August 5, 2025 • 37 mins
Optimizing Wireless Expenses with Stephanie Hayes of Byte Analytics
In this episode of The Wireless Way, host Chris Whitaker interviews Stephanie Hayes, Head of Wireless Expense Analytics at Byte Analytics. They discuss the complexities of managed mobility and wireless expense management. Stephanie shares insights into how Byte Analytics optimizes corporate wireless billing to achieve measurable savings. The conversation covers common mistakes companies make in managing their wireless plans, the importance of using software for precision, and the role of AI in future optimizations. Stephanie also shares personal anecdotes about her travels and career journey. The episode concludes with actionable advice for finance leaders on avoiding overpaying wireless carriers.
00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:28 The Problem with Wireless Expenses
03:43 Stephanie Hayes' Background and Journey
05:04 Travel Stories and Personal Insights
07:32 Getting into Mobility Expense Management
10:17 Challenges in Wireless Billing
13:18 Global Optimization and Software Solutions
18:17 Challenges Faced by Mobility Providers
18:57 The Role of AI in Mobility Management
19:22 Ideal Customer Profiles and Market Opportunities
20:03 Global Optimization and Carrier Relations
24:02 Advice for Finance Leaders on Managing Carrier Costs
29:59 The Importance of Wireless Expense Management
31:03 Stephanie's Favorite Billing Story
33:22 Future Travel Plans and Business Insights
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
chris_1_08-05-2025_1159 (00:00):
Welcome to another episode of The
Wireless Way.
I'm your host, Chris Whitaker,and yes, I'm grateful that
you're here and equally gratefulfor Stephanie Hayes.
she's the head of wirelessexpense analytics at Byte
Analytics, and I met her, atMobile Disrupt in Miami.
Not that long ago, and we justhit it off.
(00:21):
I mean, great energy.
She's, as passionate aboutmobility and saving money as I
am, and I talk a lot about that.
If you've been listening, youknow, I have other episodes on
similar topics around managedmobility, mobile device
management.
You can't really have any kindof managed mobility conversation
and not address the elephant inthe room.
Most people.
(00:41):
In fact, all people are usuallyoverpaying.
All companies are usuallyoverpaying, possibly even on
your own personal account.
If you have a family plan, youprobably have some fees on
there.
You don't even know what theyare.
We're gonna dive into that, butbefore I bring her on just a
little bit about her, uh, sheleads the wireless expense
optimization practice at ByteAnalytics, a lean yet powerful
(01:02):
firm that turns corporatewireless billing, chaos.
It's a measurable savings.
And again, if you're in businessto make money, you gotta have
your eye on this.
You need, measurable savings.
That's the buzzword that thesecret sauce for proprietary
global optimization algorithms.
Mouthful there, but she's gonnatell us what that means.
they go beyond line by linebilling analysis, and that's how
(01:25):
it used to always be done lineby line.
Some accounts payable person wasjust, grinding and out over
definitely hours, if not daysand weeks.
So byte, considers the entireaccount ecosystem including
shared services like data poolsand Roman features, to identify
cost effective configurations,that other providers often miss.
(01:48):
Again, if you're doing itmanually.
Human nature is to makemistakes.
So quite possibly, right?
If you're not using some kind ofsoftware, you're probably make
mistakes.
under her leadership.
Byte not only automates whatused to take human analyst
hours, but delivers results injust minutes with greater
precision and a anonymizer toolto protect and use privacy.
(02:10):
And, here's the best part, byte.
Her company offers a zero riskdemo.
if they can't find savings, Youpay nothing.
so she's based in NorthernVirginia, AKA Nova.
I used to be a Nova residentmyself in Fairfax County,
Virginia, outside of Washington,DC a beautiful area, a beautiful
state.
she works directly with 10providers and other managed
(02:31):
service providers.
she's on a mission to helporganizations stop overpaying
wireless carriers, optimize poolvoice, data usage, and retrofit
plan features after usageanomalies, to reduce future
bills.
Basically a mouthful there.
Hey, you know, she's trying toremove the headaches and put the
money back in your pocket, andyou only really pay for what
(02:52):
you're using.
Is that about right?
Stephanie?
Welcome to the show.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025 (02:56):
You got it, Chris.
nailing it.
Absolutely.
I mean, it is a complicatedlittle piece.
this optimization and wirelessexpense management has many
different components to it.
procurement of phones, approvingthose orders, sending those
orders through, getting thehandset ready for the user.
Those are all important, butthose are not what I focus on.
What we focus on at BiteAnalytics, we just focus on
(03:16):
optimization.
And what does that mean?
Really, it's the plans and thefeatures.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (03:21):
Yeah.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_1 (03:21):
a really big family plan, right?
Except instead of four people inyour family, you have hundreds
or thousands, and everyone ischanging all the time.
Trying to get that right cansave money, but it's very
difficult.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (03:31):
Yeah.
So, it is very difficult and Ican't wait to get into that
conversation a little bit more,but as always, customary, you
know, first question on the showis what's not in the bio?
How did you get here?
Tell us a little bit more aboutwho you are and your journey.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-20 (03:48):
Thank you.
So, I'm originally from Canada.
I'm, now married to an American,very proud, army spouse.
I've traveled to 80 countries.
I've lived in eight.
I have a few times in my lifemoved to a new country where I
didn't know anyone and didn'tspeak the language.
So I like those littlechallenges.
I also like scuba diving andriding my bicycle and yeah,
(04:09):
generally living my best life.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (04:11):
Got little challenges going to a
country where you don't speakthe language.
That sounds like a pretty bigchallenge.
man.
Yeah, we could probably have thewhole show just on that.
That, that, that topic rightthere.
'cause I know when I first metyou, we were talking about that
and, you know, we were justgetting to know each other.
And you told me that.
I was like, oh my gosh.
And I think I even asked you andI, I gotta ask you again, I
(04:31):
mean, was there a favorite, andmaybe that was, we could be
positive, was, was there afavorite one that you would,
that you would go if your, ifyour family goes, Hey, yeah,
let's go anywhere in the world,where, where would you move to?
Where would you go to and love?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05- (04:43):
there's so many.
I would say as far as hidden GSgo, Slovenia in Europe is a
wonderful country to visit.
It's got all the good stuffabout the Alps.
it's much less expensive,beautiful cities, incredible
caves that you can take a littletrain into,
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (04:56):
Hmm.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_1 (04:56):
I would say Eastern Europe.
And Southeast Asia, it's verymuch a favorite for me.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (05:01):
Wow.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_ (05:02):
is my favorite country
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (05:03):
Wow.
Have you ever done a blog ordocumented or have you ever
written anything on all of yourtravels?
I mean, you should document thatif you have it.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2 (05:11):
That's a great question.
when I travel, especially backin the day before social media,
I would write long emails to myparents and then they would
print them out and give them tomy grandparents and my aunts and
uncles, especially those whodidn't have computers.
So I did record it in that way.
However, I'm not much of atravel blogger kind of person.
I've been told a few times thatI should keep a travel blog.
I do have a bit of an Instagram,but it's not too glamorous.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (05:32):
Okay, well, you're right.
Some of the folks.
I mean, I'm shocked.
I talk to people that have nevereven left their hometown.
I mean, they've never left theirstate.
and I get it, you know, it's notfor everybody, not, maybe you
don't have the means or, but I,I imagine, did you have the
ability to kind of travel, on ashoestring budget?
I mean, were you kind of themaster of making that dollar
(05:54):
stretch and hostels and Airbnbsor, where they even call it
couch surfing?
stephanie-heys_1_08- (06:00):
Absolutely never did couch surfing.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (06:02):
Good.
stephanie-heys_1_08 (06:02):
backpacking trip through Asia was a
long-term, you know, hostiletype of situation.
Lots of long, uncomfortablebuses.
minivans sketchy bathrooms,stuff like that.
I wouldn't have it any otherway.
It's, for, seasoning you as atraveler and just also the local
experiences.
A lot of my travel lately hasbeen because, before I started
(06:23):
working on by analyticsfull-time.
I was working as a wirelessanalyst full-time.
That was a remote job, and so Icould work in travel I was
working in traveling, for yearsand years and that's how I,
ended up being in Peru,Honduras, France and Croatia,
where I eventually met myhusband.
So it's safe to say that.
my remote travel job and alsocoming from a family of
(06:45):
travelers led to this 80 countrysituation here.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (06:48):
Wow, that's, I didn't even think of
that.
So a family or travelers, whoare the other travelers in your
family?
your parents, siblings?
All of them.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-202 (06:56):
All, all of them.
Really?
Yeah.
So both of my, my parents havebeen on long backpacking trips
before and after they gotmarried.
they still travel regularly, allthe time, challenging travel,
like to India and, you know,more outside the box.
Places.
And then my sister is, is verymuch a traveler.
She did her, master's researchover in Uganda and has, traveled
to Southeast Asia, to Australiaand New Zealand and many other
(07:18):
places.
So she's a, a diplomatic type.
So she by
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (07:22):
Yeah.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-202 (07:22):
too.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (07:23):
so all this travel, all this
perspective you've gained, Takeme back to the day, was it, just
chance you got into mobility,expense management.
At what point did you say, Hey,I'm gonna double down on this.
When did that happen?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2 (07:37):
That's a great question.
So I started my career workingfor a big wireless carrier in
the Rerate department.
So when your bill went really,really sideways, there would be
some math person behind thescenes who would go through and
rebuild it all and then credityou, you know, so you weren't
overpaying.
That was me and then mycolleagues behind the scenes.
And then I got recruited over toa temp in 2011, and I
(07:58):
immediately thought, oh, this isreally interesting.
You know, like.
I've been looking at it from theother way, and now I'm looking
at it from the customer's pointof view.
Look at how complicated this is.
And this is fascinating too.
And I had done some math inuniversity and it was right
around 20 11, 20 12, and Ireally started getting into this
that I realized this is globaloptimization and I would like to
(08:18):
talk about global optimizationfor just a moment here because
it is so key to this.
This, enterprise mobility piece,this concept of how people on
the account are interdependenton each other.
so you have, shared.
plans.
very common right now is if youhave someone on a particular
plan, it'll offer a discount tosomeone else on a different
(08:39):
plan.
And so you've got all theseconnections and dependencies.
It's almost like a butterflyeffect.
If something changes on one sideof the account, it can affect a
user on the other side.
And I really started to see thiswhen I started doing manual
optimization.
back then it was all datapooling and so we would run into
situations where, there would beone person who would spike up
(08:59):
the data pool for everybody andthen we would have to increase
so many plans.
And so you see how it'sconnected, and you need to find
the lowest cost for everybody,for the whole account, not for
each individual user.
and so as I got further andfurther into this optimization
and I analyzed bills from moreand more countries, I started to
see it's all the same game.
They all create these incrediblyinterdependent things, and you
(09:22):
need to look at all theseconnections.
And I realized that the gamewas, that it was impossible for
humans to manage the way thatthe carriers had structured
this.
It was just literally impossiblefor a human to get it right.
And so it was going to, end upin their favor, like it always
does with the wireless carriers.
So it was that challenge ofrealizing that the deck was
totally stacked against thecustomers that galvanized me to
(09:44):
wanna do something about it.
And that ended up beingsoftware.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (09:49):
So would you call yourself a
mathematician?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_1 (09:51):
I wouldn't call myself a
mathematician.
I did a unit on globaloptimization that was a couple
weeks long.
I remember getting through itand thinking, oh, I'm glad
that's done.
That was really hard.
You know, we won't use thatagain.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (10:02):
Yeah.
So, yeah, tell us more aboutthat.
I mean, you know, thattransition from manual telecom
expense management, all the wayto today, you know, leading by
analytics and what inspired thatshift to software based
optimization then.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025 (10:17):
So, I mean, it was seeing certain,
you know, billing instanceswhere someone's cost goes up
incredibly and there's, youknow, something that could have
been done about it either beforeor just after the usage is
incurred before the bill cycle.
I'm gonna tell you a couplebilling stories here just to
sort
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (10:33):
Yeah.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-202 (10:33):
give you some of your listeners might
be looking at this and thinkingshe has been looking at
corporate wireless bill since2008.
crazy.
Like, that must be so boring.
what's really interesting
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (10:44):
For some.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05- (10:45):
Painful for some, some people I would
never wanna do a job like that.
But there's some reallyinteresting things that happen.
'cause it is all about humanbehavior.
So take for example, a very sadstory.
We're not gonna be giving outany names and who among us has
not had a couple of missteps intheir romantic life, right?
So there's no judgment here, butthis is Chris from, I know you
must remember before unlimitedtext was included for everybody.
(11:08):
This was a Verizon account andyou could either have 200
messages for free.
this one month there was thispoor gentleman who had a$975
texting bill, and he had hadjust a few messages per month
before that, and then all of asudden he had thousands and
thousands of messages just fromone month to the next.
So let me ask you, Chris, whatdo you think could inspire a man
(11:31):
to such foolishness?
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (11:34):
Oh yeah.
Was it have been a.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_ (11:38):
He did.
he met a woman that's exactlyright.
And things were, you know, very,they were very connected right
off the bat.
And that text messaging justwent back and forth like never
before.
And then of course, he gets abig bill I let the manager know,
and the manager goes to thispoor gentleman and they say, oh,
you know, we've noticed this.
Should we add the unlimitedfeature for you?
(11:59):
So not only was he veryembarrassed but having to answer
for this, but it turns out thathe didn't need the feature added
because he had already beendumped by the time that this
conversation
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (12:10):
Oh man.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-202 (12:11):
Into the next billing cycle.
It was already too late to doanything about it.
So, you know, those are thetypes of things that you wanna
avoid and, and, you know, manageas much as possible.
when you are in my position as awireless analyst and you're
looking at these massive volumesof billing data, you have
thousands and thousands of lineson a particular account, that
every usage event also has itsown line on the billing file.
(12:35):
Let's just talk, you know, longdistance for a minute.
You calling long distance to,you know, Vietnam.
There's a different rate forthis feature
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (12:42):
It is usually international you're
talking about right?
International long distance.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-202 (12:45):
long distance.
That's right.
And same with roaming.
You can have daily roaming, oryou can have one of these a
hundred dollars, you know,features that gives you a
hundred minutes, let's say in agigabyte of data.
Or you can have, like a paperuse roaming.
Sometimes that's even, evencheaper.
You need to, for every singleline, every single month, make
sure they're on the right plan.
Make sure that they've got theright features and not all
(13:08):
features are available with allplans.
So sometimes you might wanna putsomeone onto a particular plan
just to get the right featurefor them.
it becomes a mission impossibleto get that right on every
single line.
And that's really what globaloptimization is.
It's the perfect combination ofplans and features and the way
you do it.
but no shortcuts.
You calculate it all out.
(13:30):
single possible combination ofplans and features that can
exist is calculated out.
And that becomes billions andtrillions and quadrillions,
very, very quickly, even onsmall accounts just because of
the nature of the exponentialcalculation.
So we, have proprietaryheuristics.
It allows us to explore themathematical problem space very
(13:51):
quickly.
So in about one second per line,this just runs in the background
and we'll come up with this.
Basically a list of exactly howto provision all of the lines,
which plans and which featuresto minimize the account cost
globally.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (14:05):
Hmm.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_ (14:06):
It was inspired by years and years
and years of digging throughthese billing files and being
haunted by the things that I wasmissing, and I didn't know what
I was missing.
Of course.
Right?
Because you don't know what youdon't know, and that's very
irritating when you're aperfectionist and an analyst and
you feel passionately aboutsolving this problem and you
feel like little things areslipping past you,
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (14:27):
Well, and you're on the hook.
I mean, that's your top, you gotone job, right?
and they're expecting you tofind the answer, find the needle
in the haystack.
A few questions came up in mymind as you were talking.
it almost seems like thecarriers do this on purpose.
I mean, I've talked to companiesthat have 75 phones.
And their bill is 790 pageslong.
I mean,
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-20 (14:47):
Yeah.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (14:47):
why does, why do you need 15 pages
for one phone?
It seems like, I mean, and ofcourse you look at'em, it's, and
a language you can't even hardlyunderstand.
I mean, it's like, try, youcan't, it's like it's
intentional.
You can't really audit thiseasily.
You really have to be ananalyst.
Well, and that has to be yourfull-time job.
because you said you worked at awireless carrier, do you think
it's on purpose or is it justantiquated?
(15:09):
Billing platforms that justcan't summarize it better.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_1 (15:14):
I mean, I think it's, it's both.
I definitely like, there's nodoubt that the whole thing is
stacked in the carrier's favor.
So the way that they'llstructure a plan that they offer
a customer is it'll have, let'ssay a built-in roaming rate.
Let's say you've got someonegoing to Canada, a.
$2 per megabyte, which is anatrocious rate.
You would never wanna pay that.
But they're gonna build thatinto your plan, and then they're
(15:35):
gonna give you a feature on topof that that will make, Canada
roaming free, for example.
but they won't automatically putthat on every time you're gonna
need to select it.
And then if you don't select itand you get a big roaming bill,
they're gonna say, oh, well youshould have selected that
feature.
Right.
So it always defaults to themost expensive carrier favored
rate and option.
It is never.
(15:56):
in favor of the customer and itfails often.
so I don't know if they built itthat way or if it just happens
to be that way.
One thing I never do is put anyblame on the call center reps,
right?
The ones that you talk to whenyou call in having been, you
know, part of that world.
everyone there is generallydoing their best.
(16:16):
So if there is anyresponsibility, it's further up
the chain for sure.
chris_1_08-05-2025_11595 (16:19):
Right.
Yeah, because I, I've talked to,to companies and they're like,
oh, we have a great contractwith, you know, fill in the
blank, x, y, Z company.
I'm like, well, I'm sure you do,but how are you physically
managing it daily?
You know, are you looking atwhat.
Everybody's on a, a, unlimitedplan, so we don't really worry
about overages.
I'm like, ouch.
what percentage of youremployees work out in the field?
Oh, you know, we only have about10% of our field technicians,
(16:42):
but 90% work in the office.
Oh.
So they're on wifi all day.
Wink, wink.
I mean, see where we're goinghere.
Why do you need unlimited dataif they're on wifi all day and
of course you do the analysisand you find the majority of
them are two gigs a month,maybe.
so they're overpaying.
is that a kind of a commonmistake you see as well?
People being on, on a unlimitedplan thinking they're saving
(17:02):
money'cause they don't have therisk of the dreaded overage
bill.
Is there any other commonmissteps you see in that when
you look at these accounts?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025 (17:11):
Oh, Chris, I could take up the whole
podcast talking about theselittle things, but yes, I'm
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (17:15):
I.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_ (17:15):
so all unlimited plans are not
equal.
There are much better and worse.
Unlimited plans.
There's different discounts thatapply in fact and times these
days on Verizon, if you're on anolder unlimited plan, they'll
put a rate plan or plan rateadjustment on there to just make
it more expensive.
'cause I want you to upgrade totheir newer, more lucrative, I
would presume, plans.
There are?
(17:36):
many plans, Unlimited plans.
They'll include some dailyroaming or they'll include some
discount on another plan.
And so if you're not leveragingthat where it's gonna benefit
your users, then you're leavingcost savings on the table.
So set it and forget it.
I would say it's never a viablestrategy if you have a good
contract with your carrier,that's.
Great.
It still requires management.
(17:57):
and that doesn't necessarilyhave to be a huge task if you
have good software or even ifyou do a little bit of manual
optimization each month, I mean,you're gonna be light years
ahead of the people who justnever look.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (18:08):
Wow.
Where do you see all this going?
I mean, you would think someoneat the carriers would know that
companies like yours exist ormany others.
There's a lot of manage mobilityproviders out there.
I work with some of them on adaily basis.
You would think they would see,okay, these companies are kind
of cutting into our profitmargin.
in fact, maybe as a result ofthis, some of these customers
(18:29):
may go, gosh, I've been.
Getting gouged so bad here, I'mgonna change providers, it
doesn't seem like it could begood.
and then the other side of thecoin is, you know, they could
say, well guys, if they'recoming in and they're cleaning
up their bill, making thecustomer happy, maybe they'll
stay with us longer.
And it's now it's, they're notat risk anymore.
where do you think they thinkthis is going over the next
three to five years and partone, part two.
(18:50):
And how do you think AI isplaying in it either today or in
the future?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-20 (18:55):
Great questions.
as far as ai, I'll go straightfor that one.
AI is, gonna become increasinglyimportant, right?
my.
software by analyticsincorporates some ai, I did look
forward to the future and see myjob as an analyst, this
difficult portion of my jobanyway, being automated by
someone.
(19:16):
And so, that was one of mymotivating factors, to start
automating it.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (19:22):
Wow.
So you, on your day-to-dayefforts, you're working largely
with TEMS and managed serviceproviders.
you're trying to help theiroffering, become more future
proof, adding this AI or addingthis, software analytics.
what does an ideal, customerprofile look like for you then,
It's, the other Tims and managedservice providers.
do you see a lot of opportunitythere?
are we talking dozens orhundreds, or thousands of,
(19:44):
businesses that couldpotentially take advantage of
your solution?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_1 (19:48):
I would say yeah, definitely.
thousands.
So by is really designed foranyone who wants to optimize
bills in a massive, massivevolume.
And that's why I'm not sort offocusing on end customers who
have one bill to optimize.
I wanna provide my services tothem through my Tem and.
Other partners.
it's interesting what you saidearlier about, the carriers
should be aware that this is outthere and how to deal with it.
and there's a couple ofinteresting things there.
(20:10):
the first is that, to myknowledge, bite Analytics is the
first company that's reallyfocused on just this global
optimization piece.
even Big Tens are still actuallyreliant mostly on human
analysts.
I think that's mostly a matterof economics because even big
tems, this is a backendoptimization piece.
Tems are really good at frontendengineering and reports and
(20:32):
things that allow them tointeract with their customers.
But this is, an entirelydifferent kind of engineering.
So they'd have to, do adifferent project with different
engineers and it's a huge,risky, expensive project.
And so it doesn't make sense forevery 10 to do this on their
own.
And so that's why.
My strategy of focus is to focuson this one little piece and
(20:53):
then provide it to all 10 sothey don't have to develop it
themselves.
They've got all the benefits ofglobal optimization for their
customers without the risk.
Then as far as the carriers, Imean, that's really interesting
what you say, because I agree,with both of your points,
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (21:05):
Yeah.
stephanie-heys_1_08-0 (21:06):
carriers, they kind of don't want this
because they've got thisoptimization piece that is so
lucrative, however.
Almost always when I see acustomer leave their carrier and
go to another carrier, it'sbecause of some sort of an
instigating incident.
And when it's about failing,it's normally some sort of a
thing where it has built up.
And if the carriers will justnot let their customers get to
(21:27):
that point, then they probablywill never leave.
So there is value to thecarriers and providing some sort
of an optimization service, justso that they don't have that
sort of rage reaction.
And then that departure that Isee very often.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (21:40):
Yeah, because I've even talked to,
account payable folks and CFOswhere they'll say, yeah, I spent
$10 to get a dollar credit.
what do you mean?
Oh, well have my accountspayable rep on the phone for
thirty, forty five minutes at atime just to be hung up on or
transferred.
The wrong department have tostart all over and we're just
chasing down a small credit forsomething that we caught.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-20 (22:02):
Yeah.
chris_1_08-05-2025_11595 (22:03):
Again, do a manual audit, which
probably took hours if not days.
And then you're on the phonetrying to get hold of your
account rep that's nuts.
I thought, just recently I wasworking with, one of our,
selling partners and thecustomer only had like 80
phones.
The bill had gone from like,five grand to.
(22:24):
Almost$10,000 and they haven'thired anyone else.
they ended up noticing theirbill.
They were paying for like 125lines with 80 employees.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-20 (22:34):
Yeah.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (22:36):
And you know, part of it was not
only, the carriers, Ease ofdoing business, not being there,
but, the company was leaningheavily on mobility, but they
didn't really have anyoneinternally to manage it.
It was the HR departmentmanaging the cell phone bills,
and that's not their sweet spot.
I mean, they got biggerproblems.
They're dealing with onboarding,offboarding, HR policies and
(22:56):
issues and performance plans.
the HR directors like, Hey,look, I don't, I'm just doing
this'cause you threw on myplate.
I don't know.
I don't know what I'm doingreally.
Didn't have the right tools.
yeah, we introduced them to aworld expense management
solution.
And of course, right sized thebill, fixed all the glitches,
gave them a nice portal, didonboarding, offboarding, you
know, they were just blown away.
(23:17):
And you kind of go, how thecarriers created this problem,
but how even the end users.
Don't even know there's a betterway.
They don't know they have, theydon't have to deal with this.
They just think it's part ofthe, well, if we're gonna have
cell phones, this is just how itis.
No, it doesn't have to be thatway.
It's gonna be interesting to seewhen the next three to five
years goes, either a companieslike yours will continue to
(23:38):
flourish and, solve theproblems.
Or b, will the carriers finallyget a clue and say, you know
what?
We need to make this simple.
You got a hundred phones.
Here, maybe 10 pages with 10lines per page with what you're
paying for, what the featuresare.
Instead of all these codes andall these, crazy string of
numbers that mean nothing tonobody.
That's something else.
So, you know, as we kind of,we'll start to land the plane.
(24:01):
We ain't gotta land it rightaway.
'cause I do wanna know, whatadvice you have, for finance
leaders.
You know, with all yourbackground, all your experience,
you know, if they wanna avoidoverpaying carriers, what advice
should they, start doing todaydifferently?
what actions should they take?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_1 (24:17):
I think the best advice might be
to pick a really good temp.
These people are trained, thisis all they do, right?
Having someone go through yourbill who,
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (24:27):
I.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-20 (24:27):
knows what they're doing versus
someone who's trained in HR or,traditional accounting or
something.
there should be no doubt that itshould save you money, and save
you time.
Working with a good 10, is agreat idea.
There are many tens out there.
You should, find the one thatworks for you that's in the
right price range and providesthe right type of service.
(24:48):
if you're not gonna hire a 10,at the very least.
download your text formattedbill from the carrier website
and take the total charges startby descending and take the top
15 or so and look at them.
And if it's an equipment chargeand you know that person got a
phone, then that's fine.
But if you see a big roamingcharge or something else, even
(25:10):
if you do nothing else.
it to your account rep and theymight have some suggestions, at
least they will know then thatyou're looking at the bill and
they might have some helpfulsuggestions to offer.
so yeah, I would say get someoneto, you know, outsource it to
people who can really
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (25:26):
Yeah.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_ (25:26):
If you're not gonna do that, then
at least give it a cursory lookand make your account rep know
that you kind of care and thatyou're looking at it.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (25:32):
Do you think if you call the
account rep and say, Hey, I onlyhave 80 employees.
Why do I have 125 phones?
You think they would help themgo, okay, well let's take a look
at that.
These phones haven't been usedin three, four, five months.
Let's just go ahead anddisconnect those.
Well, they do that if you ask'em, you think, or that's kind
of like, well, you need to login the portal and do it
yourself.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-202 (25:52):
they would probably help.
I mean, it depends on the rep,right?
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (25:55):
Yeah.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-202 (25:55):
with every rep of every flavor.
always try to bear in mindwhether I'm dealing with a
billing rep or like a sales rep,because the, the sort of skill
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (26:04):
Oh yeah.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025 (26:04):
and their focus is entirely
different.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (26:06):
And how they're compensated, varies.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2 (26:08):
That's exactly right.
So I was about to say, you know,when you are dealing with a
sales rep most of the time, Iknow, and this, this could be
different, especially'cause I'mtalking about my carrier
experience from years and yearsago, but it was, it was not that
devastating to lose a few lines.
The carrier reps are absolutelyincentivized to activate new
units.
I think if you got the rightrep, I don't think they're
(26:30):
incentivized against doing thatfor you.
I also think they probably willturn around and try to convince
you to try to activate some newlines, towards the end of their
next quarter.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (26:40):
How about insurance?
what's your opinion oninsurance?
You know, some people are paying$15 a phone a month.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2 (26:47):
That's a great question.
Yeah, so anytime I see aninsurance feature on Verizon or
at and t or whatever, I justrecommend that they remove it.
Most of the time people are notusing them, they're not getting
the value from them.
If they do have a broken device,they're not even sort of pushed
through that workflow that theyshould be pushed through.
There are new approaches todevice insurance that I think
(27:07):
are much more customer friendly,that I think are of more value.
So I will reserve my judgment,because I think insurance can be
good, but I think the way thatthe carriers give you these
insurance features is not costeffective.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (27:21):
Yeah, so just to put that perspective,
a hundred, if you, if you're acompany, let's just say
hypothetically of a hundredphones at$15 a phone, you know,
$1,500 a month, it's$18,000 ayear.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-20 (27:34):
Yeah.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (27:34):
mean, you could afford to buy every
employee a brand new device, thelatest and greatest two phones
maybe every year.
so clearly it is cheaper to nothave the insurance.
And that's gotta be just a hugeprofit center for the carriers
too.
It just,
stephanie-heys_1_08 (27:47):
Absolutely.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (27:48):
you know, if you only have four
phones and, you have a historyof losing phones, breaking
phones, I don't know.
But yeah, we're talking aboutbigger companies here, that,
that's not, that's not the case.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025 (27:57):
And it's response, right?
What about if you break yourphone?
And it's the same thing withunlimited plans.
So you know, you've got threedifferent kinds of unlimited
plans, but this unlimited is themost unlimited.
And so I don't.
I don't know if I wanna riskhaving a lesser unlimited plan,
so I'm gonna put it on the mostexpensive one.
And that is where they make allof their money.
And that's where I try to talkmy customers back from the edge,
right?
If you don't need it, don't payfor it.
(28:19):
We can always increase it later.
Goldilocks approach,
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (28:22):
Yes.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05 (28:23):
Everyone has what they need, no more, no
less.
And it changes from month tomonth, even within the month.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (28:28):
Keep it What?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-202 (28:30):
boo.
chris_1_08-05-2025_1159 (28:30):
Tickety boo.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_1 (28:31):
I don't think it's a technical
term, but it's, you know, whenyou think about everything being
imperfect, harmony.
So I think I told you in Miami,when I think of these
optimizations, I see a curve.
I see a curve, and it comesdown.
And at the very bottom is thatglobal optimization, that point
that we're going for.
And every change that we makegets us closer to that.
and it's a moving target, butit's a worthwhile target because
(28:52):
when you hit it, you are.
Not overpaying the wirelesscarrier.
and when you're doing globaloptimization, just by its very
nature, it's automated.
a human cannot do globaloptimization.
So you're saving
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (29:04):
Hmm.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-202 (29:04):
too.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (29:05):
Yep.
You know, another thing I wasthinking of, overspending.
I see a lot of companies arebeing charged for that mobile
device management software.
And then you say, oh, I see youhave an MDM on all your, your
5,000 phones.
Who's managing that?
Oh, the carrier is, oh really?
Do they enforce, compliance?
(29:25):
Are they making sure it's on allyour phones?
Are they addressing all thealerts?
Are you getting reports forthem?
What are you talking about?
They have no idea.
They just think'cause they'repaying for that, but someone's
gotta manage it.
Someone has to, you know, createtheir policies and the groups
and that in itself is a wholeother conversation.
You know, that's another hourconversation we can have on
MDMs.
so yeah, if you're paying for anMDM and, and, and you can't
(29:46):
answer the question that youknow, who has the portal access?
my favorite is, oh, well, Johnset that up four years ago, but
he's been gone for a year.
No one's even logged into it,but we've been paying for it.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-20 (29:57):
Yeah.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (29:57):
Does that make sense?
Well, I tell you, if you'relistening and, this is a new
topic to you, I hope we made thecase, that, wireless expense
management is important.
And there are a lot of companiesthat can do it.
and just because you have thetitle TEM right, doesn't
necessarily mean you're doing itthe best way.
If you're doing it, ask'em howare you doing this calculations
manually?
Or do you have any kind ofsoftware?
(30:19):
And obviously we know even ifyou're tech enthusiast or not.
I believe technology makes lessmistakes than humans.
I think we can all agree onthat.
It's like you think about howmany mistakes I've made in this
episode of data tongue tied orwhatever, technology.
It does what it's programmed andit does what it's configured
for.
And, I mean, yeah, usually whentechnology fells this was caused
(30:39):
somewhere there's a human errorinvolved, most likely is my
opinion.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2 (30:43):
Agree.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (30:44):
So as, let's wrap it up.
I mean, again, I think we couldgo on and on, definitely check
the show notes.
I'll have information of how toget ahold of bite analytics and
of course Stephanie, any lastwords, anything we haven't
covered that you want to hit onor anything you wanna leave us
with?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2 (30:59):
first, thank you so much for having me,
Chris.
This is a wonderful experience.
I'm gonna leave you with myfavorite billing story of all
time.
It is, a Classic story, again,withholding names for privacy.
But it was, during the 2010Olympics, I was still working
for a wireless carrier, who wasa sponsor of the Olympics.
someone came to me and Presentedme with a$275,000 phone bill
(31:21):
just on one line for this, thisone month.
looked into it and I, I saw itwas all valid usage.
It was building at 51 20 permegabyte.
It was out of bundle roaming inMexico.
I looked carefully at the timingwhere it was incurred, and I
knew right away what hadhappened.
And what had happened is thatsomeone had streamed the gold
medal hockey game in highdefinition for all of their
(31:44):
friends because the resort'swifi was 20 bucks a day and they
didn't wanna pay it.
So they figured they just put iton their employer's air card.
And I mean, it was a greatoutcome to the game, for this
particular hockey fan.
However, you know, the falloutfrom that was significant and
robust and they, they did end uprerating it, because it was such
(32:04):
a devastating charge.
But, you know, it's just one ofthose things that sort of brings
wireless expense management withthe real world, with the
sporting world, right?
All of this stuff, affects eachother.
chris_1_08-05-2025_ (32:15):
Absolutely.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2 (32:16):
that's why I find it interesting and
fun.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (32:18):
That is, I have two comments, before
we wrap though.
first I think it's why MDM andWEM or TEM are so related
because now with a proper MDMstrategy, a corporate owned
device, you can block streamingvideo, for example, or only
allow certain URLs and youcontrol what that device can be
used for.
It's a work phone, it's a workdevice.
(32:38):
It's not meant for your.
Your private use.
so yeah, I think a proper Tim orWIM strategy will find enough
savings to pay for more than payfor that MDM solution.
they go hand in hand to me.
They're both non-negotiables.
it's irresponsible to just paywhere the bill says, and it's
also irresponsible to just giveyour employee, 800 or, you know,
(33:00):
$1,200 device and say, Hey.
good luck with this, use it forwork and they use it for their
kids watching, cartoon Networkor Netflix, on family vacations.
So anyway, I get off my pedestalon that one because I get hot on
that too.
I don't know why I'm sopassionate about this stuff,
but, it's just crazy.
That's what it is.
It's crazy.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-202 (33:16):
It's crazy.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (33:17):
Well, okay, so my last question for
you that, again, it popped up inmy head as you're talking.
So we, we started off the showtalking about your 80 countries.
I mean, have you hung up yoursuitcase for now?
I mean, do you have any moretrips planned for the future?
Are you, did you put that on,on, are you on a travel hiatus
for now?
What's your future travel plans?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025 (33:36):
bit of a travel hiatus for now.
I'm really focusing on Bite.
I've had this in my mind for somany years, and then, you know,
development took years and nowit's really the time to go out
and market it.
However, I do have a two week.
Maybe 10 day trip to Portugal, Ithink this fall, and probably
head somewhere next spring.
So I would say, unlike myprevious times when I'm sort of
(33:59):
living for months or yearsabroad, I go for two weeks, you
know, just like anybody else.
So I still love it, but it's,
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (34:05):
Just like anybody else, I dunno about
that.
The average person does not taketwo weeks.
I wish we did.
We should.
That's what many of my, Europeanfriends, especially in France
and Spain, I mean, yeah, theytake the whole month of August
off of course.
I mean, you take more than aweek off, people are like.
Are you crazy?
You know, they're gonna fireyou.
Like they better or not, theygave, they gave me two weeks of
(34:26):
vacation.
I can't use them yet, I startedto see a little bit of a trend.
People are starting to takeadvantage of their full time
off.
In fact, you see some companieswith unlimited PTO, they lot,
those companies starting torethink that.
They're like, wait a minute,these, these young people are
coming in.
They're taking a four dayweekend, twice a month.
It's like, that's not what wehad in mind.
We still need you to be at work.
(34:47):
Wow.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025 (34:47):
I'm pretty sure I'll be working on
my two weeks in October.
But you know what I love by somuch.
I love this global optimizationso much.
If you hours of work on avacation doesn't really feel
like work.
chris_1_08-05-2025_11595 (34:58):
That's right.
how did you come up with thatbusiness name, BYTE, right?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-20 (35:02):
great question.
I also like the idea of bitingchunks out of the
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (35:06):
Oh, yeah.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_1 (35:06):
I like the idea of a little, a
little critter, like a Tasmaniandouble with big teeth that just
goes through your bill and tearsit into a million pieces and
finds every little bit ofsavings that's gonna leak out.
chris_1_08-05-2025_11595 (35:17):
Taking a bite outta
stephanie-heys_1_08-05- (35:18):
through that bill.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115 (35:19):
instead, a bite outta your bill.
Have you?
You should come up with a littlemascot.
You should come up with a littlelike a Pac Man.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_1 (35:25):
I should.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (35:26):
Bill.
Oh my God.
Well, Stephanie, I've thoroughlyenjoyed this.
what a great conversation.
again, if you're listening andwe haven't made a point, you
need to go back and re-listen orread the transcript or
something.
so again, thanks a lot.
I really appreciate it.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-20 (35:39):
Thank you, Chris.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (35:40):
Yes.
And there you go folks, as youwere listening to this episode,
as always, if a customer poppedin your mind or a colleague or a
coworker or a friend that youwere having this conversation
with, let me share this episodewith them.
Really appreciate it.
You can always go to thewireless way.net at the, contact
us button.
Any feedback on this episode orothers.
Love to hear from you.
(36:00):
And, until then, we'll see younext time on the Wireless Way.
Welcome to another episode of The
Wireless Way.
I'm your host, Chris Whitaker,and yes, I'm grateful that
you're here and equally gratefulfor Stephanie Hayes.
she's the head of wirelessexpense analytics at Byte
Analytics, and I met her, atMobile Disrupt in Miami.
Not that long ago, and we justhit it off.
(00:21):
I mean, great energy.
She's, as passionate aboutmobility and saving money as I
am, and I talk a lot about that.
If you've been listening, youknow, I have other episodes on
similar topics around managedmobility, mobile device
management.
You can't really have any kindof managed mobility conversation
and not address the elephant inthe room.
Most people.
(00:41):
In fact, all people are usuallyoverpaying.
All companies are usuallyoverpaying, possibly even on
your own personal account.
If you have a family plan, youprobably have some fees on
there.
You don't even know what theyare.
We're gonna dive into that, butbefore I bring her on just a
little bit about her, uh, sheleads the wireless expense
optimization practice at ByteAnalytics, a lean yet powerful
(01:02):
firm that turns corporatewireless billing, chaos.
It's a measurable savings.
And again, if you're in businessto make money, you gotta have
your eye on this.
You need, measurable savings.
That's the buzzword that thesecret sauce for proprietary
global optimization algorithms.
Mouthful there, but she's gonnatell us what that means.
they go beyond line by linebilling analysis, and that's how
(01:25):
it used to always be done lineby line.
Some accounts payable person wasjust, grinding and out over
definitely hours, if not daysand weeks.
So byte, considers the entireaccount ecosystem including
shared services like data poolsand Roman features, to identify
cost effective configurations,that other providers often miss.
(01:48):
Again, if you're doing itmanually.
Human nature is to makemistakes.
So quite possibly, right?
If you're not using some kind ofsoftware, you're probably make
mistakes.
under her leadership.
Byte not only automates whatused to take human analyst
hours, but delivers results injust minutes with greater
precision and a anonymizer toolto protect and use privacy.
(02:10):
And, here's the best part, byte.
Her company offers a zero riskdemo.
if they can't find savings, Youpay nothing.
so she's based in NorthernVirginia, AKA Nova.
I used to be a Nova residentmyself in Fairfax County,
Virginia, outside of Washington,DC a beautiful area, a beautiful
state.
she works directly with 10providers and other managed
(02:31):
service providers.
she's on a mission to helporganizations stop overpaying
wireless carriers, optimize poolvoice, data usage, and retrofit
plan features after usageanomalies, to reduce future
bills.
Basically a mouthful there.
Hey, you know, she's trying toremove the headaches and put the
money back in your pocket, andyou only really pay for what
(02:52):
you're using.
Is that about right?
Stephanie?
Welcome to the show.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025 (02:56):
You got it, Chris.
nailing it.
Absolutely.
I mean, it is a complicatedlittle piece.
this optimization and wirelessexpense management has many
different components to it.
procurement of phones, approvingthose orders, sending those
orders through, getting thehandset ready for the user.
Those are all important, butthose are not what I focus on.
What we focus on at BiteAnalytics, we just focus on
(03:16):
optimization.
And what does that mean?
Really, it's the plans and thefeatures.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (03:21):
Yeah.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_1 (03:21):
a really big family plan, right?
Except instead of four people inyour family, you have hundreds
or thousands, and everyone ischanging all the time.
Trying to get that right cansave money, but it's very
difficult.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (03:31):
Yeah.
So, it is very difficult and Ican't wait to get into that
conversation a little bit more,but as always, customary, you
know, first question on the showis what's not in the bio?
How did you get here?
Tell us a little bit more aboutwho you are and your journey.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-20 (03:48):
Thank you.
So, I'm originally from Canada.
I'm, now married to an American,very proud, army spouse.
I've traveled to 80 countries.
I've lived in eight.
I have a few times in my lifemoved to a new country where I
didn't know anyone and didn'tspeak the language.
So I like those littlechallenges.
I also like scuba diving andriding my bicycle and yeah,
(04:09):
generally living my best life.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (04:11):
Got little challenges going to a
country where you don't speakthe language.
That sounds like a pretty bigchallenge.
man.
Yeah, we could probably have thewhole show just on that.
That, that, that topic rightthere.
'cause I know when I first metyou, we were talking about that
and, you know, we were justgetting to know each other.
And you told me that.
I was like, oh my gosh.
And I think I even asked you andI, I gotta ask you again, I
(04:31):
mean, was there a favorite, andmaybe that was, we could be
positive, was, was there afavorite one that you would,
that you would go if your, ifyour family goes, Hey, yeah,
let's go anywhere in the world,where, where would you move to?
Where would you go to and love?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05- (04:43):
there's so many.
I would say as far as hidden GSgo, Slovenia in Europe is a
wonderful country to visit.
It's got all the good stuffabout the Alps.
it's much less expensive,beautiful cities, incredible
caves that you can take a littletrain into,
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (04:56):
Hmm.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_1 (04:56):
I would say Eastern Europe.
And Southeast Asia, it's verymuch a favorite for me.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (05:01):
Wow.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_ (05:02):
is my favorite country
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (05:03):
Wow.
Have you ever done a blog ordocumented or have you ever
written anything on all of yourtravels?
I mean, you should document thatif you have it.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2 (05:11):
That's a great question.
when I travel, especially backin the day before social media,
I would write long emails to myparents and then they would
print them out and give them tomy grandparents and my aunts and
uncles, especially those whodidn't have computers.
So I did record it in that way.
However, I'm not much of atravel blogger kind of person.
I've been told a few times thatI should keep a travel blog.
I do have a bit of an Instagram,but it's not too glamorous.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (05:32):
Okay, well, you're right.
Some of the folks.
I mean, I'm shocked.
I talk to people that have nevereven left their hometown.
I mean, they've never left theirstate.
and I get it, you know, it's notfor everybody, not, maybe you
don't have the means or, but I,I imagine, did you have the
ability to kind of travel, on ashoestring budget?
I mean, were you kind of themaster of making that dollar
(05:54):
stretch and hostels and Airbnbsor, where they even call it
couch surfing?
stephanie-heys_1_08- (06:00):
Absolutely never did couch surfing.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (06:02):
Good.
stephanie-heys_1_08 (06:02):
backpacking trip through Asia was a
long-term, you know, hostiletype of situation.
Lots of long, uncomfortablebuses.
minivans sketchy bathrooms,stuff like that.
I wouldn't have it any otherway.
It's, for, seasoning you as atraveler and just also the local
experiences.
A lot of my travel lately hasbeen because, before I started
(06:23):
working on by analyticsfull-time.
I was working as a wirelessanalyst full-time.
That was a remote job, and so Icould work in travel I was
working in traveling, for yearsand years and that's how I,
ended up being in Peru,Honduras, France and Croatia,
where I eventually met myhusband.
So it's safe to say that.
my remote travel job and alsocoming from a family of
(06:45):
travelers led to this 80 countrysituation here.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (06:48):
Wow, that's, I didn't even think of
that.
So a family or travelers, whoare the other travelers in your
family?
your parents, siblings?
All of them.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-202 (06:56):
All, all of them.
Really?
Yeah.
So both of my, my parents havebeen on long backpacking trips
before and after they gotmarried.
they still travel regularly, allthe time, challenging travel,
like to India and, you know,more outside the box.
Places.
And then my sister is, is verymuch a traveler.
She did her, master's researchover in Uganda and has, traveled
to Southeast Asia, to Australiaand New Zealand and many other
(07:18):
places.
So she's a, a diplomatic type.
So she by
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (07:22):
Yeah.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-202 (07:22):
too.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (07:23):
so all this travel, all this
perspective you've gained, Takeme back to the day, was it, just
chance you got into mobility,expense management.
At what point did you say, Hey,I'm gonna double down on this.
When did that happen?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2 (07:37):
That's a great question.
So I started my career workingfor a big wireless carrier in
the Rerate department.
So when your bill went really,really sideways, there would be
some math person behind thescenes who would go through and
rebuild it all and then credityou, you know, so you weren't
overpaying.
That was me and then mycolleagues behind the scenes.
And then I got recruited over toa temp in 2011, and I
(07:58):
immediately thought, oh, this isreally interesting.
You know, like.
I've been looking at it from theother way, and now I'm looking
at it from the customer's pointof view.
Look at how complicated this is.
And this is fascinating too.
And I had done some math inuniversity and it was right
around 20 11, 20 12, and Ireally started getting into this
that I realized this is globaloptimization and I would like to
(08:18):
talk about global optimizationfor just a moment here because
it is so key to this.
This, enterprise mobility piece,this concept of how people on
the account are interdependenton each other.
so you have, shared.
plans.
very common right now is if youhave someone on a particular
plan, it'll offer a discount tosomeone else on a different
(08:39):
plan.
And so you've got all theseconnections and dependencies.
It's almost like a butterflyeffect.
If something changes on one sideof the account, it can affect a
user on the other side.
And I really started to see thiswhen I started doing manual
optimization.
back then it was all datapooling and so we would run into
situations where, there would beone person who would spike up
(08:59):
the data pool for everybody andthen we would have to increase
so many plans.
And so you see how it'sconnected, and you need to find
the lowest cost for everybody,for the whole account, not for
each individual user.
and so as I got further andfurther into this optimization
and I analyzed bills from moreand more countries, I started to
see it's all the same game.
They all create these incrediblyinterdependent things, and you
(09:22):
need to look at all theseconnections.
And I realized that the gamewas, that it was impossible for
humans to manage the way thatthe carriers had structured
this.
It was just literally impossiblefor a human to get it right.
And so it was going to, end upin their favor, like it always
does with the wireless carriers.
So it was that challenge ofrealizing that the deck was
totally stacked against thecustomers that galvanized me to
(09:44):
wanna do something about it.
And that ended up beingsoftware.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (09:49):
So would you call yourself a
mathematician?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_1 (09:51):
I wouldn't call myself a
mathematician.
I did a unit on globaloptimization that was a couple
weeks long.
I remember getting through itand thinking, oh, I'm glad
that's done.
That was really hard.
You know, we won't use thatagain.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (10:02):
Yeah.
So, yeah, tell us more aboutthat.
I mean, you know, thattransition from manual telecom
expense management, all the wayto today, you know, leading by
analytics and what inspired thatshift to software based
optimization then.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025 (10:17):
So, I mean, it was seeing certain,
you know, billing instanceswhere someone's cost goes up
incredibly and there's, youknow, something that could have
been done about it either beforeor just after the usage is
incurred before the bill cycle.
I'm gonna tell you a couplebilling stories here just to
sort
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (10:33):
Yeah.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-202 (10:33):
give you some of your listeners might
be looking at this and thinkingshe has been looking at
corporate wireless bill since2008.
crazy.
Like, that must be so boring.
what's really interesting
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (10:44):
For some.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05- (10:45):
Painful for some, some people I would
never wanna do a job like that.
But there's some reallyinteresting things that happen.
'cause it is all about humanbehavior.
So take for example, a very sadstory.
We're not gonna be giving outany names and who among us has
not had a couple of missteps intheir romantic life, right?
So there's no judgment here, butthis is Chris from, I know you
must remember before unlimitedtext was included for everybody.
(11:08):
This was a Verizon account andyou could either have 200
messages for free.
this one month there was thispoor gentleman who had a$975
texting bill, and he had hadjust a few messages per month
before that, and then all of asudden he had thousands and
thousands of messages just fromone month to the next.
So let me ask you, Chris, whatdo you think could inspire a man
(11:31):
to such foolishness?
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (11:34):
Oh yeah.
Was it have been a.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_ (11:38):
He did.
he met a woman that's exactlyright.
And things were, you know, very,they were very connected right
off the bat.
And that text messaging justwent back and forth like never
before.
And then of course, he gets abig bill I let the manager know,
and the manager goes to thispoor gentleman and they say, oh,
you know, we've noticed this.
Should we add the unlimitedfeature for you?
(11:59):
So not only was he veryembarrassed but having to answer
for this, but it turns out thathe didn't need the feature added
because he had already beendumped by the time that this
conversation
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (12:10):
Oh man.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-202 (12:11):
Into the next billing cycle.
It was already too late to doanything about it.
So, you know, those are thetypes of things that you wanna
avoid and, and, you know, manageas much as possible.
when you are in my position as awireless analyst and you're
looking at these massive volumesof billing data, you have
thousands and thousands of lineson a particular account, that
every usage event also has itsown line on the billing file.
(12:35):
Let's just talk, you know, longdistance for a minute.
You calling long distance to,you know, Vietnam.
There's a different rate forthis feature
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (12:42):
It is usually international you're
talking about right?
International long distance.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-202 (12:45):
long distance.
That's right.
And same with roaming.
You can have daily roaming, oryou can have one of these a
hundred dollars, you know,features that gives you a
hundred minutes, let's say in agigabyte of data.
Or you can have, like a paperuse roaming.
Sometimes that's even, evencheaper.
You need to, for every singleline, every single month, make
sure they're on the right plan.
Make sure that they've got theright features and not all
(13:08):
features are available with allplans.
So sometimes you might wanna putsomeone onto a particular plan
just to get the right featurefor them.
it becomes a mission impossibleto get that right on every
single line.
And that's really what globaloptimization is.
It's the perfect combination ofplans and features and the way
you do it.
but no shortcuts.
You calculate it all out.
(13:30):
single possible combination ofplans and features that can
exist is calculated out.
And that becomes billions andtrillions and quadrillions,
very, very quickly, even onsmall accounts just because of
the nature of the exponentialcalculation.
So we, have proprietaryheuristics.
It allows us to explore themathematical problem space very
(13:51):
quickly.
So in about one second per line,this just runs in the background
and we'll come up with this.
Basically a list of exactly howto provision all of the lines,
which plans and which featuresto minimize the account cost
globally.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (14:05):
Hmm.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_ (14:06):
It was inspired by years and years
and years of digging throughthese billing files and being
haunted by the things that I wasmissing, and I didn't know what
I was missing.
Of course.
Right?
Because you don't know what youdon't know, and that's very
irritating when you're aperfectionist and an analyst and
you feel passionately aboutsolving this problem and you
feel like little things areslipping past you,
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (14:27):
Well, and you're on the hook.
I mean, that's your top, you gotone job, right?
and they're expecting you tofind the answer, find the needle
in the haystack.
A few questions came up in mymind as you were talking.
it almost seems like thecarriers do this on purpose.
I mean, I've talked to companiesthat have 75 phones.
And their bill is 790 pageslong.
I mean,
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-20 (14:47):
Yeah.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (14:47):
why does, why do you need 15 pages
for one phone?
It seems like, I mean, and ofcourse you look at'em, it's, and
a language you can't even hardlyunderstand.
I mean, it's like, try, youcan't, it's like it's
intentional.
You can't really audit thiseasily.
You really have to be ananalyst.
Well, and that has to be yourfull-time job.
because you said you worked at awireless carrier, do you think
it's on purpose or is it justantiquated?
(15:09):
Billing platforms that justcan't summarize it better.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_1 (15:14):
I mean, I think it's, it's both.
I definitely like, there's nodoubt that the whole thing is
stacked in the carrier's favor.
So the way that they'llstructure a plan that they offer
a customer is it'll have, let'ssay a built-in roaming rate.
Let's say you've got someonegoing to Canada, a.
$2 per megabyte, which is anatrocious rate.
You would never wanna pay that.
But they're gonna build thatinto your plan, and then they're
(15:35):
gonna give you a feature on topof that that will make, Canada
roaming free, for example.
but they won't automatically putthat on every time you're gonna
need to select it.
And then if you don't select itand you get a big roaming bill,
they're gonna say, oh, well youshould have selected that
feature.
Right.
So it always defaults to themost expensive carrier favored
rate and option.
It is never.
(15:56):
in favor of the customer and itfails often.
so I don't know if they built itthat way or if it just happens
to be that way.
One thing I never do is put anyblame on the call center reps,
right?
The ones that you talk to whenyou call in having been, you
know, part of that world.
everyone there is generallydoing their best.
(16:16):
So if there is anyresponsibility, it's further up
the chain for sure.
chris_1_08-05-2025_11595 (16:19):
Right.
Yeah, because I, I've talked to,to companies and they're like,
oh, we have a great contractwith, you know, fill in the
blank, x, y, Z company.
I'm like, well, I'm sure you do,but how are you physically
managing it daily?
You know, are you looking atwhat.
Everybody's on a, a, unlimitedplan, so we don't really worry
about overages.
I'm like, ouch.
what percentage of youremployees work out in the field?
Oh, you know, we only have about10% of our field technicians,
(16:42):
but 90% work in the office.
Oh.
So they're on wifi all day.
Wink, wink.
I mean, see where we're goinghere.
Why do you need unlimited dataif they're on wifi all day and
of course you do the analysisand you find the majority of
them are two gigs a month,maybe.
so they're overpaying.
is that a kind of a commonmistake you see as well?
People being on, on a unlimitedplan thinking they're saving
(17:02):
money'cause they don't have therisk of the dreaded overage
bill.
Is there any other commonmissteps you see in that when
you look at these accounts?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025 (17:11):
Oh, Chris, I could take up the whole
podcast talking about theselittle things, but yes, I'm
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (17:15):
I.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_ (17:15):
so all unlimited plans are not
equal.
There are much better and worse.
Unlimited plans.
There's different discounts thatapply in fact and times these
days on Verizon, if you're on anolder unlimited plan, they'll
put a rate plan or plan rateadjustment on there to just make
it more expensive.
'cause I want you to upgrade totheir newer, more lucrative, I
would presume, plans.
There are?
(17:36):
many plans, Unlimited plans.
They'll include some dailyroaming or they'll include some
discount on another plan.
And so if you're not leveragingthat where it's gonna benefit
your users, then you're leavingcost savings on the table.
So set it and forget it.
I would say it's never a viablestrategy if you have a good
contract with your carrier,that's.
Great.
It still requires management.
(17:57):
and that doesn't necessarilyhave to be a huge task if you
have good software or even ifyou do a little bit of manual
optimization each month, I mean,you're gonna be light years
ahead of the people who justnever look.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (18:08):
Wow.
Where do you see all this going?
I mean, you would think someoneat the carriers would know that
companies like yours exist ormany others.
There's a lot of manage mobilityproviders out there.
I work with some of them on adaily basis.
You would think they would see,okay, these companies are kind
of cutting into our profitmargin.
in fact, maybe as a result ofthis, some of these customers
(18:29):
may go, gosh, I've been.
Getting gouged so bad here, I'mgonna change providers, it
doesn't seem like it could begood.
and then the other side of thecoin is, you know, they could
say, well guys, if they'recoming in and they're cleaning
up their bill, making thecustomer happy, maybe they'll
stay with us longer.
And it's now it's, they're notat risk anymore.
where do you think they thinkthis is going over the next
three to five years and partone, part two.
(18:50):
And how do you think AI isplaying in it either today or in
the future?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-20 (18:55):
Great questions.
as far as ai, I'll go straightfor that one.
AI is, gonna become increasinglyimportant, right?
my.
software by analyticsincorporates some ai, I did look
forward to the future and see myjob as an analyst, this
difficult portion of my jobanyway, being automated by
someone.
(19:16):
And so, that was one of mymotivating factors, to start
automating it.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (19:22):
Wow.
So you, on your day-to-dayefforts, you're working largely
with TEMS and managed serviceproviders.
you're trying to help theiroffering, become more future
proof, adding this AI or addingthis, software analytics.
what does an ideal, customerprofile look like for you then,
It's, the other Tims and managedservice providers.
do you see a lot of opportunitythere?
are we talking dozens orhundreds, or thousands of,
(19:44):
businesses that couldpotentially take advantage of
your solution?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_1 (19:48):
I would say yeah, definitely.
thousands.
So by is really designed foranyone who wants to optimize
bills in a massive, massivevolume.
And that's why I'm not sort offocusing on end customers who
have one bill to optimize.
I wanna provide my services tothem through my Tem and.
Other partners.
it's interesting what you saidearlier about, the carriers
should be aware that this is outthere and how to deal with it.
and there's a couple ofinteresting things there.
(20:10):
the first is that, to myknowledge, bite Analytics is the
first company that's reallyfocused on just this global
optimization piece.
even Big Tens are still actuallyreliant mostly on human
analysts.
I think that's mostly a matterof economics because even big
tems, this is a backendoptimization piece.
Tems are really good at frontendengineering and reports and
(20:32):
things that allow them tointeract with their customers.
But this is, an entirelydifferent kind of engineering.
So they'd have to, do adifferent project with different
engineers and it's a huge,risky, expensive project.
And so it doesn't make sense forevery 10 to do this on their
own.
And so that's why.
My strategy of focus is to focuson this one little piece and
(20:53):
then provide it to all 10 sothey don't have to develop it
themselves.
They've got all the benefits ofglobal optimization for their
customers without the risk.
Then as far as the carriers, Imean, that's really interesting
what you say, because I agree,with both of your points,
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (21:05):
Yeah.
stephanie-heys_1_08-0 (21:06):
carriers, they kind of don't want this
because they've got thisoptimization piece that is so
lucrative, however.
Almost always when I see acustomer leave their carrier and
go to another carrier, it'sbecause of some sort of an
instigating incident.
And when it's about failing,it's normally some sort of a
thing where it has built up.
And if the carriers will justnot let their customers get to
(21:27):
that point, then they probablywill never leave.
So there is value to thecarriers and providing some sort
of an optimization service, justso that they don't have that
sort of rage reaction.
And then that departure that Isee very often.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (21:40):
Yeah, because I've even talked to,
account payable folks and CFOswhere they'll say, yeah, I spent
$10 to get a dollar credit.
what do you mean?
Oh, well have my accountspayable rep on the phone for
thirty, forty five minutes at atime just to be hung up on or
transferred.
The wrong department have tostart all over and we're just
chasing down a small credit forsomething that we caught.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-20 (22:02):
Yeah.
chris_1_08-05-2025_11595 (22:03):
Again, do a manual audit, which
probably took hours if not days.
And then you're on the phonetrying to get hold of your
account rep that's nuts.
I thought, just recently I wasworking with, one of our,
selling partners and thecustomer only had like 80
phones.
The bill had gone from like,five grand to.
(22:24):
Almost$10,000 and they haven'thired anyone else.
they ended up noticing theirbill.
They were paying for like 125lines with 80 employees.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-20 (22:34):
Yeah.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (22:36):
And you know, part of it was not
only, the carriers, Ease ofdoing business, not being there,
but, the company was leaningheavily on mobility, but they
didn't really have anyoneinternally to manage it.
It was the HR departmentmanaging the cell phone bills,
and that's not their sweet spot.
I mean, they got biggerproblems.
They're dealing with onboarding,offboarding, HR policies and
(22:56):
issues and performance plans.
the HR directors like, Hey,look, I don't, I'm just doing
this'cause you threw on myplate.
I don't know.
I don't know what I'm doingreally.
Didn't have the right tools.
yeah, we introduced them to aworld expense management
solution.
And of course, right sized thebill, fixed all the glitches,
gave them a nice portal, didonboarding, offboarding, you
know, they were just blown away.
(23:17):
And you kind of go, how thecarriers created this problem,
but how even the end users.
Don't even know there's a betterway.
They don't know they have, theydon't have to deal with this.
They just think it's part ofthe, well, if we're gonna have
cell phones, this is just how itis.
No, it doesn't have to be thatway.
It's gonna be interesting to seewhen the next three to five
years goes, either a companieslike yours will continue to
(23:38):
flourish and, solve theproblems.
Or b, will the carriers finallyget a clue and say, you know
what?
We need to make this simple.
You got a hundred phones.
Here, maybe 10 pages with 10lines per page with what you're
paying for, what the featuresare.
Instead of all these codes andall these, crazy string of
numbers that mean nothing tonobody.
That's something else.
So, you know, as we kind of,we'll start to land the plane.
(24:01):
We ain't gotta land it rightaway.
'cause I do wanna know, whatadvice you have, for finance
leaders.
You know, with all yourbackground, all your experience,
you know, if they wanna avoidoverpaying carriers, what advice
should they, start doing todaydifferently?
what actions should they take?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_1 (24:17):
I think the best advice might be
to pick a really good temp.
These people are trained, thisis all they do, right?
Having someone go through yourbill who,
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (24:27):
I.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-20 (24:27):
knows what they're doing versus
someone who's trained in HR or,traditional accounting or
something.
there should be no doubt that itshould save you money, and save
you time.
Working with a good 10, is agreat idea.
There are many tens out there.
You should, find the one thatworks for you that's in the
right price range and providesthe right type of service.
(24:48):
if you're not gonna hire a 10,at the very least.
download your text formattedbill from the carrier website
and take the total charges startby descending and take the top
15 or so and look at them.
And if it's an equipment chargeand you know that person got a
phone, then that's fine.
But if you see a big roamingcharge or something else, even
(25:10):
if you do nothing else.
it to your account rep and theymight have some suggestions, at
least they will know then thatyou're looking at the bill and
they might have some helpfulsuggestions to offer.
so yeah, I would say get someoneto, you know, outsource it to
people who can really
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (25:26):
Yeah.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_ (25:26):
If you're not gonna do that, then
at least give it a cursory lookand make your account rep know
that you kind of care and thatyou're looking at it.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (25:32):
Do you think if you call the
account rep and say, Hey, I onlyhave 80 employees.
Why do I have 125 phones?
You think they would help themgo, okay, well let's take a look
at that.
These phones haven't been usedin three, four, five months.
Let's just go ahead anddisconnect those.
Well, they do that if you ask'em, you think, or that's kind
of like, well, you need to login the portal and do it
yourself.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-202 (25:52):
they would probably help.
I mean, it depends on the rep,right?
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (25:55):
Yeah.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-202 (25:55):
with every rep of every flavor.
always try to bear in mindwhether I'm dealing with a
billing rep or like a sales rep,because the, the sort of skill
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (26:04):
Oh yeah.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025 (26:04):
and their focus is entirely
different.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (26:06):
And how they're compensated, varies.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2 (26:08):
That's exactly right.
So I was about to say, you know,when you are dealing with a
sales rep most of the time, Iknow, and this, this could be
different, especially'cause I'mtalking about my carrier
experience from years and yearsago, but it was, it was not that
devastating to lose a few lines.
The carrier reps are absolutelyincentivized to activate new
units.
I think if you got the rightrep, I don't think they're
(26:30):
incentivized against doing thatfor you.
I also think they probably willturn around and try to convince
you to try to activate some newlines, towards the end of their
next quarter.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (26:40):
How about insurance?
what's your opinion oninsurance?
You know, some people are paying$15 a phone a month.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2 (26:47):
That's a great question.
Yeah, so anytime I see aninsurance feature on Verizon or
at and t or whatever, I justrecommend that they remove it.
Most of the time people are notusing them, they're not getting
the value from them.
If they do have a broken device,they're not even sort of pushed
through that workflow that theyshould be pushed through.
There are new approaches todevice insurance that I think
(27:07):
are much more customer friendly,that I think are of more value.
So I will reserve my judgment,because I think insurance can be
good, but I think the way thatthe carriers give you these
insurance features is not costeffective.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (27:21):
Yeah, so just to put that perspective,
a hundred, if you, if you're acompany, let's just say
hypothetically of a hundredphones at$15 a phone, you know,
$1,500 a month, it's$18,000 ayear.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-20 (27:34):
Yeah.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (27:34):
mean, you could afford to buy every
employee a brand new device, thelatest and greatest two phones
maybe every year.
so clearly it is cheaper to nothave the insurance.
And that's gotta be just a hugeprofit center for the carriers
too.
It just,
stephanie-heys_1_08 (27:47):
Absolutely.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (27:48):
you know, if you only have four
phones and, you have a historyof losing phones, breaking
phones, I don't know.
But yeah, we're talking aboutbigger companies here, that,
that's not, that's not the case.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025 (27:57):
And it's response, right?
What about if you break yourphone?
And it's the same thing withunlimited plans.
So you know, you've got threedifferent kinds of unlimited
plans, but this unlimited is themost unlimited.
And so I don't.
I don't know if I wanna riskhaving a lesser unlimited plan,
so I'm gonna put it on the mostexpensive one.
And that is where they make allof their money.
And that's where I try to talkmy customers back from the edge,
right?
If you don't need it, don't payfor it.
(28:19):
We can always increase it later.
Goldilocks approach,
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (28:22):
Yes.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05 (28:23):
Everyone has what they need, no more, no
less.
And it changes from month tomonth, even within the month.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (28:28):
Keep it What?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-202 (28:30):
boo.
chris_1_08-05-2025_1159 (28:30):
Tickety boo.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_1 (28:31):
I don't think it's a technical
term, but it's, you know, whenyou think about everything being
imperfect, harmony.
So I think I told you in Miami,when I think of these
optimizations, I see a curve.
I see a curve, and it comesdown.
And at the very bottom is thatglobal optimization, that point
that we're going for.
And every change that we makegets us closer to that.
and it's a moving target, butit's a worthwhile target because
(28:52):
when you hit it, you are.
Not overpaying the wirelesscarrier.
and when you're doing globaloptimization, just by its very
nature, it's automated.
a human cannot do globaloptimization.
So you're saving
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (29:04):
Hmm.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-202 (29:04):
too.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (29:05):
Yep.
You know, another thing I wasthinking of, overspending.
I see a lot of companies arebeing charged for that mobile
device management software.
And then you say, oh, I see youhave an MDM on all your, your
5,000 phones.
Who's managing that?
Oh, the carrier is, oh really?
Do they enforce, compliance?
(29:25):
Are they making sure it's on allyour phones?
Are they addressing all thealerts?
Are you getting reports forthem?
What are you talking about?
They have no idea.
They just think'cause they'repaying for that, but someone's
gotta manage it.
Someone has to, you know, createtheir policies and the groups
and that in itself is a wholeother conversation.
You know, that's another hourconversation we can have on
MDMs.
so yeah, if you're paying for anMDM and, and, and you can't
(29:46):
answer the question that youknow, who has the portal access?
my favorite is, oh, well, Johnset that up four years ago, but
he's been gone for a year.
No one's even logged into it,but we've been paying for it.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-20 (29:57):
Yeah.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (29:57):
Does that make sense?
Well, I tell you, if you'relistening and, this is a new
topic to you, I hope we made thecase, that, wireless expense
management is important.
And there are a lot of companiesthat can do it.
and just because you have thetitle TEM right, doesn't
necessarily mean you're doing itthe best way.
If you're doing it, ask'em howare you doing this calculations
manually?
Or do you have any kind ofsoftware?
(30:19):
And obviously we know even ifyou're tech enthusiast or not.
I believe technology makes lessmistakes than humans.
I think we can all agree onthat.
It's like you think about howmany mistakes I've made in this
episode of data tongue tied orwhatever, technology.
It does what it's programmed andit does what it's configured
for.
And, I mean, yeah, usually whentechnology fells this was caused
(30:39):
somewhere there's a human errorinvolved, most likely is my
opinion.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2 (30:43):
Agree.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (30:44):
So as, let's wrap it up.
I mean, again, I think we couldgo on and on, definitely check
the show notes.
I'll have information of how toget ahold of bite analytics and
of course Stephanie, any lastwords, anything we haven't
covered that you want to hit onor anything you wanna leave us
with?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2 (30:59):
first, thank you so much for having me,
Chris.
This is a wonderful experience.
I'm gonna leave you with myfavorite billing story of all
time.
It is, a Classic story, again,withholding names for privacy.
But it was, during the 2010Olympics, I was still working
for a wireless carrier, who wasa sponsor of the Olympics.
someone came to me and Presentedme with a$275,000 phone bill
(31:21):
just on one line for this, thisone month.
looked into it and I, I saw itwas all valid usage.
It was building at 51 20 permegabyte.
It was out of bundle roaming inMexico.
I looked carefully at the timingwhere it was incurred, and I
knew right away what hadhappened.
And what had happened is thatsomeone had streamed the gold
medal hockey game in highdefinition for all of their
(31:44):
friends because the resort'swifi was 20 bucks a day and they
didn't wanna pay it.
So they figured they just put iton their employer's air card.
And I mean, it was a greatoutcome to the game, for this
particular hockey fan.
However, you know, the falloutfrom that was significant and
robust and they, they did end uprerating it, because it was such
(32:04):
a devastating charge.
But, you know, it's just one ofthose things that sort of brings
wireless expense management withthe real world, with the
sporting world, right?
All of this stuff, affects eachother.
chris_1_08-05-2025_ (32:15):
Absolutely.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2 (32:16):
that's why I find it interesting and
fun.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (32:18):
That is, I have two comments, before
we wrap though.
first I think it's why MDM andWEM or TEM are so related
because now with a proper MDMstrategy, a corporate owned
device, you can block streamingvideo, for example, or only
allow certain URLs and youcontrol what that device can be
used for.
It's a work phone, it's a workdevice.
(32:38):
It's not meant for your.
Your private use.
so yeah, I think a proper Tim orWIM strategy will find enough
savings to pay for more than payfor that MDM solution.
they go hand in hand to me.
They're both non-negotiables.
it's irresponsible to just paywhere the bill says, and it's
also irresponsible to just giveyour employee, 800 or, you know,
(33:00):
$1,200 device and say, Hey.
good luck with this, use it forwork and they use it for their
kids watching, cartoon Networkor Netflix, on family vacations.
So anyway, I get off my pedestalon that one because I get hot on
that too.
I don't know why I'm sopassionate about this stuff,
but, it's just crazy.
That's what it is.
It's crazy.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-202 (33:16):
It's crazy.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (33:17):
Well, okay, so my last question for
you that, again, it popped up inmy head as you're talking.
So we, we started off the showtalking about your 80 countries.
I mean, have you hung up yoursuitcase for now?
I mean, do you have any moretrips planned for the future?
Are you, did you put that on,on, are you on a travel hiatus
for now?
What's your future travel plans?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025 (33:36):
bit of a travel hiatus for now.
I'm really focusing on Bite.
I've had this in my mind for somany years, and then, you know,
development took years and nowit's really the time to go out
and market it.
However, I do have a two week.
Maybe 10 day trip to Portugal, Ithink this fall, and probably
head somewhere next spring.
So I would say, unlike myprevious times when I'm sort of
(33:59):
living for months or yearsabroad, I go for two weeks, you
know, just like anybody else.
So I still love it, but it's,
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (34:05):
Just like anybody else, I dunno about
that.
The average person does not taketwo weeks.
I wish we did.
We should.
That's what many of my, Europeanfriends, especially in France
and Spain, I mean, yeah, theytake the whole month of August
off of course.
I mean, you take more than aweek off, people are like.
Are you crazy?
You know, they're gonna fireyou.
Like they better or not, theygave, they gave me two weeks of
(34:26):
vacation.
I can't use them yet, I startedto see a little bit of a trend.
People are starting to takeadvantage of their full time
off.
In fact, you see some companieswith unlimited PTO, they lot,
those companies starting torethink that.
They're like, wait a minute,these, these young people are
coming in.
They're taking a four dayweekend, twice a month.
It's like, that's not what wehad in mind.
We still need you to be at work.
(34:47):
Wow.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025 (34:47):
I'm pretty sure I'll be working on
my two weeks in October.
But you know what I love by somuch.
I love this global optimizationso much.
If you hours of work on avacation doesn't really feel
like work.
chris_1_08-05-2025_11595 (34:58):
That's right.
how did you come up with thatbusiness name, BYTE, right?
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-20 (35:02):
great question.
I also like the idea of bitingchunks out of the
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (35:06):
Oh, yeah.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_1 (35:06):
I like the idea of a little, a
little critter, like a Tasmaniandouble with big teeth that just
goes through your bill and tearsit into a million pieces and
finds every little bit ofsavings that's gonna leak out.
chris_1_08-05-2025_11595 (35:17):
Taking a bite outta
stephanie-heys_1_08-05- (35:18):
through that bill.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115 (35:19):
instead, a bite outta your bill.
Have you?
You should come up with a littlemascot.
You should come up with a littlelike a Pac Man.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-2025_1 (35:25):
I should.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (35:26):
Bill.
Oh my God.
Well, Stephanie, I've thoroughlyenjoyed this.
what a great conversation.
again, if you're listening andwe haven't made a point, you
need to go back and re-listen orread the transcript or
something.
so again, thanks a lot.
I really appreciate it.
stephanie-heys_1_08-05-20 (35:39):
Thank you, Chris.
chris_1_08-05-2025_115952 (35:40):
Yes.
And there you go folks, as youwere listening to this episode,
as always, if a customer poppedin your mind or a colleague or a
coworker or a friend that youwere having this conversation
with, let me share this episodewith them.
Really appreciate it.
You can always go to thewireless way.net at the, contact
us button.
Any feedback on this episode orothers.
Love to hear from you.
(36:00):
And, until then, we'll see younext time on the Wireless Way.
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