What do Ernst and Young, Protiviti, Infosys, PWC, Deloitte and IBM all have in common? Is it that:

a)      They are some of the largest, most successful consulting organizations in the world today?

b)      Each has a large, viable commitment to providing professional consulting services to telcos in the Internal Audit, Fraud and Revenue Assurance domains?

c)      Each has sent several of their consultants to GRAPA Certification and Training Events?

The answer is, all of the above.

I was a bit surprised last week when I had the faculty team assemble a study to review the GRAPA memberships and training attendance demographics. Several patterns emerged, but one of the most striking was the high number of consulting organizations filling the seats in GRAPA training events.

I was not surprised that consultants are involved in GRAPA. Many of the consulting firms that I mentioned have been staunch supporters of GRAPA from the beginning. Consultants fill many of the key roles on GRAPA committees, and also provide strong support for the GRAPA standards in the real world. However, what surprised me were the numbers of consultants getting certified is growing, exponentially.

Yes, consultants are coming to learn that GRAPA makes sense for them as well. Being a curious and questioning kind of guy, the first thing that I wanted to understand is why? Why have consultants started to flock to the GRAPA training and certification events?

I think there are several reasons for this. First, we have started to hear of more and more carriers placing a requirement, or at least a preference for GRAPA certification as a criterion for the assessment of job candidates. This makes sense when you think about it. With over 3500 copies of the GRAPA standards downloaded around the world, it is natural that carriers would take the next step, and ask that consultants conform to the same standards that they are practice.

Obviously, once a revenue assurance manager, CFO or auditor recognizes the value of the approach, it is simply the next step to prefer vendors who see things the same way. But, while this tendency certainly helps to explain the phenomena, I think there is even more to it than that.

There really is only one reason for any consulting company to do anything–to gain a competitive advantage. Business in general, and consulting more specifically, is an intensely competitive, highly leveraged activity. Consultants are in a constant state of  re-inventing themselves to get an edge on the competition, re-educating themselves, trying to get the advantage through advanced knowledge and skills, re-evaluating themselves and constantly working to improve their team’s and their own approaches any way they can.

Sounds exhausting, right? I worked for many companies as a Revenue Assurance and Business Intelligence practice leader for many years, and I assure you, it is all that and more. Why then, should consultants develop a preference for GRAPA and the GRAPA standards? Well actually, there are quite a few reasons.

Consultants, just like carriers, need to be concerned about whether their teams have the skills and knowledge needed to do the job and the GRAPA Body of Knowledge (an industry wide, consensus based definition of scopes) makes it easy for consulting companies to benchmark and assess their own people. The GRAPA Body of Knowledge provides a key guideline that everyone can use.

Once the Body of Knowledge was established, it was possible to put together a comprehensive Testing and Certification program. The GRAPA Training, Testing and Certification program is the largest, most pervasive and most respected revenue assurance, telecom fraud and telecom internal audit specific program in the world, as evidenced by the hundreds of people that have certified, or are in the process of certification.

But the benefit GRAPA offers consultants does not end there. In addition to the help GRAPA provides in the assessment and credentialization of their staffs, GRAPA’s industry  Practices (Principles, Methodologies and Standard Controls Based Assurance) make it easy for consulting companies to quickly step into complex situations, and conduct insightful and effective analysis and solution design, with a minimum of fuss and “start up time”. The GRAPA standards provide a common frame of reference, vocabulary and approach making it easy for consultants to step deliver value quickly and effectively.

But I think the real reason that consulting companies are finding lots of reasons to love GRAPA, is the GRAPA core philosophy. GRAPA believes and promotes that the most valuable asset  a company can have, and the best way to solve any problem is through the professionalism of the revenue assurance professionals themselves.

It is the revenue assurance professionals themselves that make the difference in any revenue assurance engagement (a philosophy that aligns perfectly with what consulting companies are selling…the professionalism of their consultants). The only real surprise is that so many consulting companies have not taken advantage of GRAPA. But that’s okay. I’m not worried. The momentum that GRAPA has established is clear. They may not be in our classrooms and taken testing yet, but they will be, or they may have to get out of the telecom business altogether.

Well, I think that’s enough for this week. Until next time, this is Rob Mattison saying. … be safe….

Having goals is wonderful. That is how set up measures for ourselves and assess our progress. However, goal setting can create problems, especially when it comes to choosing role models. What happened to those who regarded Toyota as the example of how to run a car company? What about those who chose Tiger Woods as a role model for the professional and ethical behaviors of “winners”?  Yes, the business of setting goals and selecting a role model to follow can have some serious backlash.

It can be especially dangerous and difficult to choose a role model within telecommunications and revenue assurance.  For the majority of the people I talk to in telecoms and the people clogging the speaker conferences and producing marketing material, the message is simple and clear: To be the best, emulate the big boys.

Do you want to exercise best practice in billing? Find out how ATT does it. Do you want an example of the best at long distance? Let British Telecom be your guide. Conference after conference, vendor after vendor and speaker after speaker the same song is repeated. Since the big telcos do it this way, you should do it this way too. Since the biggest and richest telcos in the world do things a certain way, then copy them, and you’ll become bigger and richer.

Wait a minute! Let me really think about this. The claim is that since the big, successful people do things a certain way, I should too. Their way is the way to success. I have a real, big problem with that logic. Here is the reason.

Let’s look at the ‘big telco’ style of revenue assurance.

‘They’ say:

1. Revenue Assurance is about IT Systems – It is about putting in lots of systems and automating controls. The more computer-run controls, the better your revenue assurance.
2. Revenue Assurance is about doing things the right way, even if it is expensive. In this mode of operation, revenue assurance is like an avenging angel. An agent of change who a) cleans up dirty data b) corrects policy errors c) smoothes out operational problems without regard for the cost. The accomplishment of order is the only goal.
3. Revenue Assurance is about leakage – it is about finding, monitoring, and being absolutely focused and obsessed with little tiny errors in great big systems. Perfection is the order of the day.

But how are those telcos are doing?

1. ARPU’s – Dropping like a stone
2. Market Share – Shrinking
3. Reputation – Eroding rapidly

It seems to me that those are the last models I want to emulate. I am amazed that anyone still gives these people the time of day.

We need to look at the history of telecoms in the past ten years. Who are the carriers we should be emulating? Should we take direction from the dinosaurs behind this thinking and pay to build these systems and engage in never-ending, mind-numbing and meaningless debates? Should we perpetuate the thinking generated by carriers that are so cumbersome and bureaucracy bound that they cannot do anything without a six month study? Do you, in your telco, have time for that???

Maybe we should look at the new market powerhouses around the world: The Zains, MTNs, Vodafones, TIGOs, Orascoms, Qtels, Movistars and the Digicels. Even China Mobile and Airtel Bharti have huge lessons to teach us about how this business can be run profitably.

I propose that these are the companies to be emulated.  These are the people who don’t have time to be obsessed with IT systems. These people know they cannot afford to stand still long enough to have the silly, bureaucratic, political battles about leakage and triple redundancy and the obsessive pursuit of three cents worth of leakage. In other words, in my opinion, these are the carriers who practice telecommunications in the style that has always driven the winners in telecoms:

• Innovation.
• Break neck speed to market
• Change, change , change

It is the commitment to innovation, change and risk that makes a telecom something to be admired, not the size of their IT budget and certainly not hours logged in theoretical discussions about “drip models”. I would not claim that the big cumbersome carriers out there who are bogged down with massive legacy systems, 25 layers of I/T, and enough political process to govern a country do not need to practice revenue assurance the way they the do. On the contrary, I emphatically agree. They really do need to function that way. It is the only way that they can keep up.

What I am also saying, is that the last thing any smaller, leaner, meaner and more effective telco, or revenue assurance team should be doing, is trying to figure out how to do the same thing. Basically, you would be trying to learn how to do the wrong thing.

There is an amusing television commercial put out by Accenture. The commercial shows an elephant crossing a huge chasm by nimbly dancing on a log that goes across the gap. Their message is, you too can be a giant elephant, but we can teach you how to be nimble despite your size. Maybe teaching elephants how to walk across logs sounds like a good idea to you, but I think the chances are good that an elephant is going to be falling to the bottom of the chasm pretty often.

Even more critical, why do you want to be an elephant? Yes, the real key for the revenue assurance professional is not to seek out the worst examples of revenue assurance, and then try to copy them, but to look at your own company, your own situation and your own capabilities, and create your own image of best.

Well, that is about enough time for this week, so I’ll just leave you with this thought. If you want to fly, don’t take lessons from an elephant.  If you want to fly, start learning how the birds do things instead.

Until next week, this is Rob Mattison saying…. Be Safe.

I survived the great volcanic ash cloud of 2010. Like many travelers around the world, I too was stranded in a place I did not want to be when Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull Volcano decided to do its thing.  We had an event scheduled in Rotterdam, and we had to cancel it while people scrambled to get transportation from once place to another.

Luckily for me however, I had a nice hotel room and no place to go for a week. For most people, a whole week stuck in a nice location would mean a chance for some sightseeing, touring or may just some heavy sleeping. But that is not for me. What I like to do when I get some time on my hands, is arrange some ad hoc meetings with revenue assurance professionals in the area where I happen to be staying.

I was fortunate and managed to meet with quite a few people, and in addition to the usual revenue assurance  team meetings, I was able to swing a few interviews with some CEOs and CFOs to get feedback on how their view of revenue assurance is changing. For many of you, the thought of a CEO or a CFO caring about revenue assurance at all might seem like a stretch.

In the places where revenue assurance teams are taking the GRAPA message to the streets, an amazing transformation occurs. Don’t get me wrong, the transformation does not happen overnight, but in those places where the revenue assurance team works hard, works smart and focuses on their core mission, amazing things happens.

Revenue assurance professionals begin to see a significant and often quite rapid change in their status. As revenue assurance professionals begin to focus more on their understanding of where the true risks to the telco’s revenues are, and get proactive in their mission to “seek out and destroy” risks to revenues in any form it happens to be in, the more revenue assurance professionals come to be perceived as a key strategic asset to top management.

In meeting after meeting, C level executives shared the various ways their revenue assurance teams are surprising them with innovative, creative and downright brilliant solutions to many of the biggest revenue protection challenges facing telcos today. If I were to summarize these stories, I would say that CEOs love GRAPA, or at minimum truly appreciate what GRAPA is doing, because of the way in which it has been helping to transform revenue assurance teams.

Among the most often cited cases that C Level executives are mentioning are:

1. The clear commitment to rationalization and the insistence of the revenue assurance team that all remedies developed are cost justified. That, keeps showing up as number one wherever we go. For many people unfamiliar with the GRAPA standards, there is a prevailing assumption that revenue assurance is some kind of “data cleansing” or “operational best practices” discipline (which is something that no C Level executive has time for). But when the revenue assurance team adopts a hard core, rationalization stance, things really begin to change.

1. CEOs and CFOs were emphatic about how much they appreciate having a team of professionals on staff that proactively looks for risks to revenues without being told to. It seems that C Level executives, like everyone else, have too many things to keep track of, and anyone who is vigilant and proactive in “keeping their eye on the revenue line” is going to attain a “favored” status very quickly.

Most surprising to me were the number of executives who told me that their number one reason for escalating the status of the revenue assurance team in their estimation, was because they were realizing that revenue assurance was their number one best line of defense against revenue loss in new product development areas. An amazing number of telcos now include revenue assurance as a critical member of the new product development team, where they are perceived as the ultimate arbiters of the speed vs. risk tradeoff that all new product development teams must deal with.

For some people getting stuck someplace for a week because of a volcano might seem like a real bother. But for me it was an amazing opportunity to get some necessary and incredibly powerful feedback regarding the job that the revenue assurance teams are doing out there.

The net result of these interviews for me, among other things, is a renewed commitment, and even more focus on the “non-traditional” revenue assurance disciplines (Margin, Market, New Product and New Technology Assurance) that the CEOs seem most focused upon.

Well, that is enough for this week. Who knows, maybe next week, I’ll get stuck someplace else, and have another chance to get more of the “C-Level” view of what is happening in telecoms, and revenue assurance today.

But until then, this is Rob Mattison, saying…be safe.

This week we had a break in our training schedule, so Brigitte and I spent a week in Germany visiting family. I love Germany. That should be obvious, since I married a German. Brigitte was born and raised in Augsburg in the Southern part of Germany known as Bavaria.

With its beautiful countryside, rolling landscape, forests and farms Germany is a pretty place and always a treat for me to visit. We called on my in-laws, helped my niece Anna with her English lessons and trigonometry homework, and visited the famous Augsburg Christmas market.

However, whenever I visit Germany, I always take the time to engage in my favorite pastime. What I love to do more than anything else is a little game I like to call Autobahn Hanne (Chicken in German). The way you play is simple; you get a rental car, get on the Autobahn (the German highway system) and see how many times you can get your car going over 200 KPH before Brigitte screams in terror.

That is right! In my opinion, the most brilliant thing the Germans ever invented is the Autobahn, the highway system with no legal speed limit. Yup, in Germany, you can drive as fast as you want, and nobody tries to stop you. Moreover, unbelievably the Germans  have a lower accident rate than many, many other countries in the world, with much more stringent speed and traffic laws.

Now, I know what you are thinking. How did the Germans make this miracle happen, and how can I get in on it? Is it because the Germans are genetically better drivers? Do they have better coordination or cars ? Firstly, the Germans are impatient people. They don’t like to wait, and have no tolerance for people who get in their way and slow them down. Trying standing in a queue at the airport with Germans in line and you will see what I am talking about.

The way that they make the autobahn safe is simple. They have figured out the best places to put the roads. They have organized their laws, rules, highways, on ramps, off-ramps and everything else in ways that make the autobahn not only possible, but also safer than roads without that kind of comprehensive engineering.

However, remember, the Autobahn is much more than just a road and some asphalt. It works because of all the different parts of the process work together. It requires the coordination of disciplines: driving, engineering, law and more than anything else, an attitude adjustment.

On the Autobahn, they have laws and rules–lots of them. In fact, they have rules and laws that you do not have in other countries. For example, when you are on the Autobahn, you must always get out of the way if someone behind you is going faster than you. For the Autobahn to work, people have to learn how to get out of the way. Also, on the Autobahn, you can only pass on the left, never on the right. You see, it is not magical at all. The Germans have a structure and rules that allow them to accomplish their speed without compromising on safety. However, who within the telco environment is qualified to figure out how our product and marketing Autobahn should look?

What are some of the things that get in the way of new product developers and slow them down? Network engineers telling them that the product cannot be supported by the existing infrastructure. Billing systems people telling them that the products can’t be billed the way they want it to be billed. Actually, just about everyone involved in the delivery of services.

This new product development Autobahn requires someone who is expert not at any one aspect of the delivery of services, but who understands how all of it fits together, and how it can be “tweaked” in order to get to where you are going with the least obstructions possible.

Let’s see now. Where can we find someone like that? A person who understands the intricacies of network elements, switches and CDRs, billing and customer service. For many, many telcos, the new “hero of the hour” has been, repeatedly, the Revenue Assurance professional. What? Revenue assurance perceived not as “the guys who slow things down”, but instead as “the guys who speed things up?”

Actually, yes I have personally heard dozens of stories of situations where frustrated CFOs, product developers and market executives have turned to the revenue assurance team to help figure out how to “get around’ design and operational problems and help make things work better, faster and safer.

If you to ask me to identify the one thing that presents the biggest opportunity for revenue assurance professionals, and for telecoms overall, it is the identification and inclusion of revenue assurance as a critical component of every product development team. For those telcos who have figured it out, revenue assurance represents the “backbone” of the new product development operation, with new product development support making up to one half of the entire RA team.

So, the next time you listen to a marketing person, CEO or a product developer talk about creating some insane project and launching it much faster than anyone thinks is possible, take a step back and think about the Autobahn for a minute. Is there a way that your expertise, insight and unique set of skills and knowledge can help them get to their destination?

If so, maybe you are ready to join the ranks of more and more revenue assurance professionals who are finding this to be one of the most interested, exciting and challenging aspects of their jobs. And after that, how long before you to start to develop a taste for Autobahn Hanne (Autobahn Chicken). Why not see how fast you can go before you make your CFO scream in terror? It is an interesting thought isn’t it?

Well, enough for now, until next time this is Rob Mattison saying “Be Safe”.

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.

With the beginning of a fresh new year, we are seeing a lot of new exciting growth for GRAPA and for revenue assurance professionals around the world.

Revenue Assurance Professional Staffs Growing At Astronomical Rate

The biggest single landmark for revenue assurance has been the almost continuous growth in the size of revenue assurance departments around the world. As the latest generation of entrant telcos staff up, and as companies continue to see the incredible benefits of revenue protection, risk amelioration and new product development support that professional revenue assurance teams can offer, CFOs around the world are saying, “I need more people to do this job”.

Scope of Revenue Assurance Expanding and Maturing

While it is great to see the increased numbers of revenue assurance professionals, more significant is that these teams continue to see an expansion in the scope of what the revenue assurance professional is expected to do. New product development support, margin and market assurance, network asset utilization maximization: the list continually expands as companies (and revenue assurance professionals themselves) become more systematic and mature in their approach to the biggest problems telcos face.

Formalization of Roles and Responsibilities Continues

GRAPA is not standing at the sidelines during these exciting and critical times. We continue to work aggressively with members from around the world to understand better what people are doing, how they do it, and how we can help formally define these functions, roles and responsibilities and integrate them into our standards/procedures and standard controls libraries.

New Certification Programs For 2010

While the certification program in 2009 was a huge success, (much better than expected), there are several positive suggestions for critical improvements that we need to make. The biggest change is the use of the term “Bachelors”. Our piloted 40-hour programs will no longer include the word “bachelors”, but there will be no change to the critical aspects of market value of the certification. At the same time, we will discontinue a few that did not see a lot of demand, and we will submit a final report to the membership for ratification and formalization.

New Telco Fraud Officer Program Launched

While the progress of revenue assurance has been phenomenal, feedback from the membership indicates a serious fraud management training and certification program is badly needed. Most telcos face a huge risk of fraud, and while good revenue assurance practices can help, ultimately, the fraud management job is much bigger and quite different in many key areas. 2010 will see the launch of our new Telco Fraud Officer initiative, geared towards the aggressive, systematic and comprehensive addressing of this much-needed addition to the revenue assurance arsenal.

Standards and Benchmarks Work Continues

We know the real value and core of the service GRAPA delivers is our ability to poll the membership, gather meaningful, accurate and independent information about how things can and should be done, and report that information back to you. Our standards and benchmarking committees continue to work at this critical job, and the information continues to be gathered and distributed.

Social Networking Programs

One of the big surprises for 2009 was the success of several of our social networking efforts. The GRAPA Blogs (English and Spanish Language), podcasts, newsletters (Consensus and Voices) and the LinkedIn group are a huge success. If you have not looked at these yet, try them. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Overall, 2009 was a fantastic year, and 2010 promises to be a true adventure in terms of the places we will be going. Stay tuned!

Until later, this is Rob Mattison, President of GRAPA wishing you a Happy New Year.

No matter where I travel in the world, what airport I happen to be in, or what hotel I am staying at, one thing is guaranteed to be on every television or radio in a public place; sporting events. Football, cricket, golf, Formula One Car Racing–the world is obsessed with sports and competition. And why not? Competition is a good thing…right? What can be more exciting than competition? What else can get your blood pumping and your spirit soaring?

Look at the good things that come out of it. Who is going to be motivated to run faster; a person running alone, or running with others in a race? Why, the person in the race, of course! Seeing a competitor catch up spurs you on to try harder and accomplish more. Of course, competition does not always get us the results that we want. In Germany recently, the big news is the football fraud. Gambling houses have been successfully bribing dozens of football stars to “fix” matches. Competition has also lead to the football violence, and the recent stoning of FIFA players in Egypt. Competition that gets out of control, can result in negative consequences.

Does competition have a role in our professional lives? I know for many people it does. Many of us are in competition for our jobs. Especially in these hard economic times, the world is full of bright young people chaffing for the chance to take our jobs. Obviously, we need to stay aware of what our competition is doing and be competitive to stay in the game. We also have competition within the organization. Different departments, managers, and co-workers are constantly competing for budget, attention from management, to expand their departments, to make things easier for themselves or just to be able to win by making other people do things their way. And as if that wasn’t enough, there is the pressure from the outside. Software vendors, consultants, and others claim they can fix the company and do our jobs better than we do. Man… talk about competitive pressure.

So, the question then is, what do we do about it? Denying competitive pressure in the workplace is a set up for disaster. To go our merry way and pretend competition is not out there is the best way that I can think of to make it easy for others to take advantage. On the other hand, we do not want turn into professional sycophants either. (A sycophant is a person who is professional at “kissing up to the boss” and agreeing with everything he says. In the US, we call them “yes men-or women”.

So how do professionals manage these situations? One strategy is to develop an attitude of aggressiveness–attack before they attack. Being aggressive might win you a few battles, but I think ultimately, it will cause you to lose the war. After all, who wants to deal with a person that is always pushing and insisting they are right. For some revenue assurance professionals, the lack of guidelines, support and the competitive environment results in an attitude of bravado and bluster that may seem arrogant and bossy. In other words, sometimes, RA professionals can be pedantic and didactic. What do those words mean? They mean that the person tends to be “narrow minded with an often tiresome focus on or display of learning and especially its trivial aspects.”

Then we have the other side of the coin with the sweet faced, non-confrontational revenue assurance person. This person does not make many enemies, but at the same time, can be exceedingly ineffective because of their unwillingness to face up to difficult and often emotionally charged situations. As I discussed in one of my earlier blogs, the key here comes in the manner in which the revenue assurance professional perceives the situation and their ability to adapt. Sometimes, the iron fist in the velvet glove is the best approach. Other times, however, especially when serious revenue losses or fraud are involved, the more assertive “in your face” approach is best.

It all boils down to two basic ingredients. First – revenue assurance is primarily about politics. It is about people, their situations, their idiosyncrasies and the limitations they face in so many high- pressure-impossible-to-win situations. Secondly – it is about sensitivity and being aware of, and sensitive to the nature of the problems, the severity of the challenge and the conditions that generated the problem in the first place. But, in the chaotic ever-changing world of telecoms, how can the professional hope to walk this thin line between gentleness and firmness?

This is where competition and standards come in. What makes it possible for people to enjoy sports? What makes a sporting event interesting, without becoming a free-for-all, gang war each time two teams meet on the field? It is the rules and standards of professional conduct to which athletes, coaches and referees adhere. Every enjoyable and engaging sport has its rules, and only when people follow the rules can the sport be well and fairly played. It is surely the same way for us Revenue Assurance professionals. The GRAPA standards, and specifically the principles and ethics guidelines, provide the professional with a clear set of guidelines that make it easy to relax and “play by the rules”.

Some of the more critical standards that come to mind include:

1.    The Sovereignty principle – The primary responsibility for operational integrity lies with the operational manager and his team, not with the revenue assurance team. We are here to assist them, but ultimately the decisions, the failures, the successes and the consequences are something they must live with.

2.    The Rationalization principle – Foremost, the revenue assurance professional bases his actions, and sense of urgency and priority in proportion to the amount of revenue actually at risk in a given situation. We apply the dual filter of “how much revenue is at stake” and “what is the probability of the loss reoccurring” as our primary yardstick for defining our “level of excitement” regarding an issue.

3.    The Integrity Principle – We must always strive to be accurate, efficient and realistic in our dealings with top management, operational managers and operational support teams. It is unproductive if we insist on making claims without proof, or “shop for guilty parties” before we even fully understand the situation.

If I was to summarize the GRAPA standards in light of competition, I would say the standards dictate the only competition that the RA professional is in, is a competition with themselves.

The revenue assurance job:

a.    can never be done perfectly.

b.    will always require that the revenue assurance professional take risks both professionally and interpersonally.

So ultimately, the only person there is for us to compete with is ourselves. In my opinion, that is a trademark of a true professional. The true professional knows that what he or she does is valuable but also unique, and knows ultimately that the only competitor worth comparing to you is yourself. If you doubt me on this, check out some of the blogs, or articles about the truly great professionals of our time and read what great football players, cricket players or other professionals and athletes have to say about their competitiveness.

I hope that what we have talked about today has given you a little bit to think about. I know for me, it is important to stop worrying about what others say, or do,  focus instead on the job that I am trying to do. A great man once said, “It is none of my business what you think of me. It is what I think of me that is important.” I think that quote provides all of us with something to think about.

Until next time, this is Rob Mattison, saying … BE SAFE.

Viva Las Vegas – Revenue Assurance Las Vegas Style

R Mattison’s Podcast

As we come to the end of yet another great year, it seems appropriate to sit back and reflect on what GRAPA have accomplished and what is in store for the next twelve months. Our last event of the year was I believe, at the most appropriate place I could imagine for a revenue assurance class–beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada.

What, you may ask, Las Vegas? Sin city? How does that rank as an appropriate location for a meeting of revenue assurance professionals? Take a moment, and think again, about exactly what revenue assurance and telecommunications is all about. If you believe that revenue assurance is a staid, conservative financial and janitorial function or revenue assurance is about is being conservative, tedious, boring and uninteresting and most critically eliminating risk, then you are right, Las Vegas should be the last stop on the revenue assurance training tour.

However, if you believe, as I do, that revenue assurance is not about eliminating risk, but learning how to mitigate that risk, then Las Vegas suddenly looks different, doesn’t it? Where better to have a serious discussion about risk taking then the city of Las Vegas?

Interestingly enough, our time in Las Vegas coincided with several other events. (No, GRAPA training was not the biggest event of the season.) Actually, while the training went on, we also saw glimpses of the Las Vegas marathon and the National Finals Rodeo competition. It was quite an interesting bunch. But, venue and environment not withstanding, the real action was neither out on the “strip” nor in the casinos. No, the real rousing good time was right inside of our classrooms.

We had quite a great assortment of students in this class. We hosted regulators from Haiti and the US, consultants from Ericsson, Ernst and Young, and several other firms, a couple of CFO’s, and revenue assurance professionals from cable, VOIP and wireless telcos in Africa, Latin America and the US. As you might imagine, with such a diverse group of people, we had many things to talk about, and many new insights to share.

If you would ask me to describe this last event of 2009 with one word, I would have to say exciting! Maybe it was the hotel (the Monte Carlo hotel was very nice, possibly the best venue we ever had for our events). Maybe if was the environment, being in the midst of all of that positive energy; marathon runners, rodeo cowboys and the crowds of people out to have a good time. Certainly, a big part of it was the people themselves. This group of people just seemed to click–identify, and communicate with each other in a way that was truly gratifying to witness and participate in.

While we reviewed the usual subjects and topics, the greatest emphasis and interest focused on the “leading edge” role that the revenue assurance teams are playing in more and more telcos. What we found, across the board, was that every telco represented was:

a) Investing heavily in new technology and new product and service offerings.

b) Is experimenting heavily with newer, riskier and more creative service offerings

In other words, the real telco operations model that we talk about and teach about in the class is alive, well and thriving everywhere you turn. It was amazing to see that the excitement that people had carried over from the classroom discussions to the breaks, lunch and the after class over dinners.

By Friday I was sure of one thing, that the new insights, positive energy and empowerment that the students felt would be creating big changes in the way their companies will perform in 2010, and that revenue assurance people will be a big part, and often a driving force in that process. I cannot think of a better or more appropriate way to put a cap on our 2009 year.

Consider how the year started with the doom and gloom that typified that “great crash” of 2008/2009. Now look at exactly how empowered the majority of the telcos are, and how critical the role of revenue assurance is going to be to the success of these companies in 2010. It is actually quite awe inspiring and humbling to see.

With this, our last blog and podcast of 2009, I will end on that note–a note of enthusiasm and gratitude to all of the GRAPA members that have helped us succeed in 2009, and awe and excitement about just how incredible 2010 is going to be for all of us. We will end this particular podcast, as we started it, with a short sound clip of the entire Las Vegas Revenue Assurance Choir, singing their rendition of VIVA Las Vegas.

Until next year, this is Rob Mattison saying … have a great holiday season 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.