Beware of Zombie Phones

Zombie phones could be bleeding your bottom line. What is a zombie phone? A mobile device that you thought was turned off or turned over to the employee, but your company is still being billed. This is more common than you might think. After auditing the phone usage and phone billing for several companies, Pankaj Gupta, CEO at Amtel, discovered an alarming trend.

“When we were analyzing companies’ mobile networks, we were finding that they had a certain ratio of phones that they thought had been disconnected, but those lines were actually alive,” according to Gupta. [1] After an audit, one large company realized that they were losing $70,000 a year for paying service charges for phones that were no longer in use. The phones were dead but they still bled the company’s finances.[2]

A mobile device management strategy should include regular auditing of the expenses on corporate mobile bills. Some employees leave the company and take their mobile phone, but you might discover months later that the company is still paying the bill. Other times phones has been turned off and put in company storage, yet the charges continue to accrue on the monthly bill. When you’re considering your mobile device strategy, don’t forget to consider potential hidden costs like zombie phones.

[1] Tom Kaneshige. “Zombie Phones are Attacking Your Mobile Budget.” IT World, July 25, 2013
[2] Mobile Device Management: The Zombie Phone Killer. AmTel, Inc.

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