There are those who feel there is no place for these two words in the same sentence. After all, why would regulators care about revenue assurance, and why would revenue assurance people care about regulations and regulators?

There is an old saying; if you talk before you think, you will probably end up with your foot in your mouth. This is certainly the case when it comes to our experiences talking with Regulators around the world about revenue assurance.

 In order to appreciate exactly how revenue assurance and telcom regulation are coming together, it is important to develop a basic understanding of what telecom regulation is about. First, when it comes to regulations and telecoms there are two distinct sets of regulatory bodies that apply.

Financial Regulators and RA

First, there are financial regulatory bodies. These groups oversee the telecom’s financial reporting. IFRS, GAAP are two accounting regulatory frameworks that most telecoms must comply with, in addition to SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley) regulations. (This of course, is thanks to our friends from Enron, Global Crossing and MCI who ticked off the regulators and proved that telcos could not be trusted to tell the truth on their books, and neither could the auditors…but that is a different story).

Nonetheless, almost every telco has much to deal with, and must comply with a whole raft of regulatory requirements as defined by these agencies. In the good old days when revenue assurance meant ‘CDR herder”, these regulations were immaterial and meaningless. Financial regulations and regulatory reviews were confined to the general ledger and the accounting offices. What happened in the “real world” of switches, CDRs and IN’s was regarded by accountants and regulators as irrelevant.

However, SOX changed all that. Since the great Enron collapse, telcos have been required to comply with an ever more stringent set of regulatory requirements when it comes to revenue management. Revenue assurance finds itself repeatedly involved in issues of financial regulatory compliance in several key areas:

1. Revenue Recognition – that magical word out of GAAP / IFRS which speaks to the accuracy of your reporting of revenues to stockholders and the government regulatory bodies.
2. Taxes – regulators are increasingly less likely to simply “accept” the tax liabilities reported by telcos without a more comprehensive scrutiny of how revenues are actually tallied and computed. More than a few revenue assurance teams have been called upon to provide documentation and verification of the efficacy of revenue reports to taxation bodies.
3. Integrity of Revenue numbers – related to the actual recognition revenue (which is the point at which the revenue is applied to the G/L) and has to do with whether the numbers included in the revenue report are truly accurate. Understatement of revenues and how they are reported can be utilized by unscrupulous managers to hide or misrepresent what is really happening.

Because the major responsibility for financial regulatory compliance falls to accounting and internal/external auditors, the trend is for revenue assurance to be assigned responsibilities in these areas.

Telecom Industry Regulators and Revenue Assurance

When most people think of telcos and regulators, they do not think of the financial regulations, but of the industry regulators. They are the people who set tariffs, mediate interconnect disputes and otherwise make telco executives uncomfortable. This is the area of regulation where revenue assurance and the regulators are beginning to see a lot more of each other. However, in order to understand how this odd relationship has been developing, we need to take a step back and better understand the telco regulator’s job.

Since the earliest days of telecommunications, governments have been involved. Telecommunications, like roads, postal services and other public services, are understood to be a government responsibility. In fact, in the olden days, telcos were the regulators of the industry in many countries.

The need for governmental involvement in telecoms is clear. Wireline telcos need government backing to obtain the right-of-ways and egress/ingress required to “wire up” a country.  Wireless companies need to purchase leases on frequency to make sure not everyone tries to use the same bandwidth at the same time (so that nothing works).

Many people think this is the extent of the job of the regulator; to license frequency and regulate eminent domain. However, this is only a very small portion of the regulator’s job. While there is no actual authority over the practice of telecoms in an individual country other than the regulators themselves, the ITU (the International Telecommunications Union) – a division of the United Nations, is chartered with setting the regulatory environment for the global telecommunications network.

The ITU has no (for all practical purposes) enforcement capabilities, but serves more as an adviser than a regulator. Largely, the major conduit for delivery of effectiveness on the part of the ITU is found in the templates it provides for the establishment of treaties between nations on the management of international traffic.

Under the ITU guidelines however, a National Regulator has a number of proscribed responsibilities, and in many countries, the local government has endowed their regulators with additional powers. These powers a
re
best understood in terms of the two P’s: Protect and Promote.

National Regulators as Protectors

Undoubtedly, one of the primary responsibilities of regulators is protection. This includes the protection of:

1. Consumers – protecting consumers from abuse, carelessness or mistakes on the part of the telco.
2. Carriers –  protecting the carrier’s rights and privileges as defined by the licenses they have purchased and continue to pay for.

These protections can take many forms. Typical consumer protections include:

1. Rating regulations – defining what carriers can charge for services.
2. Rating accuracy – assuring the telco bills in accordance with those regulations.
3. Quality of Service Assurance – assuring that customers get the quality of service they pay for.
4. Price fixing and unfair competition practices – preventing competitive telcos from collusion in order to create artificial market prices.

Generally, regulators are “police-persons” that make sure telcos do not lie, cheat or steal from customers. Not only do regulators protect consumers, but also the telcos themselves receive protection from:

1. Intercarrier fraud and traffic bypass
2. Unfair competitive practice
3. Protection and help with foreign suppliers

Included under both categories is a specific fraud called “Averse Accessory Fraud”. This is when a third party abuses both the telco and the consumer through practices like SIMBOXes, clones, terrorism, police and law enforcement, counterfeit top-ups and others.

The Regulator as Promoters

Not only is the regulator required to protect telcos and their customers. More critically for most countries, they are expected to ensure the development of a solid, robust and low cost telecommunications infrastructure available to all citizens. UN studies have shown repeatedly that countries with the best telecommunications infrastructure outperform those without many times over. These are the reasons regulators get so involved in rates, licenses, service offering, profiles etc… because they are working hard to ensure telcos lower their margins (or at least lower their prices) and maximize benefit to the nation.

Revenue Assurance and Regulators

So what does revenue assurance have to do with regulators and their missions? Well, frankly, it depends upon the country, the regulator and the situation. As the complexity of the telcom business model increases, regulators are finding that they, just like the people within the telcos themselves are getting more confused by how things work and where they (the regulators) need to be looking. Regulators, just like internal auditors, are finding that they cannot do their jobs, or that they can do a much better job if armed with a detailed understanding of exactly how telcom revenues are generated, managed and reported. In other words, there are quite a few areas where the regulator’s curiosity aligns closely with that of the revenue assurance professional.

Revenue Assurance Domains of Interest to Regulators

While clearly not all revenue assurance domains are important to regulators, there are several where the overlap and requirement is clear. Let us consider a few of them here.

The obvious consumer billing related cases:

1. Billing and Rating Accuracy
2. Revenue Recognition
3. Revenue Tracking Accuracy (leakage reporting accuracy)
4. Provisioning and activation irregularities
5. Billing for services not delivered
6. Fairness of Billing plans
7. Competitiveness of Tariffs
8. Unconventional billing models and their fairness/legality
9. Customer complaints investigation
10. Fines and penalties for failure to comply

The obvious interconnect, roaming and content related cases:

1. Interconnect/Roaming/Content  rates compliance and accuracy
2. Interconnect/Roaming/Content – settlement dispute mediation
3. Irregular practices between carriers
4. Advocacy and protection of carriers against SIMBOX and BYPASS

    

In other words, to do their jobs well, that is:

1. To set rates so that they are competitive and fair
2. To understand the cases presented by carriers for accuracy
3. To establish new types of regulatory frameworks
4. To verify what carriers report

The regulator must, in effect, become a specialized form of revenue assurance analyst. In fact, the relationship between the regulator and the telco is similar to that of the Virtual Network Operator and their supplier. The Regulator needs to know how the telco generates its numbers in order to validate whether they are doing it correctly or not.

So before you start pooh poohing and saying that regulators do not care or have no place in the revenue assurance domain, be careful, they may be visiting you soon.  And when they do, do you want them to understand the numbers you are producing or not?

2009 saw the attendance of several regulators (and many, many internal auditors) in GRAPA training and certification classes. In 2010, we expect to see many more. So, just in case you thought you had already figured out all the angles that we as revenue assurance people need to cover, here are a few more!

Until next time, this is Rob Mattison saying, Take care 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”.

Cape Town – My Kind of Revenue Assurance Town

R Mattison’s Podcast

There is a famous Frank Sinatra song that goes something like this:

This is my kind of town…
My kind of town,
My kind of people, too.

When it comes to revenue assurance, Cape Town is definitely my kind of town. Our second annual GRAPA South Africa Revenue Assurance Training and Certification event was held at the base of the famous “Lions’ Head” rock. The weather was typical of Cape Town: rain, cold, sunny, warm, windy, foggy, and then sunny again. Cape Town is famous for its erratic weather changes, but that did not stop us from having a productive and intensive five-day dosage of revenue assurance. We had participants from many of the South African telcos including MTN and Telkom, and we had quite a respectable representation from other African companies as well.

Cape Town with its beautiful scenery, nightlife, shopping and incredibly friendly atmosphere is clearly a favorite destination for many Africans. I think any city with a large surfing culture is a great place to hang out and enjoy life. Where else in the world can you sit over a cup of coffee and hear stories about diamond smugglers, gold exporting and the latest FIFA Football competition all in the same conversation?

Deep Forensics and Deep Controls

There is nothing I enjoy more than spending five days with a group of intensely dedicated revenue assurance professionals, hashing out the details of how best to do revenue assurance in diverse operational environments. As usual, there were several points of controversy we needed to work through, and at times, the “atmosphere” in the classroom was as tumultuous as the weather. This time, discussion centered on roaming and the method for containing credit risk when customers who roam on another carrier’s network exceed their credit limit.

Roaming risk is increasingly an area where carriers are losing a lot of money. Carriers around the world have reported tens of millions of US dollars worth of losses due to roaming fraud (internal, external and partner based). It seems that trusting the TADIG and IDREG processes as the “final word” in revenue assurance for roaming revenue can be a serious mistake.

Many people assume they understand the process, but the specifics and details of managing roaming risk can be incredibly complex. The reason is, no matter how well you handle your own credit management and High Usage Report processes, you have no control over what your roaming partner does. Exacerbating the problem is that the GSM Association has been trying to require Near Real Time management of customers and their credit risk, but the number of carriers actually ready, willing and able to implement this aggressive new standard is far from unanimous. The result is that every carrier is maintaining a different level of sophistication and capability when it comes to Roaming Credit management and if you are not careful, you will experience large revenue risks that you did not realize you had.

One solution that GRAPA members are implementing is covered under the concepts of “deep forensics and deep controls”. These terms were created for, and are still utilized in assuring Virtual Network Operations relationships, but we are finding the concepts, controls and approaches are equally relevant to roaming cases. Deep forensics is the process of being aggressively involved in understanding how your partner intends to implement and complement your roaming credit management strategy.

A deep control is a control implemented by the partner and shared with your organization so you can keep current on the shared credit exposure that a roaming relationship represents. (The GSM Association Near Real Time Credit monitoring solution, where the partner sends the actual TAP FILES to the partner, so that the carrier can do its own Traffic, Fraud and Credit risk analysis is a perfect example of this type of control).

After debate and controversy, we were able to develop a better understanding of the different ways to implement these solutions and greatly increase everyone’s understanding and appreciation of the risks and issues they need to address when they return to their own operating companies.

I love this business and I am always impressed with the incredible dedication, intelligence, curiosity and commitment to digging down to the root of the problem that typifies the revenue assurance professional.

Certification, Credential-ization

This week also saw the graduation of another group of certified bachelors of revenue assurance. I am amazed at the rate at which people are being certified, as well as the diversity of people involved–with many people certifying in Revenue Assurance, Fraud and Internal Audit. Our newly instituted standard bank of questions has been “calibrated” and we continue to raise both the bar and our confidence that certification establishes a real value to employers for both existing employees and new hires.

Our new certification tracking pages are posted on the GRAPA site. Certified GRAPA member now have their own personalized home page, showing their membership and certification status, including courses completed, tests taken and grades assigned. (These pages are password protected and available only to the members themselves).

In addition to this news, GRAPA continues to pursue our “credential-ization” efforts. We are negotiating with several universities in Asia, Africa and North America, to offer a sanctioned GRAPA certification for new college graduates. Just imagine a new generation of revenue assurance professionals trained in GRAPA standards at the beginning of their careers! We continue to pursue recognition and verification of the GRAPA standards by a number of global industry certification bodies and work for the acceptance of GRAPA training for continuing education credit with internal audit standards and certification bodies. All of these processes take time, but we are well on the way to accomplishing all of the objectives.

GRAPA has surpassed yet another milestone: 3000 registered members. I never thought we would have that many people. Clearly, the number of people who are getting into revenue assurance is growing along with the rest of the industry. Now, we have set our goals even higher. We have members from over 1300 operating companies around the world and next month we will launch a series of campaigns to increase our membership numbers
on
a region-by-region basis.

In December, we will make a concerted effort to bring our program to North America with our Las Vegas Revenue Assurance event and our Bundling and Reseller Assurance Town Hall meeting run by our US National Chair John Myers. In January, we will launch our Spanish Language website, blog and translated versions of the standards books available free to our members in Latin America, and later in the year, similar programs will be launched for Northern Asia and South East Asia.

Yes, GRAPA is growing faster than we ever imagined, so stay tuned. So until next time, this is Rob Mattison saying… Be safe.

How Do you Certify an Entire Country?

R Mattison’s Podcast

I have got to tell you, no matter how long I am in this business, and the longer I am associated with GRAPA the better it gets.

You just never know what is going to happen, or what is possible when a group of sincere, intelligent, honest and well-intentioned people put their minds to the accomplishment of a monumental task. I had the privilege and honor or working with such a group of revenue assurance professionals in Uganda recently.

In order to appreciate why this is such a big deal, you need to have a little background. As the President of GRAPA, my goal is to bring training and certification to as many people as we can, at the best price possible. (Of course, the naïve among our readers will say, “Great, so give it away for free!”. Of course, if we did that we would not be able to do it for very long. It takes money to run an association like GRAPA, and getting people to pay for the training is the best way we could come up with to make it happen.)

This means that some people (especially the people in the larger telcos, and the larger, richer countries) have a much easier time of getting access to the training then those in smaller countries with lower customer counts and lower ARPUs. The result, unfortunately, is that many times, the people that need the training the most have the hardest time getting access to it. There are several things we have tried in order to fix this problem including web training (again, a disaster in exactly the places that need it the most) and other methods.

One of the things we have tried in the past is to put on a ‘co-op event”. This is how it works: all of the carriers in the same country or region get together and agree to cover the expenses, we have the event at their location, and the carriers share the expense.

In most places, although the people working on it tried, the politics and rivalry between the carriers made such an event impossible. Before now, our biggest success story was the awesome job that Henry Whyte did, putting together the GRAPA training event in Ghana.

So when Hawas Matta, our National Chair in Uganda, approached me with the idea of doing a co-op in Uganda I was skeptical to say the least. “How are you going to get your management team to agree to shoulder this risk?” I asked. “How will you avoid the inter-carrier politics?” However, Hawas assured me that he could make it happen. And, he did.

In an incredibly short amount of time, Hawas, with the full support of his management team at Zain Uganda, and with the support of the Zain Corporate group, was able to build the National Coalition of Revenue Assurance managers from every major carrier in Uganda, and get them to all agree to participate in the event! Unbelievable! It was an unprecedented act of coordination, win-win negotiation and cooperation.

For the first time ever, we at GRAPA are proud to announce that we have provided training for, and certified an entire country! Well not quite the entire country, but pretty darn close to it. Equally critical was the incredibly professional way the participants handled the experience. There were even some potential “inter-carrier” romances in the brew.

We had thirty revenue assurance professionals, including some Internal Audit, Fraud and I/T professionals, and we covered the entire core curriculum and Xtreme© training and testing during the allotted five days (we did go late a couple of times, but who is counting). At the end, we were able to award certification to most of the participants, with the commitment from every one of them that they would go back to their telcos and show their management teams how effective a true revenue assurance professional can be.

I think revenue assurance professionals around the world should look to the revenue assurance community in Uganda with considerable respect and pride. We can learn from their example of what revenue assurance professionals can accomplish when we put our heads and our hearts to the task of doing whatever it takes to get a job done.

I am proud and honored to have participated in this event. I hope and pray that we have many more experiences that are similar around the world, as we, as a professional community figure out what we can do, and how to do it. Really, there is no limit to what we can accomplish working together. That is what GRAPA is all about.

Again, my profoundest thanks to the management teams and revenue assurance teams from MTN, Orange, Warid, Hawas Matta and the Zain management team for making this happen.

Until next time, this is Rob Mattison saying…. Be safe.

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

I really love my job! Who else gets the chance to go so many different places and meet so many different, interesting, intelligent and talented people?

For the next few weeks, I will be teaching and working in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Usually at this point, I would joke about how my American friends have no idea where Luxembourg is, but I have a feeling that the majority of our GRAPA membership may not know either.

Luxembourg is nestled in the hills between Belgium, Germany and France. It is one of the smallest countries in the world, with a population of about 450,000 people. It has a duke, and covers only about 1,000 square miles (2600 sq km). They have their own language, Luxembourgish, (a mix of German and French), and the country has recently been declared the “safest place to live in the world”. Part of this is due, no doubt, to the fact that the citizens of Luxembourg are the richest people in the world (the highest income of any nation) and also not too surprising, they have more banks per capita than any other country (with over 220) .

Luxembourg was not always this scene of wealth and tranquility. Most history buffs and movie fans are familiar with Luxembourg and its critical role in the famous “Battle of the Bulge” during World War II. In fact, I am sure that I am staying in the hotel where General Patton and Bradley stayed during a part of that battle.

So what, you may ask, am I doing in such a haven? Well, as usual, I am teaching a class in Revenue Assurance for a group of telco revenue assurance professionals and internal auditors from all over Europe. Our training class in Madrid went so well, that we decided to continue with our European coverage. By the end of this year, I am happy to say, we will have held three successful events in Europe: Madrid, Luxembourg and London.

It is clear that revenue assurance is not only thriving in Africa and the Middle East, but Europe has its own interest as well. Of course, the focus this week, while still covering the basics, has its own unique wrinkles as does every class we put on. This time, the emphasis has turned more and more to the issues of internal audit, IFRS and their relationship to the revenue assurance function.

It is amazing how incredibly complicated things get in our business. The good old days of “revenue is revenue” have been overtaken by oceans of regulations and laws that define what revenue is, what it is not and the myriad different ways that it can be computed, counted, collected and credited depending upon dozens of factors.

Yes, the simplistic revenue assurance professional of yesterday, who could simply count CDRs and let the managers worry about the rest are quickly fading to the background. Today’s revenue assurance professional must be part accountant, part I/T, part operations and part detective.

I am gratified to find that since the publishing of our 2009 standards, the financial community at large, and especially the audit community has responded with enthusiasm to the GRAPA message. Our principles of rationalization, integrity and consensus, and our insistence upon the positioning of revenue assurance as the partner and supporter of internal audit have resulted in a deluge of internal audit interest in training and certification.

In fact, over the next two months we are scheduled to train and certify over 35 internal and external auditors from a wide variety of operating companies and consulting firms across SE Asia, Africa, The Middle East, Europe and South America. This trend is one we hope to continue in the coming months and we are redoubling our efforts to gain official sanction from audit certification organizations so that auditors can get continuing education credit for their attendance at these events.

As well, I have continued my status as a member in good standing with the IIA, the Institute of Internal Auditors. No, I am not planning on defecting and becoming an Auditor. I just think that it is critical that we, as revenue assurance professionals, understand and find ways to work with and support our “brothers and sisters” in the battle to support telco financial integrity and fraud/revenue loss in all of its forms.

You can immediately tell the difference between the RA people and the IA people in the classroom. The Auditors, of course, are wearing conservative suits, ties and well-shined shoes. Their biggest concerns are fraud prevention and determining whether the correct controls and procedures are in place. The RA people are a bit more relaxed and informal, but share the same dedication to detail, completeness and getting to the heart of the problem.

The class started out, as it usually does, with many questions about territoriality and responsibility. “Who is going to be responsible for what,” and other such issues were the first thing we hashed out. After that, the tone of the class changed. We began the journey of discovering that there is more than enough work for everyone, and that territorial squabbles do nothing more than slow everyone down and distract us from the huge job that we face; figuring out how best to assure and secure telecom revenues in this crazy ever-changing world. By the end of the class, everyone agreed that there was a lot more work ahead of them and that by working together, everyone would benefit.

This process of consensus building and the development of a shared, cooperative and proactive vision of how we can all work together to accomplish our goals is a real benchmark of the training classes we deliver, and we hope to be able to continue this activity for some time to come.

For the rest of this year we have already scheduled training and certification events for London, Cape Town, Dubai, Kuwait, Mexico, and Jamaica. We will be finishing off the year with our last event of 2009 in sunny Las Vegas, Nevada.

That is enough rambling for this week. You know, I cannot help thinking about the fact that the people here have so much money, and are so safe, and that one of the reasons they have been so successful, is because they have focused on their own personal brand of revenue assurance. With that thought to inspire me, I look forward to a week of walking down cobblestone streets, passing by castles, farmhouses and picturesque rural vistas on my way to work, and feeling a real sense of safety and assurance–not just because I am in Luxembourg, but because I know that the job that we are doing is helping telcos around the world secure their revenues and improve their profit positions.

Stay safe,
Rob