Case Studies

Pragmatix Strengthens Telecommunications Billing and Reporting

Pfizer is the world's largest research-based pharmaceutical company. The Company discovers, develops, manufactures, and markets leading prescription drugs.

Business Issue

• Track and manage data
• Simplify billing administration
• Enable the secure flow of data
• Strengthen reporting capabilities

Business Results

• Eliminated 5 days per month of clerical effort
• Reduced month-end closing from 8 days to 2
• Reduced billing errors, including double billing
• Provided extensive management report and usage audit controls
• Process multiple currencies and conversions

Pfizer needed to more efficiently manage its telecommunications billing and sought to strengthen its workflow to reduce costly errors and cope with a burgeoning workflow. Tracking and managing telephone and remote dial access charges for 40,000 employees not only required an enormous administrative effort but was a strain on capital resources. The invoices from multiple telecom providers didn't include enough detail to easily bill or process chargebacks to the proper business units further complicating matters. Pragmatix created a web-based solution that imported call detail records from telecom providers, matched it against business unit and employee data, created management reports and a unified billing output to directly link to other billing and chargeback systems. The telecom providers supply the monthly call detail by CD or by direct file transfer (FTP). The company provides employee and business unit information for matching and processing. As a web-hosted solution, the data is always available to managers over the Internet so they can run reports or conduct usage inquiries. The accounting staff can retrieve and upload their information directly into their legacy general ledger and billing systems improving operational efficiencies.