For nearly my entire time at Juvo Technologies, we have been members of the Telecom Expense Management Industry Association. Actually, about 4 years ago, the “T” of Telecom was changed to represent “Technology” as many TEMIA members were managing the entire IT expense environment, not just the telecom space.
TEMIA holds member conferences twice a year. At this year’s Spring meeting in Nashville, it was officially announced that TEMIA was now ETMA: the Enterprise Technology Management Association. From our perspective, this name change is significant and represents the reality that the “E” in Expense was restrictive and not indicative of all the capabilities that many companies within this space have. The “new” E, representing “Enterprise” is also telling, as it better speaks to the size of the typical user of these types of services.
It is something of a management maxim that if you want to change someone’s behavior, simply change their title. Does this name change from TEMIA to ETMA carry that same sort of significance? Only time will tell, but one of the most significant market impacts will hopefully involve shedding light on the differences in capabilities between ETMA members and cost reduction or expense management consultants. Nearly anyone can manually audit some invoices or craft a money savings contract. Those actions are valuable, and a decade ago, they may have been stand-alone service offerings. Here in 2018, they represent but a small part of what Technology Management firms are doing for the clients they serve. For example, Juvo now has:
- Enhanced bill pay offerings centered around the concept of “auto approve, “whereby we can collaborate with a client and develop a rules based system for approving invoices across the entire enterprise.
- Relationships well beyond the traditional carriers that can be leveraged on behalf of our clients.
- Compliance software that can help streamline one of IT’s most dreaded roles: the internal or external audit.
ETMA is full of great companies, each of whom has a different approach when it comes to helping clients make the most of all that technological advances allow for. This name change won’t make national news, but it is indicative of the incredibly creative practices that members have developed over the years to bring value to clients, and so the question becomes: what will ETMA members jump into next in their quest to help their customers?
