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.

When it comes to revenue assurance there are a number of areas of concern.

We need to be aware of our organizational positioning and the way that we integrate revenue assurance into the overall operational framework of our companies. We need to worry about the technology, the systems, the organizations and the environmental factors that make up our environment, and that make revenue assurance easy or hard. We need to understand that in the final analysis, what most people want to know is: how exactly is it done? What are the standard practices that people follow in order to do revenue assurance in this area? How do I know if I am doing too much, too little or just the right amount? This is where Standard Practices come in.

Will 2009 be “the year of the revenue assurance professional?” It’s funny how things work out. Since the earliest days of telecommunications there’s always been someone, some small group of people, who kept their eyes on the revenue stream and fought to make sure that the telecommunication company realized as much revenue as possible. Back in those olden days the job wasn’t given much credit and it certainly wasn’t formally defined. In those days it was just expected that everything would and should be working without those pesky “leakages”.