Revenue Assurance Sufi Style

 

R Mattison’s Podcast

 

One of the rewards of traveling is seeing the different ways people around the world live, work and play. During our recent  Dubai GRAPA training event, Brigitte and I took an evening off to go on a Dune Bashing – Desert Retreat. Brigitte, Friday our good friend from Nigeria, and me along with three Japanese tourists were whisked across the dunes of the Sahara dessert in SUV’s and Humvee’s at incredibly high speeds. After a 45-minute drive to the middle of the dessert, the adventure began. At the end of the ride, we were to be left at a dessert “oasis” and offered local cuisine, camel rides, and the opportunity to bargain for stuffed camel dolls and watch local entertainment.

I was very worried about Brigitte on this outing. Brigitte gets sea and airsick all the time, and the people at the tourist board warned us not to eat lunch, since there was a good chance that we would “lose it” after the wild ride through the dessert. But, off we tore through the dessert, up one dune, down the other, swerving, falling, twisting and turning. At first, it was exciting. Then after about 15 minutes, my stomach started to get funny and my skin turned an odd shade of green. Yes, I got motion sickness.

Brigitte had a great time, screaming and enjoying herself, but by the time we got to our destination, I could barely stand I was so nauseous. We were dropped off and I fell to the desert floor, staring at the sky, hoping the world would stop spinning. After I recovered, they took us to our oasis. The food, socializing, music and dancing were quite interesting.

For those of you not familiar with Middle Eastern cultures, there is a group in the Middle East known as the Sufis who are famous for, among other things, their style of dancing. For the Sufi, dancing is a form of prayer. This is accomplished by spinning around and around and around to the music, faster and faster for minutes and minutes.

It is amazing to watch, and I cannot imagine how the dancers do it. The Sufi dancer we watched just kept spinning around to the music. After some time, his assistant started throwing things to him. The most amazing thing was his incredible sense of balance. Of course, after I had just had trouble standing up after a few lousy minutes in a jeep, here is this person spinning around faster than a top maintaining perfect poise and balance.

The feeling of being turned in a million different directions, and being “dizzy” and suffering from vertigo is no new experience for the revenue assurance professional. We are constantly tugged and pulled in different directions, and many revenue assurance professionals complain about being unable to “get their bearings” when it comes to exactly what they should be doing and where they should be focusing. The image of the Sufi dancer, spinning and spinning with perfect balance and harmony is a fitting image for what the truly talented revenue assurance professional should be.

I recently read an interesting article about the challenging “balancing act” that all professionals need to deal with, and I thought it would be good to share some of it with you. As professionals, especially as revenue assurance professionals in telecoms, there are several contradictory things we have to keep in mind as we do our jobs. Several things require us to continually balance our approach to problems, including:

Taking the Initiative vs. Following the Rules

One thing that managers complain about more than anything else is employees who do not take initiative to identify problems. Clearly, for the revenue assurance professional, waiting until someone tells you to check into things can mean the difference between preventing a crisis and dealing with a major revenue loss disaster. Initiative, the willingness to be proactive and to anticipate problems is a highly valued trait.

On the other hand, being proactive is not license to behave in an unrestrained manner.  Good professional behavior is guided by the social and business-related expectations of coworkers and managers across the organization. The balancing act is this:  To show initiative and independence on the one hand; while observing the prevailing social norms and the expectations of business associates on the other.

For example, managers often expect their direct reports will get things done more or less independently, without constant direction from above.  Employees who are “initiative-takers” and “self-starters” are valued…up to a point.  The balancing act for employees is to take initiative that is bound and guided by the strategies of their supervisors and the overall mission of their firm.

Acting professionally means demonstrating individualism in ways that are subtle, observe locally prevailing norms of behavior, and do not annoy or unduly distract the others with whom one is interacting.  It means not demonstrating one’s individualism in ways that strongly call attention to oneself.  Second, acting professionally means taking initiative on behalf of the firm in ways that support the strategies of one’s superiors.  Initiative is properly directed in support of the employer’s objectives, not one’s own unique ideas.

Pushing for Solutions without Offending People and Seeming Rude

The telecom industry, more than any other, admires self-reliance.  Individuals are able to be self-reliant, in part, by obtaining what they want through acting assertively towards others.  Personal assertiveness, or “directness,” is often expected, but too much of it can be interpreted as being aggressive.  The difference
be
tween enough and too much is determined by the employee’s sensitivity to others.

Similarly, self-assurance is good…to a point.  When it shades over into arrogance – a demonstration of one’s certainty that their own view is infallible – others quickly react negatively.  It is never complimentary when someone is viewed by others as opinionated, dogmatic, or arrogant. One of the biggest problems that we face as revenue assurance professionals is the tendency to translate our opinions, no matter how well researched or justified, into dogmatic declarations of this is how it works.

In our GRAPA training events, one of the first social challenges we face when we get revenue assurance professionals from different carriers together, is to teach members to communicate in ways that are not so dogmatic and absolute. I cannot tell you how many times I have had to caution people who make statements like; “This is how it is done,” “Everyone does it this way,” or “You have to do this.”

Being bold and definitive is a natural reaction to situations where we are unsure of ourselves, or surrounded by people who know less than we do. However, there is a difference between respectful confidence and aggressive bluster. Acting professionally means being flexible in the practice of our assertiveness and self-assurance. It means making sure we vary our assertiveness based upon times, situations, and people.  This ability to adapt our level of assertiveness must be managed by our awareness of the likely effect it will have on others.  The professional constantly tries to be sensitive to others, thereby learning how to modulate his or her behavior.

Respecting Deadlines but Being Flexible and Patient with Problems that Arise

In the hectic world of telecoms, executives and coworkers are highly conscious of time. Activities are scheduled in advance, and people follow these schedules as much as humanly possible.  Activities are expected to begin
and end on time. Being punctual is about being sensitive to the needs of others, who are also following preplanned schedules.

People also have many responsibilities and tasks to attend to daily.  Sometimes a particular responsibility or task, may take more time to accomplish than might seem reasonable.  So, along with punctuality, one needs patience.  Being patient is about being sensitive to others’ workloads and priorities.

Two related points need to be made.  First, managers take deadlines seriously.  When a task is clearly high-priority and/or its completion is critical to the work of others, the deadline should be met.  It is not good to miss a deadline.  However, one should agree in advance only to a “realistic” deadline. Second, for many, family responsibilities take precedence over business responsibilities.  In many business settings, a person’s explanation for lateness or a missed deadline will be more readily accepted if a family emergency is the reason.  Note, however, that this is not uniformly true!

Acting professionally means being conscious of other people’s constraints with respect to time and timings.  One respects other people’s schedules by arriving on time and meeting deadlines that are viewed as critical.  But one also respects coworker’s and manager’s huge load of responsibilities by not constantly prodding them about the completion of tasks. . . other than the most critical tasks.

As we can see, the job of the revenue assurance professional, like the balancing act of the Sufi, can only be accomplished with a great degree of care and practice. Our Sufi dancer didn’t learn how to be well balanced in one day. He practiced for years to accomplish the level of skill he exhibits.

In the same way, we revenue assurance professionals must constantly stay aware of, and focus on our need to find the right balance in our professional practice. It is a full time job for anyone to:

• Be sensitive to the individual egos, and the needs and constraints that our coworkers face, while being patient as they figure out how best to do a job in a productive way (the consensus principle).
• Be assertive, and promote what is right for the good of the company, (the integrity principle).
• Do this in a way that focuses on maximizing revenues to the firm (the rationalization principle).

I hope that you find, as I did, that this way of looking at our jobs offers some interesting insights into some of the ways we can improve ourselves in our professional practice.

Well, I think that is enough for this time so, until next week, this is Rob Mattison saying… BE SAFE.

Viva Las Vegas – Revenue Assurance Las Vegas Style

R Mattison’s Podcast

As we come to the end of yet another great year, it seems appropriate to sit back and reflect on what GRAPA have accomplished and what is in store for the next twelve months. Our last event of the year was I believe, at the most appropriate place I could imagine for a revenue assurance class–beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada.

What, you may ask, Las Vegas? Sin city? How does that rank as an appropriate location for a meeting of revenue assurance professionals? Take a moment, and think again, about exactly what revenue assurance and telecommunications is all about. If you believe that revenue assurance is a staid, conservative financial and janitorial function or revenue assurance is about is being conservative, tedious, boring and uninteresting and most critically eliminating risk, then you are right, Las Vegas should be the last stop on the revenue assurance training tour.

However, if you believe, as I do, that revenue assurance is not about eliminating risk, but learning how to mitigate that risk, then Las Vegas suddenly looks different, doesn’t it? Where better to have a serious discussion about risk taking then the city of Las Vegas?

Interestingly enough, our time in Las Vegas coincided with several other events. (No, GRAPA training was not the biggest event of the season.) Actually, while the training went on, we also saw glimpses of the Las Vegas marathon and the National Finals Rodeo competition. It was quite an interesting bunch. But, venue and environment not withstanding, the real action was neither out on the “strip” nor in the casinos. No, the real rousing good time was right inside of our classrooms.

We had quite a great assortment of students in this class. We hosted regulators from Haiti and the US, consultants from Ericsson, Ernst and Young, and several other firms, a couple of CFO’s, and revenue assurance professionals from cable, VOIP and wireless telcos in Africa, Latin America and the US. As you might imagine, with such a diverse group of people, we had many things to talk about, and many new insights to share.

If you would ask me to describe this last event of 2009 with one word, I would have to say exciting! Maybe it was the hotel (the Monte Carlo hotel was very nice, possibly the best venue we ever had for our events). Maybe if was the environment, being in the midst of all of that positive energy; marathon runners, rodeo cowboys and the crowds of people out to have a good time. Certainly, a big part of it was the people themselves. This group of people just seemed to click–identify, and communicate with each other in a way that was truly gratifying to witness and participate in.

While we reviewed the usual subjects and topics, the greatest emphasis and interest focused on the “leading edge” role that the revenue assurance teams are playing in more and more telcos. What we found, across the board, was that every telco represented was:

a) Investing heavily in new technology and new product and service offerings.

b) Is experimenting heavily with newer, riskier and more creative service offerings

In other words, the real telco operations model that we talk about and teach about in the class is alive, well and thriving everywhere you turn. It was amazing to see that the excitement that people had carried over from the classroom discussions to the breaks, lunch and the after class over dinners.

By Friday I was sure of one thing, that the new insights, positive energy and empowerment that the students felt would be creating big changes in the way their companies will perform in 2010, and that revenue assurance people will be a big part, and often a driving force in that process. I cannot think of a better or more appropriate way to put a cap on our 2009 year.

Consider how the year started with the doom and gloom that typified that “great crash” of 2008/2009. Now look at exactly how empowered the majority of the telcos are, and how critical the role of revenue assurance is going to be to the success of these companies in 2010. It is actually quite awe inspiring and humbling to see.

With this, our last blog and podcast of 2009, I will end on that note–a note of enthusiasm and gratitude to all of the GRAPA members that have helped us succeed in 2009, and awe and excitement about just how incredible 2010 is going to be for all of us. We will end this particular podcast, as we started it, with a short sound clip of the entire Las Vegas Revenue Assurance Choir, singing their rendition of VIVA Las Vegas.

Until next year, this is Rob Mattison saying … have a great holiday season and …. be safe.

Revenue Assurance and Internal Auditing – Training in Kuwait

R Mattison’s Podcast

Recently, we finished yet another breakthrough-training event for GRAPA. I was privileged to provide our core curriculum class to a room full of experienced telcom internal auditors from around the world.

This event, sponsored by Protiviti, Internal Audit provider to telecoms across Asia, Africa and the Middle East, saw 30 IA professionals certify in Revenue Assurance, with many opting for the special training and testing verifying their expertise in IFRS, GAAP, FRAUD and Internal Audit.

The group was brilliant, providing excellent proof of the professional competency and caliber of the internal audit profession. For those who thought internal auditors were not qualified to understand or wrestle with complex RA, Systems, Network and Operational Issues I can only say that “the proof is in the test scores”. As is common at training events, we had our share of controversy, and the revelation of a wide range of different personal experiences and “war stories” helped everyone better understand how big the IA and revenue assurance job really is.

This event reinforced my belief that in the battle for revenue assurance and fraud protection, there is a clear synergy and need for cooperation between the Internal Auditor and the Revenue Assurance Professional. This imperative is not new. GRAPA benchmarks have shown that Internal Auditors are traditionally the primary providers of requirements, and feeders of new domains into the revenue assurance arena.

More importantly, what became clear to this group of auditors was the many ways they can look to revenue assurance as their partners in discovering and containing revenue risks. Time after time, an auditor has come to me and said, “Oh my goodness, I should have turned this over to the Revenue Assurance team immediately!” Or, “I had no idea that things were this bad everywhere. I always assumed I simply didn’t understand what was going on, even though I thought something wasn’t right”.

Most interesting were our discussions about the various ways fraudsters penetrate the environment and steal money from the most obscure corners of the operational framework. I know that I speak for many revenue assurance professionals when I say that the enhancement of the knowledge, skill and insights that the internal auditors bring to the organization is a welcome addition to the battle that revenue assurance professionals fight every day.

Too often, I hear stories about revenue assurance professionals, when after identifying risks and communicating them to the CFO, were told the Internal Auditors signed off on them and they were overreacting. Nothing can be more frustrating then to have the proof of a problem and then have it dismissed because another operational area misread the situation. For this group of auditors, and the dozens of Internal Auditors we have already certified, this will no longer be the case.

The Auditors in our class came away with a great belief in the GRAPA standards based approach to revenue assurance; specifically that:

1. The primary purpose of revenue assurance is to:
   1. Build consensus based solutions within the organization
   2. Do their job with integrity and fairness
   3. Be sure that solutions are rationalized

And that the revenue assurance professionals’ primary responsibility is to:

1. Identify risk of loss
2. Quantify it into financial terms that everybody can relate to
3. Address that risk based upon managements appetite for that risk
4. Assist in the implementation of Corrections, Controls and Compliance reporting

Just imagine a world where the Auditors and Revenue Assurance professionals are on the same page. That is an exciting prospect.

For more information about what our internal auditors thought about the training and testing, and how they are putting it to use, check out the following sources:

1. The RA-Academy – Testimonials Page
2. The GRAPA Certification Site
3. The GRAPA Peeps – Blogs and the GRAPA Voice Newsletter

Yes, it is amazing what we can accomplish when we get together and work based on the same playbook. That is exactly what GRAPA is trying to accomplish (and what we actually are accomplishing in location after location).

Stay tuned for more partnership stories and opportunities to advance your career and the revenue assurance of your operating companies.

Until next time, this is Rob Mattison saying.. “ BE SAFE”.