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Businesses, not voters, wrongly paying for Big Brother

Big Brother final could cost UK business £500,000

London, New York, Tokyo: May 24, 2006 - Businesses are losing millions each week as employees vote in TV competitions using company telephones, warns telecoms expense expert, MDSL. More than half a million pounds from UK Plc could be lost on this year's Big Brother final alone, the telecoms expert said.

Ben Mendoza, CEO of MDSL explains: "In the first five series of Big Brother, on average 6.8 million votes were cast in the final week. At a cost of 50 pence per vote, if just 15 percent of all votes cast were placed through a company phone, the cost to business would be £510,000."

More than 31 percent of people use mobile phones as their primary method of calling with mobiles now accounting for 34 percent of all telecoms call spend, according to newly published figures from Ofcom.

[1] The study also shows that 55 percent of small and medium-sized businesses offer employees mobile phones and, says MDSL, at big business level the numbers are much higher. With many people using their company mobile phone as their only mobile phone, MDSL believes that 15 percent is a conservative estimate for the proportion of voting calls coming from business mobile handsets.

Mendoza continues: "Nearly every company accepts that some personal use of company phones in the office or on the move is fair. However, businesses are literally throwing away profits if they fail to set out and enforce sensible company-wide guidelines for using phones. Large enterprises are especially vulnerable as bill checking on the scale required makes complete scrutiny almost impossible - but there are expense management tools available that can help."

MDSL has warned that the problem extends way beyond the scale of Big Brother, with ICSTIS reporting that £1.6 billion per year is spent on premium rate services in the UK.[2]

Mendoza says: "The UK has embraced the concept of interactive phone voting with shows from Big Brother to the BBC's How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria. There are now also 25 TV channels in the UK devoted to phone quiz and gaming shows, such as ITV Play. If 15 percent of that £1.6 billion was spent through corporate mobiles, the cost to UK businesses would be nearly a quarter of a billion pounds. And, unless companies address this problem now, this problem will grow and grow."

Mendoza concludes: "Many people are unsure about what is and isn't acceptable use of a company mobile phone and many others risk unauthorised phone use because they assume no one will find out anyway.

"A recent study[3] highlighted that 5 percent of all searches carried out on web-enabled PDAs were for pornography. With high connectivity costs, often coupled with premium download fees, this could clearly be seen as a major and very expensive abuse of trust. MDSL is calling for companies to lay down understandable guidelines for staff and to implement manageable tools to scrutinise adherence."

[1] Ofcom Communications Market Overview 2006
[2] ICSTIS Half Year Statement, May 2006
[3] A Large Scale Study of Wireless Search Behaviour by Maryam Kamvar and Shumeet Baliya on behalf of Google Mobile Search