants); cost codes & owners.
- 🔐 Portal/API access with SSO/MFA; role scopes.
- 📊 Telemetry sources (SD-WAN stats, CDRs, usage exports, SaaS seat activity, cloud cost & tags).
- 💬 Dispute history & credits; renewal calendar; benchmark targets.
- 💸 Budget guardrails & savings goals; reporting cadence (finance & IT).
🔄 Where Expense Management Fits (Recursive View)
1) Grammar — spend traces across /connectivity, mobility, /cloud, and SaaS.
2) Syntax — analytics & facts stored in the /data-warehouse via /etl-elt.
3) Semantics — /data-governance labels ownership & privacy; /cybersecurity enforces access.
4) Pragmatics — /finops turns insights into commitments and savings with approvals.