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Does GRAPA Listen To Me?
The amazing revelation of my week has been that, perhaps, somebody in the Global Revenue Assurance Professional's Association (GRAPA) is listening to me - or at least taking notice of what I blog. I do regularly pester a number of the GRAPA 'execs' about what GRAPA is up to and what they have been doing, but usually the answer is the same - they have not been doing anything and nobody tells them what is going on in GRAPA. That should come as no surprise given the revelations about the very low levels of participation in GRAPA's forums. What did surprise me was to see one of GRAPA's most active members, Wessel Scheepers of South Africa, blogging about me. To be precise, he cut and paste a chunk of one of my posts and topped it with his own commentary, in which he says he will not discuss the contents of my blog. Very strange - why draw attention to something and then say you are not going to discuss it? I will not reciprocate, as I am only too happy to discuss his blog posts, although so far there is not enough content to draw any conclusions on where Scheepers is heading.
Scheepers' new blog, branded as from the South African regional chairperson for GRAPA, raises an interesting question about how GRAPA reaches out to its members, and what the purpose of GRAPA is in the first place. I assume what we are going to see is Scheepers' opinion, and not an official statement of GRAPA that is co-ordinated with the family Mattison back in Illinois, despite the liberal use of references and logos from GRAPA. So what distinguishes this from a blog by Wessel Scheepers in his capacity as a private citizen, minus the GRAPA title? In fact, what is the difference between this and people using standard freely-available blogging software and sites, used by ordinary people to share all sorts of opinions on the web, without needing an 'organization' like a GRAPA to arrange it for them? It also raises some interesting questions of how revenue assurance practitioners talk to each other. The manifesto of GRAPA is to create a new hierarchy - distinguishing good from bad based on who has GRAPA titles, certificates, attend their training courses etc. What qualifies Papa Rob or any of his colleagues to place themselves in a position to distinguish good from bad is unknown - they did not wait for anyone else's approval or permission but just assumed the mantle of revenue assurance lawgivers. My preference would be for a free-flow debate, irrespective of all the fancy chairperson, executive and presidential titles that some people need in order to justify themselves, although I could always go one better and call myself Grand Overlord Emperor Super Wizard of Revenue Assurance of the known Universe and see if anyone gives themselves a bigger title than that ;) On that basis, let us keep a quick score on who really is giving away something for nothing. As of today, in the grand revenue assurance blog count, we have:
Wessel Scheepers: 4 posts. Not bad for the first month, but will he keep up the pace?
Gadi Solotorevsky: 12 posts. A sure and steady output since November last year.
Papa Rob Mattison: 1 post. His GRAPA blog mysteriously disappeared several months after he started it. Perhaps he ran out of things to say. Probably it is still on the internet somewhere, but it must be the only example of Papa Rob hiding something that publicizes himself.
Me: 261 posts over the last two years. To all would-be revenue assurance bloggers I have only one thing to say: bring on the blog!!! ;)
To Yelland Back
They say what goes around, comes around. Mark Yelland, formerly responsible for revenue assurance at Cable & Wireless, and currently boss of revenue assurance at Thus, must be pondering that proverb right now. He is by no means the only person in revenue assurance to have C&W on his curriculum vitae (you include me amongst the C&W RA alumni) but he might just be the first person involuntarily forced to list it a second time. Though Yelland left C&W some years ago, C&W's proposed acquisition of Thus seems likely to take him back to his old employer. Good luck to Mark, and I hope that if the takeover takes place, Mark will enjoy the new challenges posed, and not be facing the same ones he tackled once before!
This little story serves as a timely reminder that revenue assurance will not be immune of the effects of consolidation in the telecommunications industry. Like a game of musical chairs, people have been swapping places for many years, but the number of seats reduces over time. The impact of consolidation has been disguised whilst telcos have been setting up new revenue assurance teams, but there are far fewer greenfield opportunities than before. The merry-go-round (in this case, a Yelland-go-round) is slowing down. That may be good for the discipline in some ways, as effort will shift from the induction of raw recruits to getting better performance from experienced staff. However, it will also cause discomfort for those worried about keeping a seat in the game, especially with job losses occurring at revenue assurance vendors. In terms of total staff, telecommunications revenue assurance may have already hit a peak and be on a decline. This could be the high water mark for numbers employed worldwide. In honour of Mark's round journey, perhaps we should be calling this the Yelland high water mark ;) though I am confident that Mark's career will be a case of onwards and upwards.
Using A Checklist Of Leakage Points
Many of you will know that I am a big advocate of the leakage point checklist of the TM Forum, largely developed under the supervision of Stephen Tebbett, who now earns his keep as a consultant at Ernst & Young. The main reason for recommending the checklist is so obvious you would have to be quite brain-dead not to appreciate it: the checklist provides a comprehensive and authoritative breakdown of where leakage can take place. It is common sense to use an existing checklist rather than develop one of your own. If you develop your own checklist, you might omit something that someone else would have included. I mean, why start with a blank piece of paper when you can start with a catalogue of where other telcos have previously found leakages? My impression is that many companies are using the checklist, but without wanting to openly recommend its use to others. There may be a few reasons for that. Pride or secrecy may be a factor. Wanting to use the checklist does not mean wanting to add to the checklist, especially if that means the telco admits to specific problems that nobody else has ever admitted to having. Some individuals will just want to delete the TM Forum logo and claim they invented the checklist for themselves. And a large minority will be worried that the checklist may send out the wrong image - by highlighting all the areas that have not yet been covered by their assurance efforts.
Thankfully, Dr. Lee Scargall, formerly of Cable & Wireless, is one of those individuals who sees more to gain by sharing ideas and knowledge than from being secretive. Being secretive can work well if you want to hide your ignorance, but spending a lot of time hiding your ignorance is ultimately a lot less productive than just getting on with the job of learning and hence reducing your ignorance. Like they say, there are no stupid questions, only stupid people afraid to ask them. Like all the contributors to the checklist, Dr. Scargall saw the advantages of putting pride to one side and following the best practice guide on where to look for leakages, in order to fairly and honestly determine what C&W was doing well in its international operations, and where it needed to improve. Recently we co-authored a new case study for the TM Forum based on the experience of using the leakage checklist across C&W's international operations. You can see the case study here.
C&W was able to rapidly deploy a fair and comprehensive reporting framework by constructing both tools and processes based around the TMF's leakage inventory. I recommend that you take a look at the case study, and consider how you would do something similar in your own business. There is nothing wrong with copying a technique that works well, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Just remember, if you intend to take credit as if you invented it yourself, that you had better change the logos ;) However, the TMF team would all be happier if you dropped us a line to let us know if you are using the checklist, and where you think it can be improved. In the end, the checklist, and our understanding in general, improves if we work together and share information, instead of being secretive. Then we can all be winners at revenue assurance.
RA Tools Overview
It is difficult to get a good, honest overview of revenue assurance tools. Vendors tell you about the tools they offer, not the tools they do not offer. Have you ever noticed how every year their product offerings get broader and broader, yet they never said there were gaps in the offering the year before? ;) Consultants always play safe and tell you about the state of tools three years ago, so telcos do not try something new and blame the consultants when it does not work. Of course, the three-year-old tools might not work either, but that is a different problem. And nobody talks about the niche tools provided by niche providers (except the niche providers, of course) although these may be better suited to the needs of some customers than the multi-purpose offerings pushed by more mainstream suppliers. Well, if you want some advice on how to go about negotiating the minefield of automating revenue assurance, you came to the right place. I have just added a new presentation about revenue assurance tools to the site. Take a look at it on the downloads page. It identifies two possible goals for automation: improved detection (what most vendors talk about), and improved correction (which most vendors conveniently forget to mention). Then the presentation recaps on the Four C's that form the basis for all processing and hence is the subject matter for all revenue assurance, and explains the types of tools suitable for detecting errors within each of the Four C's. Finally, the SPIRIT mnemonic is introduced, giving the six golden rules that should be followed by any telco before it starts deploying new tools. If you want to find out more, look here.
Always Cutting Costs...
Is ECtel, the Israeli vendor of RA and FMS software, cutting costs a little too far? Vendors should be careful with their money. It is good for their business and creates the right impression with customers. But I got an anonymous tip-off that indicates ECtel should think about increasing the amount they spend on software. Take a look at this PDF document on ECtel's website. It is a short list of abbreviations that supplements a letter of warranty from HP Israel. If you scroll to the bottom, you can see a tell-tale sign of doing things on the cheap: an advert for trial version software used to create the PDF file. By not buying the latest PDF-writing software from Adobe, I guess ECtel can argue they saved about US$300 of their investors' money ;)
Revenue Assurance Trademarked?
Here is a surprising revelation. It turns out one company has trademarked Revenue Assurance which I guess is conclusive proof that intellectual property can be utterly daft and meaningless. Which company do you think has nabbed the phrase for itself? Judging from this press release (look at the bottom), it is IneoQuest, Massachusetts supplier of specialized products for video quality management. Who would have thought it?
Razorsight: New Software, Same Old Values
Why do people still bother writing those corporate statements of values? Enron must have had one. Worldcom had one. The Mafia must have one. It probably says something about not discriminating between victims based on race, religion or sex, and that they support strong family values with in-house marriage counseling services and flexible working hours. It was with some bemusement that I read the recent press release from Razorsight, the revenue and cost optimization vendor headquartered in Virginia, USA. It tells you all about how they have lots of great new versions of their software, and makes no mention of the US$4.5m fine and court order that forced them to remove the bits they stole from rival TEOCO. Hey, but I guess nobody pays anyone at Razorsight to tell the unpleasant truth of how they do business. Then again, nobody pays me to do it either, but I do it anyway. It must have something to do with my values, though I have never bothered to come up with some silly list as if that proved anything. Anyhow, as I was looking at Razorshite's website I noticed that they also claim to have corporate values; read them here. These are a few that caught my eye:
- Drive for excellence and take pride in everything you do - were they proud of how they handled themselves in court, as they admitted their wrongdoing?
- Commit to winning with integrity and to following the highest standards of ethics and professionalism - erm... does that mean they have told their current and prospective customers all of the reasons why they had to change their software, and maybe even do something that shows they intend to follow their stated values, and are not just paying lip-service to them?
- Be flexible, learn from experience and tackle challenges with fervor - so what have they learned from the experience of having been caught stealing? Will they share those learning experiences with us, and set a better example for others?
- Crush our competition through unparalleled teamwork - CRUSH the competition!!?!? Who wrote this - Borat?
- Take time to laugh; don’t take yourself too seriously - great! That means nobody should get upset because I had a little fun... ;)
AT&T Award For ATS Employees
US revenue assurance vendor Advanced Technologies & Services (ATS) will be particularly proud of a couple of their employees this week. Paul Gilbert and Lee Helwig of ATS have received Outstanding Performance and Contribution awards from AT&T. AT&T uses the SimCall product supplied by ATS. You can read the press release here.
Well, to be precise the savings are only $49.95, the cost of pdf factory license. Quite a few obvious questions to ask - like where else these harsh savings been applied, but more interesting to ask is it about savings or sloppiness ?