AIR PRODUCTS LOWERS PHONE BILLS WITH SAS®

Air Products and Chemicals Inc. saves a significant amount of money each year by using SAS to analyze bills from its phone and data providers. From helping negotiate better contracts to unearthing fraud, SAS helps the company save money for a fraction of the cost of hiring an outside service.

Air Products serves customers in industrial, energy, technology and healthcare markets worldwide with a unique portfolio of atmospheric gases, process and specialty gases, performance materials, and equipment and services. The company has annual revenues of $9 billion, operations in over 40 countries, and more than 20,000 employees around the globe.

Air Products receives 25 million pieces of electronic data from its roughly one dozen providers in a variety of languages and formats that often change with minimal notice. 

“We needed a language that could handle a very diverse set of dynamic data formats and media from these suppliers – one that could organize the data and provide simple reports,’’ says Barney Cook, Telecommunications Financial Manager for Air Products. 

With SAS, the company can quickly organize the data into monthly reports – it has never missed a deadline since using SAS -- and then use the data to determine usage patterns. Those patterns are critical to negotiating the best contracts. Not long ago, Air Products’ cellular provider offered two options for its next contract. The company quickly figured out one option would save more than $1 million a year. 

Cook says analysis helps him spot future trends. “Contract negotiation for telecom services comes down to understanding not only your current traffic but the trends and the direction that you are going. You want to avoid committing to services that are no longer beneficial,’’ Cook says. Analytics also helps him determine which new telecom options or features are worth using, how much they might cost or if they can help eliminate other services. 

The company can also easily audit bills for errors. “With SAS we can compare our millions of transactions to the contract price and verify in minutes whether we were charged properly,’’ Cook says.  “Considering that a Gartner report estimates 12 to 20 percent of invoices have errors and 85 percent of the errors are in the carriers’ favor, this is important.” 

“If we were forced to work with paper invoices,” Cook adds, “we couldn’t do it.’’ 

Cook’s staff also finds unauthorized usage by looking for call patterns. And, with SAS, Air Products can quickly produce reports that provide electronic billing to individual units for their telecommunications costs.

SAS gives Air Products an edge over using telecommunications expense management firms, which charge 1 to 2 percent of a company’s telecommunications spend. The company can do it for much less with its two SAS users. “It’s clearly an advantage that we don’t have to source the process to another outside vendor,’’ Cook says.

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