How many times have you heard conversations like this?

“Are you going to the IMAZ Conference this year?”

“No, why do you ask?”

“Oh, it’s being held in IBIZA, great beaches, super suntans”

“Yes, but what are they going to be talking about?”

“Oh, you know the usual. A couple of software companies will be trying to sell the same old stuff. Jim is going to give that same speech he gives every year”

“Sorry, the beach sounds nice, but I just cannot get excited about that same old conference routine. Same talks, more than half the speakers do not even make sense. My time is too valuable for that kind of thing.”

“I guess you’re right. I guess I will not go either.”

I am sure most of you have overheard or had this conversation or thought the same things many times over. Yet, despite most people’s opinions about these conferences, they tend to fill up year after year, with more and more people attending. What is the big attraction? Why do people go year after year? I can actually think of several good reasons. These include:

• It is a break from the routine, a chance to get away on “official” business.

Face it; we all need a break from work (and from our hectic home lives one time or another). Often vacation time (if you can even get some), turns into yet another kind of work. Getting away to a ‘conference’ can be the best breath of fresh air that many of us can imagine.

• It is a company paid vacation.

I know what you are thinking. I would never try to get my company to pay for a holiday. But, realistically we all do it, and it is certainly part of the allure of conference events. It is a chance to go somewhere different and exciting, fly across the continent or the world, and experience something new.

• Something to get excited about – the gala ball of the year.

Conferences tend to be like the annual ball, the spring dance or homecoming. They are like a “national holiday” for everyone in the profession. We all need the sense of order and regularity that helps us have a sense of belonging in the universe.

• The chance to get some recognition.

Who does not need to get out of the same old routine and get away from the same old faces? Who is not tired of working hard, and performing well and performing so many spectacular feats of revenue assurance magic, only to have our peers and managers take us for granted. No, we all need the chance to “strut our stuff” and to show off to people who actually appreciate what we do. Conferences create the opportunity for things like that to happen.

• The chance to compare notes with peers.

Another major function that conferences provide is the chance to compare notes with others of like mind and skill. It allows us to meet people who we can talk to about new ideas or approaches, sympathize with our unique challenges, or be a sounding board when things seem crazy. The relationships created at these events make this kind of thing possible.

• They give a sense of professional identity.

Without a doubt, in our highly compartmentalized world, it is very easy to become isolated and feel like we are the only people like us in the world. Conferences provide a critical function in that they help us to understand, identify with and develop a true sense of profession and community. They break down the isolation barriers and increase the professional camaraderie and espirit d’corps.

• They provide continuing education

Most critically, these events provide us with a badly needed “shot” of continuing education. Where else can we go to feed our own need for input and direction in the world of chaos we live in?

Having a revenue assurance conference is more than just a good idea, it is critical to our success and development as professionals. So what is the problem?

The problem, at least up until now, is that most conferences available to revenue assurance professionals have lacked several key ingredients to make them optimally effective. Oh, they allow us to get some of the benefits, but they leave us far short of the sense that we are getting a good value for the time that we spend (the most critical aspect), and secondarily for the money.

I think there are several reasons for this.

First – conferencing companies, not revenue assurance associations, put on the vast majority of revenue assurance conferences.

That means the people running the event do not really understand revenue assurance, and do not really have stock in your success. These companies put on hundreds of events a year for oil well drillers, lawyers, shopping mall managers, accountants, street merchants and janitors–you name it. Unfortunately, what that means is that they are good at putting on events – but not especially good at revenue assurance. They can’t help it. It’s what they are.

Second – Revenue assurance conferences can fall short on the education and quality of experience dimension. Since these event groups are not actually dedicated professionals, they have no way of knowing if the talks given are quality or bogus. They have no real sense of order, structure or quality. These conferences are more like a game show than an educational event. You show up and hear a random number of speakers talking about a random selection of topics based not upon what is important, but on who is available and is a good speaker.

Third – Legitimacy and value to your business may be questionable. While many of us have been able to convince our management teams that sending us to these conferences is a good idea, it is getting harder and harder to do. The benefits are getting less and less, while the costs keep going up.

Having said all of that, it might come as a surprise to some of you that GRAPA is going to be piloting a new program this year. That is right; we are getting into the revenue assurance conferencing business.

Actually, I do not want to call it a conference, because there are several things about it that are going to be different and we will be calling these events GRAPA User Groups. We call it that because we want people to understand that this is much more like a User Group event than a conference.

The objective of the GUG will be to provide as much of the value and positive aspects of a conference as possible, while minimizing the negatives. So what does that mean? How will we do it?

First, the event will be structured and focused in nature. Topics will not be random. The agenda will based upon the most critical issues and challenges facing revenue assurance professionals today. The agenda will be set by the need to discuss things, not upon the ability to find someone with an easy answer. In other words, it will be based on need, instead of availability.

Secondly, it will be focused on community and sharing. While the basic agenda of a conference is for many people to show up while a handful of people talk down to them, our format will be to encourage interaction and participation at every turn. Our goal is interaction and collaboration not entertainment and lecturing.

Thirdly, we will have a purpose for what we are doing. Getting together at a GUG is not about watching, it is about contributing. Each activity scheduled will be tied to some aspect of the definition and validation of our standards, the development of a common vocabulary and understanding of our profession and the enhancement of the shared knowledge base of all of us –in other words, a continuation of the GRAPA mission to an even higher level.

Fourth – and not inconsequential is the fact that attendance and participation at a GRAPA user group will provide you with recognition. Attendance and participation will earn attendees ongoing continuous education credit towards attaining GRAPA Certification or maintaining your status. In other words, the GRAPA User Group will provide you with a legitimate, measurable, provable quality that can be communicated to management.

For the first time, you can look your manager in the eye and state that you are going to the conference because you really are going to learn something of value that will help the company. There is so much more that I could say about the GRAPA User Groups but we are running out of time. So let me just provide you with some closing thoughts.

The GRAPA User Groups represent an exciting new addition to the repertoire of training, networking, certification and recognition options available to the revenue assurance professional.

These two day events will allow professionals to capitalize on the benefits of a conference (networking, sharing and collaboration, earning recognition, building relationships, education and expanding your horizons) while minimizing the downside (random agendas, unfocused curricula, questionable quality, erratic consistency and massive irrelevancy).

We will be starting out small, piloting limited attendance events in Capetown in October, Dubai in November and Las Vegas in December, in order to get a handle on things, and in 2010 we will be ready to launch the full blown round of events.

The 2010 schedule calls for events in Europe, South America, North America, Middle East, Africa, India and South East Asia. Stay tuned for more information.

And it is not too early to get information now for inclusion in your budget for 2010. I guarantee you, these events will be different, interesting, exciting and educational in a way you have never before imagined. I want to invite you to join us in this exciting new attempt at shaping the future of the revenue assurance profession and the telecommunications industry.

Until next time, this is Rob Mattison saying “Be Safe”.

You can get more information about GRAPA User Groups at www.revenue-assurance-conferences.com or contact us at info@grapatel.com

GRAPA staff writer Katherine B. and I sat down recently to discuss the new Revenue Assurance to the Extreme program that we here at GRAPA have just finished developing. Kathy interviewed me, and let me explain what this exciting new revenue assurance training program is all about.

K. Rob, tell us all about this new program, what do you mean by “Revenue Assurance to the Extreme” and why have you put it together?

R: Well Katherine, we have been very heavily involved for the past six months in conducting training programs, workshops and interviews with revenue assurance professionals, CFO’s, CIO’s, CTO”s and Regulators and we discovered several interesting things.

• First – it is clear that despite the economic crisis, that revenue assurance and revenue assurance teams are growing, and growing quickly.
• Second – we found that revenue assurance professionals are being pushed into an increasingly wider range of areas. Revenue assurance professionals are being asked to get involved in more and more areas of the telco, always focusing on the protection of revenues and the reduction of risk to those revenues.
• Third – while revenue assurance teams are growing, CFO’s are leaning hard on those teams to spread themselves thin in order to cover as many areas as possible.

The net result is that we found revenue assurance professionals have a need for information and training to help address these areas. The end result is the newly crafted “Revenue Assurance to the Extreme” Curriculum (RAX).

K: That’s an interesting concept Rob, but doesn’t this challenge a lot of the industry established norms regarding what revenue assurance is and how it should be practiced? After all, revenue assurance has always tended to be a relatively conservative activity, hasn’t it?

R: Yes Katherine, that is exactly the point. I really believe that the practice of revenue assurance must change to keep up with the state of telecoms today if it is going to survive. Too many revenue assurance teams have been marginalized and left feeling like they have no value to deliver, simply because that are not approaching the job from the right perspective.

K: So, does this mean that everyone that has been doing revenue assurance up until now has been doing it wrong?

R: Absolutely not. What the Global Revenue Assurance Professionals Association is doing is helping to work with revenue assurance professionals to leverage what has been done up until now and to build upon the solid foundation that has made revenue assurance as popular and critical as it already is.

K: So let’s get specific, what are the key points behind this new program?

R: It is about helping revenue assurance managers to reorganize their priorities. Because of the current economic crisis, telco executives are aggressively looking for ways to cut costs and increase revenues without incurring major headcount or CAPEX investment. Revenue assurance managers that are in tune with the top managers are therefore looking for new ways that they can offer real short term value to their management teams based upon those conditions. What the RAX program does, is provide revenue assurance professionals with some fresh perspectives on the way that other revenue assurance teams have been able to show that short term value without the CAPEX or Headcount investment.

K: So it sounds like the training is based on a lot of case studies and real world experience?

R: Absolutely Katherine, no matter what kind of challenges a student comes to the classroom with, it is guaranteed that some GRAPA member, somewhere has had to face similar circumstances. Our training simply provides an easy, efficient method for the sharing of that knowledge.

K: So are there any other “Key Points” behind this program?

R: Yes, the program is also focused on bringing to the forefront all of the latest expansions in the scope of revenue assurance. In the “good old days’, revenue assurance was about counting CDR’s , but in today’s telecommunications world the revenue assurance team is expanding its scope on a daily basis. More than ever before keeping up with the trends, approaches and methodologies is a big job, and our training brings these “leading edge” areas to the forefront.

K: So what about the old Core Curriculum, is that just being abandoned?

R: No actually, a good amount of that material has been retained, it has simply been modernized, streamlined and organized in a different way.

K: What about GRAPA Certification, will that still apply?

R: Absolutely Katherine, in fact, with the new Revenue Assurance to the Extreme program  we will be piloting two new levels of certification. An Associates IN Revenue Assurance Certification, awarded for three days of training and testing, with no work experience required, and the Bachelors in Revenue Assurance that includes all five days of training, testing and requires a verification of work experience.

K: So you get the training and an industry recognized certification all in one? What topics are covered in the class. How is it organized?

R: The newly expanded materials focus on a number of different areas, and it is organized into five focused days.

• Day 1 is called “How may CDR’s does it take to assure a Tweet”?
• Day 2 is called “Network Nitwits Need Not Apply”
• Day 3 is called “Nu Skool Breaks for The Old School Revenue Assurance”
• Day 4 is called “All that glitters is not revenue”.
• Day 5 is called “Weird Science and the Black Hole of Revenue Assurance”

K: Just to summarize then, the new GRAPA “Revenue Assurance to the Extreme” program will be offered in the 2^nd half of 2009. Courses are currently scheduled for London , in September, Capetown, in October, Dubai in November and December in Sunny Las Vegas, Nevada.

For more information, you can visit the website at www.ra-academy.org or www.grapatel.com

In the previous post I talked about the "un-conferences " we are thinking of holding. While that is a big and exciting thing, a more fundamental shift is occurring with development of a new GRAPA certification program. Specialist certificates will now be awarded for two to three day trainings in specific functions and technologies such as post-paid, pre-paid, interconnect, roaming, churn management, margin assurance, new product development assurance, 3G and WiMAX. We have talked to a lot of people and found that though they want certification, it is difficult to pack it all into one time frame. Revenue Assurance Professionals are busy people after all!

So in response we are going to segment things down so GRAPA members can get certificates in shorter spurts, yet move towards full certification over time.One of those existing full certifications is the Certified Master of Revenue Assurance Management (CM-RAM), and we will be unveiling others for those who specialize in Forensics, Operations, Revenue Optimization, Revenue Maximization, Fraud Management and IT. These different Master Certifications allow us to recognize and help support professionals in the many different specialized areas in which they work.

This change in certification structure is a huge challenge for us, but people we have talked to seem very excited about the approach. In the near future we will also offer a major new churn curriculum, as well as certifications for Internal Auditors and Regulator Compliance, to be taught over several days. We will be offering these new courses and certification trainings around the conference event.

And if we were not convinced already about this change, being here in Madrid and hearing our attendees talk about assuring next generation technologies  like 3G would be enough to change our minds.

Are you assuring your mediation systems well enough? How can you tell? GRAPA benchmarks help members learn how to:

• How other carriers manage their mediation
• Who typically is responsible for the checking of mediation activity
• How often alarms are generated
• What typical levels of filtration, suspension, error and consolidation are utilized
• How compliance and reporting to top management is handled

How does benchmarking work?

• Log onto the GRAPA Benchmark Page Click Here to take the Mediation Benchmark
• Answer the questions
• When the benchmark is completed, you will get a copy of the report summarizing the answers provided by participants.

Which controls are most commonly employed?

• CDR Serial Number Verification
• TTFile Serial Number Verification
• CDR Count
• Minutes In / Minutes Out
• FSEC Compliance and Activity Levels

Background:

Mediation systems play a key role in the management of revenues for the vast majority of telco’s. Not only are traditional postpaid voice, interconnect and roaming revenues processed through the use of mediations systems, but more and more these same systems are being called upon to assist with the assurance on non-voice, value added services, content, data , GPRS and other revenue streams. Even more critically, many telco’s find that they need mediation systems to assist with the assurance of prepaid revenues as well.

The assurance of mediation systems is a cornerstone of revenue assurance practices for most telco’s and understanding how different organizations assure them, and how their environments are configured can be of incredible value to the revenue assurance professional.

Objectives:

The objective of this benchmark study is to collect a representative sample of standard practices, architectures and configurations in order to assist revenue assurance professionals with an understanding of what standard practices are in the industry, and how they can most effectively adapt their approaches to maximize revenue assurance and minimize the cost of performing that activity.

This survey is made up of 5 major sections:

• Architecture, software and support environment
• Operational Support Environment
• Forensics Support
• Controls Management Policies

Click Here to take the Mediation Benchmark