If you run a company the chances are that you may be out and about frequently and need to stay in touch with colleagues, clients and the office. In these difficult economic times, everyone has become far more cost conscious and any chance to reduce expenses is more welcome than ever.

One of the best ways to do this is to look at your existing telecommunications setup. It may be the case that various employees have their own mobile, and after making business calls simply bill back the charges – or everyone has a separate mobile and the combined cost of calls seems rather high. It may also prove difficult to monitor frequency, length and destination of calls made on company mobile phones.  Help is at hand, however, from companies like Vodafone, who have put together mobile phone packages specifically for business users and their unique telecommunication needs.

The way it works is that after signing up for a minimum term contract, you get a certain number of free mobile phones, and either a set number of free minutes per phone or a ‘pool’ of free minutes which can be accessed by every user. Included in the free minutes allocation are usually calls to UK landlines, calls between business users and sometimes calls to other subscribers to the Vodafone network. Free texts are often included.

Business packages are also tailored so that if you go abroad, call costs can be minimised because there is the option to sign up to a roaming passport service whereby you only pay one connection per incoming or outgoing call, and each minute you are talking is simply deducted from your free minutes. This is a refreshing change from the high charge rates for roaming calls. The other advantage of joining a major network is their service whilst abroad will offer much better network coverage.

There are also options to incorporate Blackberry and data services into your business user plan and the best thing is to discuss your requirements with one of the trained business advisers. For example, they can counsel you as to how you would be able to take advantage of the best deals on mobile broadband and browsing services within a business user service plan. Billing can be itemised, too, which means that you can see exactly where all your costs are going. It really does make sense to watch the pennies, because then the pounds will take care of themselves!