I love Karate movies. Like many people, my memory of Ninja, Kung Fu, Karate and Taekwondo movies goes back for decades. When I was growing up, it was Bruce Lee in “Enter the Dragon”, and most recently my current favorite is Jackie Chan. Who wouldn’t love to be a Ninja, flying through the air breaking bricks with your head and disarming the bad guys faster than they can blink? (ZZT7BZ7FMHT8)

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.

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”

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 .

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.