ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the art and science of budgeting in the telecommunications arena. Budgeting is a tool to accomplish departmental tasks. One must first start with defining the departmental tasks and their strategic directions. Depending on management style of the organization and the manager, this can be a single-person task or a divisional task. Budgets have three essential purposes—planning, evaluation, and control. There are essentially four basic types of budgets: Line-item budgeting, Program budgeting, Zero-based budgeting, and Performance-based budgeting. This budgeting model allows business units to form partnerships and share common expenses. For example, in a local area network (LAN) environment, the telecommunications department would control common expenses for the LAN and the end users would control expenses for the departmental personal computers (PCs) and printers. An effective network manager needs to watch the tide of the regulatory environment and anticipate budget effects on the department.
