Our Revenue Assurance Approach
“Revenue assurance” is a broad umbrella term, but for us at Basset, Revenue Assurance is the work to ensure that all earned revenue is collected. This work consists of processes, practices, and procedures to maximize the revenue streams; it is performed cross all departments and products. The understanding of the revenue leakage nature is needed before you can develop a balanced and holistic approach to ensure the success of a revenue assurance organization.
An area that is constantly evolving
Revenue Assurance (RA) is an area that is constantly evolving and as the implementation projects takes time some of the criteria’s set when the project was started has many times changed during the course of the project. At Basset, we have listened to the operators and are therefore offering a Revenue Assurance model that is both fast and cost-effective, a program that applies to new operators as well as small and mid-sized.
- The revenue assurance strategy needs to be carried out as part of an overall business performance strategy – and not be just a leak detection exercise. The approach preferred by Basset is to first analyze the main problem areas and address those issues, set the revenue assurance processes and build the foundation for a Watchdog Reconciliation System first, says Daniel Salokas, Product Manager of Basset Watchdog Revenue Assurance.
The key in Basset’s approach is to keep it simple and make sure that the RA department can handle the implemented controls in the Watchdog Reconciliation System, and then start the process of covering the complete network structure and business processes.
The steps forward
The first step of the process is to understand the usage data management requirements of the operator’s OSS/BSS systems and the recommended business and technology workflow. This first step is aimed at creating the baseline for your processes and configuring of a set of basic controls. This approach will give you a good ground from where you can build your revenue assurance activities, and focusing on the major issues will ensure you a quick ROI.
After the foundation and processes has been set in the first step, it is time to expand the number of controls and set the processes to cover the rest of the network elements and make sure that addition and other changes to the network is captured in the revenue assurance process.
Creating the Revenue Assurance Program
- For a successful Revenue Assurance program you will need to have an ongoing and evolving department, it is not just a software implementation or an audit function. The revenue assurance department needs to continuously evolve and have well-designed processes and automated monitoring software to be able to keep up with the acceleration of complexity within the telecom industry. The work will be different for all operators as their challenges are different, but we believe that all operators needs to focus on these three main areas to get a working Revenue Assurance program, says Daniel Salokas, Product Manager of Basset Watchdog Revenue Assurance.
Organization
The RA department should have skilled persons from all different aspects of revenue assurance, such as accounting, process management and network, all with an analytic mindset. It is important that the revenue assurance department create and monitor KPIs, not only within departments but across departments, and creating a reporting structure that supports their revenue assurance objectives.
Process
Operators should review their end-to-end processes and implement new ones to control critical areas and to measure and monitor key checkpoints. After the implementation and review of processes, the Revenue Assurance team can setup the reporting and KPIs needed to monitor these processes.
Technology
The tools needed for a successful RA department should at least cover the following areas:
1. Reconciliations with built-in triggers that identify problems as they occur.
2. KPI monitoring
3. Dashboard
4. Flexible reporting functionality
5. Business intelligence tools which provide enhanced visibility into an organization
Getting the tool required
The revenue assurance software solution should be able to interface all the parts of your network, including network elements, billing systems, operations support systems and databases. The system should handle all type of services set including wire line, wireless, Internet, broadband and data.
Watchdog Reconciliation can give you the following benefits:
• Connectivity - With our experience in mediation and our flexible ETL module we offer interface to any network node you may have in your system and it has minimal impact on existing systems.
• Flexibility - The modular structure In Watchdog Reconciliation makes is easy to add new network nodes and to make new controls to keep the system up-to-date and grow with your business.
• Intuitive user interface - Our easy to use interface with workflow guidance will help you make the correct decisions and rapidly act on leakages in your revenue chain.
• Data analysis - With our integrated query tool, our data mining, our multi-dimensional analysis and feature complete pivot table control provides business users unrivaled insights into daily operations
• Speed - With our system you can perform your data analysis tasks on near real-time data. This speeds up the discovery of problems and minimizes the potential loss.
Benefits of Basset’s Revenue Assurance approach
The main benefit of this approach is that you get a good baseline of processes and automated controls in place. By using this approach you will ensure fast result and quick return of investment. The Watchdog Reconciliation system offers a powerful, flexible and scalable framework for implementing comprehensive revenue assurance software that supports your processes with near real-time monitoring. By using this approach the system is able to act quickly and take actions to recover potential losses.