A 270 line wireless account doesn't look like it has much room for savings. It had $4,000 a month sitting unnoticed, almost $40,000 a year, nobody had looked closely enough to catch it. Tommi Ellis is Channel Director at Intratem, a telecom and technology expense management company built on auditing invoices against the contracts, inventory, and usage behind them, not just processing the bill. She joins Max Clark to break down why invoice approval and invoice validation are two completely different jobs, and why almost nobody is doing both. They get into what actually happens when an employee's personal device gets pulled into a legal discovery request, why POS line replacement generates more noise than it deserves relative to its actual cost, and why the biggest myth about outsourcing this work is that it threatens somebody's job. What You'll Learn Why invoice approval isn't the same as invoice validation, and what gets missed in betweenWhat size company actually needs a dedicated TEM functionWhy BYOD stipends create more legal exposure than most IT teams realizeHow to spot a vendor that says they manage your telecom spend but doesn't actually do it wellThe five questions that actually matter when evaluating a TEM providerWhy POS line overbilling keeps slipping past companies for years at a time In this conversation: (00:00) - Cold open: the $4,000 a month hiding on a 270 line account (03:24) - What TEM actually means, beyond telecom cost cutting (05:51) - Who the real customer is inside the company: IT, finance, or both (08:00) - Why bills are wrong so often, and why carriers are slow to fix their own mistakes (10:54) - Why the fear of outsourcing fades once a company sees real savings (13:36) - From telco to wireless to SaaS: how TEM kept being renamed (16:27) - How AI license waste mirrors old wireless waste, and what size company actually needs a TEM (19:14) - Why in house control rarely means real control (22:26) - Stackable services: how mobility work turns into wireline and MDM work (24:43) - Why MDM deployment is still scary, even when it's the right call (28:49) - Why bills are wrong so often: disconnects that keep billing, and bad tax codes (31:17) - Why first bill reviews exist, and what they usually catch (36:08) - The lifecycle problem: phones in a drawer, and what nobody reclaims (36:47) - Help desk as an untapped part of TEM, and what it actually solves (39:26) - The hidden cost of sending an employee to the Apple Store (41:05) - BYOD vs. corporate owned: where companies actually get into trouble (44:43) - Why e-discovery is the real argument against personal devices for work (46:39) - Spoliation: the legal risk of not being able to produce an employee's device (52:10) - How MDM solves geolocation, not just security (54:49) - Does a company need a TEM and FinOps separately, or do they merge (59:30) - Why visibility, not cost cutting, is the actual product (01:01:39) - Reinventing the same IT problems generation after generation (01:03:42) - Top three onboarding mistakes: HR feed delays, "we're already optimized," and fear of being audited (01:07:15) - Do companies negotiate good contracts and then just stop enforcing them (01:08:22) - The biggest myth about TEM: that it replaces someone's job (01:10:41) - Spotting a partner who says they do TEM but doesn't do it well (01:14:10) - What a real first 90 days of onboarding actually looks like (01:16:57) - Reconciling four different sources of truth down to one (01:20:20) - What a human account manager actually does that software can't (01:22:13) - How a people led business scales without losing the human part (01:24:23) - Who actually receives the invoice, and who pays it (01:27:32) - What's included by default versus what's billed as an add on (01:29:32) - Rip and replace versus optimizing within what a client already has (01:32:38) - Why TEMs and aggregators solve the same problem but bill differently (01:34:00) - Does the customer relationship change once the big first year savings are gone (01:38:21) - How the TEM and carrier relationship is quietly changing (01:40:10) - Who actually signs the check: IT, finance, or a split (01:42:07) - What a good channel partner does that a mediocre one doesn't (01:43:48) - The five questions that actually matter when evaluating a TEM (01:45:54) - The biggest red flag: a vendor that leads with the portal (01:46:26) - What protections to put in a TEM contract, including term length and exit clauses (01:48:06) - Private equity's growing interest in TEM, and what that means for customers (01:51:20) - The $2,000 a month POS line nobody noticed (01:53:21) - Why POS line retirement keeps getting delayed, even when the carrier wants out (01:55:13) - Why POS lines get disproportionate attention next to the bigger problems (01:57:18) - Speed round: broken billing systems, the best unused negotiation lever, iPhone vs. Android cost, and 30 years of career advice What We Mentioned Intratem Verizon Wireless AirTouch Cellular ServiceNow Microsoft 365 (E3, E5) MDM (Mobile Device Management) BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) MACD (Moves, Adds, Changes, Disconnects) TEM (Telecom/Technology Expense Management) FinOps e-discovery and spoliation POS lines (Plain Old Telephone Service) LOA (Letter of Authorization) About Tommi Ellis Tommi Ellis is Channel Director at Intratem, where she was brought on to build out the company's partner and channel program. She spent 20 years at Verizon Wireless, first in retail stores and then as a corporate trainer, before moving into telecom and technology expense management. Intratem positions itself as human led and data backed, auditing telecom and technology invoices against the contracts, inventory, and usage behind them rather than just processing the bill. Tommi Ellis on LinkedIn Intratem About the Show Signed is the podcast for buyers in a market built for sellers. Host Max Clark, CEO of ITBroker.com, sits down with CIOs, CFOs, operators, and founders who've lived inside real enterprise tech deals. New episodes weekly at itbroker.com/podcast. If you're in the middle of a real tech decision and want someone in your corner, book an intro call at itbroker.com. Buy tech without regret. Follow: @itbrokerdotcom Full TranscriptClick here to view the episode transcript.
