I cannot tell you how excited I was to put on a GRAPA training event in the city of London. What many of you may not realize is that a subset of people in the world that believe that London is the heart and soul, the actual birthplace of revenue assurance.

Many of the “old-timers” from the Revenue Assurance league had their grass roots in the old British Telecom Revenue Assurance regimen. Without a doubt, those people did a lot to launch the profession and prove how revenue assurance added value to a major league telecom player. It is also true that London has one of the largest, strongest and most cohesive revenue assurance communities, with a large number of revenue assurance managers from the different telcos getting together on a regular basis and sharing best practices and “war stories”.

I was very honored to be invited to present to that group several years about, and I remember the meeting place; a grand old Victorian renovated “gentleman’s club” with domed ceilings and polished granite floors. It was cool. They were also great bunch of people.

Of course, since those “good old days” of the supremacy of British Telecom on the telecoms scene, many things have changed. BT is no longer the Lion of the industry. Recent statistics show them dropping drastically in the global standings (and even within the UK itself). The old school is moving out, and the new school in moving in.

We decided to put on a training event in the UK with some misgivings. The “GRAPA style” of revenue assurance does not especially play well in the hallowed halls of the British Empire. Our “Xtreme” approach causes many of the “old school” RA people to scoff and claim that we do not know what we are talking about. However, with our successful track record of European events in Amsterdam, Luxembourg and Madrid, we decided to take the gamble and see if we could convince anyone in Old London Town to take GRAPA training out for a spin.

I am very pleased to report that the London event was a success on all counts. It seems that telcos in the UK are facing the same challenges faced by telcos around the world, and our European audience was surprised and pleased with what they got out of the event.

The focus of this particular group of students was different from other classes (but then, it always is). The issues that seemed most important and raised the most focus and attention in London were in the areas of Location Based Services, GPRS-3G Assurance, the special challenges faced when doing Virtual Network Operator Revenue Assurance and most critical of all, topics associated with Margin and Market Analysis. That one surprised me the most, but in retrospect, it makes perfect sense.

Riding though the tubes (subway train) all across London made the issues of the Telecoms market in the UK painfully obvious. Our hotel, the old Vanderbilt Hotel, was near the Gloucester Road subway station, and we held our training at our meeting rooms right on Trafalgar Square. (Talk about a great location.) Each day, as we took the tube to the classes, we were inundated by ads for discounted telecom services. I thought African price wars were brutal! For instance:

• Free international phone calls for life with this rate plan.
• Free SMS for 3 months.
• Free DSL, a free router, free long distance for 19.95 per month.

Unbelievable! I scratched my head, trying to figure out how any telco in the UK can make any money. Luckily, the local UK telcoms market was well represented, and we were able to look at this environment from a systematic, rationalized, profit based revenue assurance perspective.

What did we find? That margins are clearly tighter than ever, and telcos have to work hard to make their money, but there is still money to be made. However, what should come as no surprise to anyone is the fact that the telcos in the UK and Europe in general need a good, proactive revenue assurance commitment more than ever.

It is interesting the way that business, and cultures and situations parallel. Synchronicity I think they call it. Well, the synchronicity was thick in London that week. The London Tube  system is one of the most famous and reputedly, most dependable train systems in the world. However, what we found, to our dismay, was that many lines and stations were closed, due to a massive renovation project underway. It seems that to keep their city moving, and growing and changing, the city of London itself is going through some growing pains of its own.

Like the old tube lines, UK and European telcos are finding if they do not take hammers and chisels to outdated modes of doing things, and replace outdated approaches with newer, leaner and meaner approaches, no one will be stopping at their stations. Nothing could be more appropriate, and more in alignment with the GRAPA message. Telcoms is a dynamic business, and a successful revenue assurance professional has to do more than just keep up; they have to lead the telecom charge. The people attending our fourth European training event could not agree more with the message we are promoting.

We have already received a number of inquires from European telcos who are scheduling training at their locations for 2010, and we will begin plans for scheduling more European events the first half of 2010 as well. I am sure that our momentum will continue to grow as more and more European telcos discover and implement the GRAPA standards.

I am also pleased and proud to announce that at this event we successfully certified our first group of Bachelors of Revenue Assurance Professionals, including Revenue Assurance Professionals and Fraud Specialists.

For me, it was a great experience, and I look forward to meeting with, and finding out more about how our members are doing at the different UK carriers (along with the other Europeans). From here, it is off to Uganda and the first ever – National Training and Certification event, but I will talk about that next time.

Until then, this is Rob Mattison – saying….. Be Safe

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

After several years, it was good to return to the global city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to hold a South East Asian revenue assurance training and certification event. Kuala Lumpur has changed a lot in the last few years. It has become unbelievably modern, sophisticated and more comfortable then ever before. It was a real pleasure for those people attending the revenue assurance training event to get around and see the many tourist attractions such as the Masjid Negara, Kuala Lumpur Tower and Batu Caves .

Especially popular with many of the attendees was the opportunity to shop. Shopping centers abound in Kuala Lumpur and the city is the fashion and retail center of Malaysia. One attendee from Ghana actually spent the entire weekend between the two weeks of revenue assurance training to clothes shop for her family. We all accompanied her on her shopping trips and she bought so many clothes that it took two of us and two taxies just to get everything back to the hotel. We have now set a new standard for what a revenue assurance person does during the off hours when they go to training…they go shopping!

Other than the shopping experience, most of the GRAPA members were able to visit the famous Starbucks. For those of you who are not familiar with the history of GRAPA, the very concept for and the point of birth of GRAPA was the Starbucks coffeehouse at the base of the famous  Petrona

s Twin Towers. In 2007 a group of people sat down over coffee and discussed the type of association to be created. It was almost poignant to come back and have the members sit around that coffee shop and discuss how GRAPA has grown over the last few years.

Coincidently we held this revenue assurance training event at the same point as GRAPA welcomed its 2500th member. This is a clear benchmark showing that GRAPA has grown much stronger than we had ever thought possible. When we first formed GRAPA we envisioned a maximum of 1000 members. Right now, we have over 2500 members and that increases by dozens as each week passes.

Having reached this significant number we have analyzed our membership and found that although we have a large number of non-carrier members and consultants who participate in GRAPA, the vast majority of our membership works directly with, or are employees of carriers. This is very much in keeping with our intention that GRAPA be a carrier standards based organization.

Yet another topic our training group spent hours talking about is 3G and GPRS. There is a lot of confusion surrounding these technologies. Carriers in North America are already claiming they are 4G—surprising because when done properly, full implementation of 3G can take years. There are also carriers who claim to be 3.5G and 3.75G. Claims like these make it difficult to determine how a technology is implemented and used, not least because of the sharp contrast with how it is marketed. This makes formulating a revenue assurance strategy challenging at best.

Often the network operations department does not tell the revenue assurance department what it is doing, and then marketing people start making claims that do not necessarily reflect the reality of the technology. In this gap between “creative” marketing and opaque operations, the revenue assurance staff gets left behind. The revenue assurance staff cannot be sure they are doing the right job of assuring billing systems when they are not kept abreast of the changes.

For example, two years ago, carriers swore they would not do CAMEL or pre-paid roaming because it was too expensive and technically infeasible. Now the majority of telecommunications companies use CAMEL. Because the shift occurred so quickly, the billing and assurance on this new system is extremely lax—creating a great deal of revenue risk. And when looking at 3G, the exposure is many times greater even than with CAMEL. It is hard to keep your finger on what is happening because it usually happens in the back room. Regardless it is clear that what gets laid out in published standards is not what is actually happening. This always leaves revenue assurance staff in a wait, see, then scramble situation.

I would say the biggest surprise coming out of the Madrid training is the growing importance of Revenue Maximization. Revenue assurance for churn, rate plan assurance and new product development seems to have become standard procedure for RA departments almost overnight. Everyone coming to the trainings agrees that most telcos are now intent on moving toward this kind of revenue assurance. This is quite a revelation, because a very short time ago people were insisting that these things would never be in the scope of revenue assurance.

Yet in such a brief period, things have turned around and revenue maximization is a discipline nobody questions. When we added this information into the standard last year, it was speculative. However, this new insight and shift in practice makes it clear that the scope of revenue assurance is growing rapidly. We are constantly running a race to ensure there are standards and procedures to deal with emerging trends, as well as the expanding scope of revenue assurance practice.

Back in March I talked about how 2009 would be the year of the revenue assurance professional. I talked about how revenue assurance professionals were becoming the ‘go to resource’ at telcos, evolving from an informally assembled group with disparate skill sets (Operations, IT, Marketing), to a staff that is focused, specialized, trained, professional and credible. GRAPA, and the standards we developed, was an integral part of that evolution.

As training continues in Madrid we are also developing even more exciting changes to the certification process. As you may already understand, our trainings are also a chance for us to consult with our membership. What has evolved from our discussions in class is a situation where individuals and small telecommunications companies will be able to tailor GRAPA’s curriculum to their own needs. Yet at the same time, the GRAPA program remains flexible enough that it can be adapted to the different ways multinational telecommunication companies want to train and certify their revenue assurance staff.

We are currently working with the revenue assurance departments of eight different multinational telecommunications groups around the world. For the first time, we are designing programs that certify the staff of these multinational companies across all of their countries. It is particularly gratifying that these companies are looking to GRAPA for standardized and specialized training. Some of these companies have even set a goal of training and certifying all their revenue assurance staff, in order to create standardization across the board and bring about greater synergies.

As we develop the new certification program, we will be considering the training needs of the very small telecommunications companies as well as these multinationals. We will be able to adjust and customize the program to accommodate the broader needs of very small one or two person revenue assurance departments, and offer very targeted training to the staff of companies with specialist certification in categories like Prepaid or Interconnect. These programs are currently being negotiated and we will be launching them in the second half of 2009.

Training in Madrid is moving into its second week, which always means some new faces. As always, trainees hail from around the globe: Sweden, Jordan, UAE and Ireland—just to name a few. Several have interesting stories regarding their travels to Madrid and you will be reading those soon. Rumours of ‘swine flu’ and other travel hindrances have certainly not dampened anyone’s resolve. Perhaps this is just an example of the tenacity and perseverance required to be a revenue assurance professional!

When you are in Spain, you have to experience the bullfights, and those who stayed over the weekend did just that. The tradition of bull fighting is a controversial subject, even among Spaniards, so it is no surprise that there was a mix of reactions depending on the attendee’s cultural background. But regardless of each person’s response, it was a chance to get outside the training room and spend some time together socially. Many used the free time to enjoy a host of other tourist attractions, some even had the chance to enjoy time with family and friends.

Exciting Firsts for GRAPA

For the attendees who are still here, this week of Manager Training is already their second week, which means certification is getting ever closer. And as people move towards accumulating 80 hours of class time after last week’s successful Core Training, we are looking forward to certifying three more GRAPA members as Masters of Revenue Assurance. Our trainees tend to come from different areas of the telecommunications world–from management to IT.

So it is even more exciting that we will be certifying our first revenue assurance professional in Information Technology (IT) as well as our first revenue assurance consultant. I think it is significant that this is the first time our Manager Class is larger than the first week’s core training. That more people are seeking this type of advanced training and high-level certification indicates a pent up desire for revenue assurance professionals to be viewed with ever greater credibility and stature.

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.

With the Madrid training underway, we’re already looking forward to the upcoming Cairo and Kuala Lumpur trainings as well as some changes for the second half
of the year. We’ve even put up a tentative calendar for dates and regions in 2010.

For the next half of the year, we’re looking at holding ‘un-conferences’; no vendors, no booths–just training and information. Unusual, we know. At these regional events we’ll be having vigorous discussions of GRAPA issues in town-hall style meetings, in particular about how to improve the professional standing of RA professionals across the specific region.

The first of these regional meetings will be held in São Paulo, Brazil. For that event we’ll be offering translation in English and Spanish. This will be a chance especially for our Spanish speaking membership to get together. With GRAPA membership approaching 2500, we’re becoming a true force, so we can start really moving forward with some initiatives.

Miami may be the location for the U.S. conference.  We’re probably also going to be in Capetown, South Africa and we’ll consider doing Nairobi and Dubai possibly towards late autumn. We have a minimum number of people we need to register for these venues, otherwise they cease to be viable. GRAPA is non-profit and we won’t have commercial backing, so we need people to commit if there’s interest. Learn about upcoming events at RAA Upcoming Events

Greetings from the Madrid GRAPA Certification Event. Myself and the attendees were greeted by beautiful weather; warm, but not too warm. We have just completed Day Two of our training schedule, where we touched on Network Operations, Billing Architectures, and Controls.

Photo Luis Brito

In their free time the participants are enjoying Madrid. This is the start of spring bull fight season, so a lot of people from the training are going to the bull fights. We have watched a parade going into the arena with lots of pageantry; men on horseback and women in carriages in beautiful Spanish traditional costume. Our trainees are also enjoying the shopping; clothing, beautiful textiles, electronics and souvenirs.

The training is going really well and we have people who are looking forward to getting certified. There is a little bit of good-natured complaining though, due to the amount of information that gets packed into each day, and because the tests are pretty challenging.

The participants reflect out global membership. We have a good mix of people from around the world: Sweden, Ireland, Brazil, Lithuania, Spain, Kuwait, Nigeria and Uganda. We will likely be coming back to Madrid, if only because our surveys show that Madrid is the #1 choice for training locations.