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

When we started GRAPA back in 2007, there were many things that we thought would happen. However, one thing we were sure of was that the wire line incumbent telcos would not be high on our list of members.

It is not because we did not like them, or we did not want them to join, it was just that for many decades, the revenue assurance teams at the incumbent wire line telcos were the stalwart, hardcore, heavily experienced revenue assurance people who were out there showing everyone else how it should be done. The place of honor earned by many of the telco revenue assurance pioneers who started our profession within the halls of the monster incumbent telcos is well earned, without a doubt.

I recently had one of those “million dollar moments”. You know, when something happens that just makes you feel good about yourself. A moment that validates all the work, pain, and struggle that we go through and sometimes question; is it worth it? What happened?  Simple. We were putting on a Revenue Assurance training event for an incumbent wire line telco in South America.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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”.

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?