2. Spontaneous travel or spontaneous use
Having to travel at a moment’s notice can often result in hefty roaming fees for international businesses. Especially if you don’t have the right tariff or roaming pass applied before you travel. But there are simple solutions out there to support spontaneous travel plans. If you are having difficulties keeping connected when globe-hopping, consider using a service that specialises in international mobile plans. These now support rapid eSIM deployment – meaning team members can launch new SIM profiles for the preferred data plan to your device over the air in minutes.
Spontaneous or accidental use can also cause problems. Definitely don’t update your apps while you’re travelling. Similarly, last year I travelled to the Ukraine knowing full well that roaming was expensive and dutifully turned off data roaming before I travelled. However, finding myself stranded and needing a taxi, I turned on data roaming to call an Uber. The result? The data charges were higher than the Uber fare! Don’t forget even if you don’t use your phone for data or making calls you can still be hit with a sizable bill if you accept an incoming call!
3. Regular travel
Most businesses will have frequent travellers or employees on projects abroad. The mobile operators have various solutions for brief trips abroad outside Europe but for frequent travellers or semi-permanent roamers on these can come with meagre allowances and still prove expensive.
The most common misguided advice given to business travellers visiting multiple foreign destinations is to use local sim cards. In most cases, this isn’t practical at all. You end up juggling lots of different SIMs that may need topping up and lots of different local numbers.
A more efficient solution is to invest in a single SIM with multiple international numbers. This ensures that your contacts within these countries can reach you on a number that’s local to them and incurs local rates whenever they call you.