Revenue assurance (RA) is a niche business activity most commonly undertaken within businesses that provide telecommunication services. The activity is the use of data quality and process improvement methods that improve profits, revenues and cash flows without influencing demand.
19. Rating and billing Risk
• CDRs for all calls, SMS and other
services before the cut-off date may not be
received in Mediation device from the
switch.
• Billable postpaid mobile CDRs may be
skipped during processing through the
mediation filter
• Billable CDRs may be skipped during
processing through the Data capture filter
in the billing system.
• Duplicate CDRs may be billed to
subscribers
• Price plans being maintained in the billing
system may be incorrect
• All destinations may not be maintained in
the billing system
• Price plans in the Billing system may not
authorized/approved
• All billable calls may not be rated
• Subscribers may not be assigned to the
correct price plan
• Rating algorithm may incorrectly compute
charges for each call, SMS and other
services
• Roaming subscriber not being charged for
the roaming calls
•
• Revenue for content services maybe
incorrectly computed and deducted from the
subscribers balance
• Customers may be invoiced beyond the
legally billable limit
• Services, subscriptions, other charges and
adjustments including discounts for the
invoice period may be incorrectly extracted
for invoicing (including content billing)
• All billable subscribers may not be invoiced
• All invoices may not be received by the final
customer
• Revenue, accounts receivable and accrued
income in the accounting system may not
reflect in the billing reports
• Revenue for the period may not be accrued
based on actual usage during the reporting
period
• All unprocessed CDRs are not corrected and
reprocessed in a timely manner
• Calls not being charged as per the tariff plan
– local on net, local off net, international
calls, etc.
• Customer not being invoiced for the
chargeable calls
• Adjustments to customers may not be
authorized
• Bonus adjustments and credits incorrectly
calculated
• Prepaid trigger to restrict at defined
thresholds working inappropriately
• Balance updated on recharge more/less than
the voucher value
• Balance transferred by subscriber is not
equal to balance received by destination
• Peer to peer transaction allowed when
source and destination are same which may
result in increase of balance of source
MSISDN
• Round up error of duration recorded at
switch and IN (e.g. actual duration of call
recorded at switch may be 5 seconds, but
that recorded at IN may be 4 seconds)
• Peak time calls being charged at non-peak
time rates
• Call charge exceeds the subscriber balance
and the same does not reflect as a negative
balance
• On net calls being charged off net rates and
vice versa
• Incorrect setting for concessional
/discounted billing schemes
• No real time rating of SMS CDRs causing
negative balances
• No reconciliation between MoU as per the
switch and billing system
• Whether you have adequate control over
exchanged test SIMs, TAP-In and TAP-Out
files
20. Collection , adjustments, Finance and accounting Risk
• Subscribers whose services have been
barred due to crossed credit limit are
allowed by customer care to continue
services without paying bills
• More CUG/FnF numbers are added for
subscribers from the back end by
customer care
• No timely action on the inconsistencies in
the number of subscribers per the billing
system and switch
• Inaccurate reconciliation of MoU between
the switch and the billing system
• High usage customers not being
monitored
• High usage roaming customers not being
monitored
• Uncommon trend in calling pattern of a
subscriber not generating an alarm
• Calls to barred/disputed countries not
being monitored
• Infrequent monitoring of credit limits
assigned to subscribers
• Credit limit to a subscriber is higher/lower
than the policy defined
•
• Documentary proof for calculation of credit
limits not in order
• Customer not barred on reaching stipulated
credit limit
• Non monitoring of customers failing to make
the bill payment
• No follow ups for defaulted customers (e.g.
no reminder Sms, no outbound calling, etc...)
• Adjustment/waiver passed more than the
stipulated limit
• Adjustment/waiver type passed not as per the
policy
• High outstanding of interconnect operators
(e.g. an invoice has not been paid by an
interconnect partner for more than 180 days)
• Recharge by a customer not reflected in his
balance
• Adjustment/waiver type passed not as per the
policy
• High outstanding of interconnect operators
(e.g. an invoice has not been paid by an
interconnect partner for more than 180 days)
• Recharge by a customer not reflected in his
balance
• Usage incorrectly captured in the revenue
report
• Component balances for prepaid accounts
erroneously calculated
• Deferred revenue balance incorrectly
calculated
• Roaming revenue inaccurately calculated
• Interconnect expense and revenue not
captured correctly
• No allowance or wrong provision for bad
debts
21. Examples of Potential Causes of Leakage
Likely Network Problems
• Missing A numbers
• Missing records & Clock drift
• Failure to track customer
activities properly
• Inaccurate recording of call
duration
• Itemised billing not activated
• Routing prefixes
• Unexpected records
• Switch restarts
• Communication failures
• Non optimal routing
Likely Billing Problems
• Maximum call duration
• Poor Suspense Management & Late
Billing
• Billing the wrong element(volume
rather than duration)
• Multiple billing for the same call
• Long duration calls discarded
• Network terminated calls discarded
• Incorrect tariff applied
• Tariff not implemented correctly
• Customers not linked to billing
accounts
Likely Mediation Problems
• Failure to filter records correctly
• Failure to balance batches
• Failure to clear suspense
• Incorrect application of customer
identifiers
• Incorrect formating of CDr’s
• Dropped records
• Duplicate Records
• Removal of billable records
Mis-identification of call type
Out of date reference tables
Likely Collection/Dunning Problems
• Failure to track old account
• Misapplication of credit
• Inefficient dunning practices &
policies
• Failure to feed back dunning
lessons to marketing, sales and
product planning
• Credit policy management
• Errors on transfer from billing to
A/R.GL
Likely Sales and Marketing Problem
• Over promising, too many special
request
• Pricing below target Margin,
excessive discount
• Poor product specification-cannot
bill products/Poor contracts
• Sales to cash process breakdown
• Abuse of shortcut or fast track
processes
• Contract terms not passed correctly
to billing
• Incorrect notification of billing start
Likely Product development Problems
• Failure to plan for rate-plan update
to billing
• Failure to build transaction
collection mechanism into the start
phase of product rollout
• Failure to include the cost of
billing into the estimate of cost of
product introduction
21
24. Revenue leakage (including fraud-related)
across the revenue chain remains a
challenge for operators. While operators in
developing markets face a wide range of
issues including the upfront challenge of high
revenue leakages, operators in developed
markets are faced with insufficient data to
accurately identify and recover most of the
estimated leakages.
The survey conducted by the leading
consulting firm where respondents‟ were
asked about estimated revenue leakage in
their operations, 54 percent of RA Heads
indicated that revenue leakage was greater
than 1 percent of total revenue (excluding
fraud), and 15 percent indicated revenue
leakage of greater than 3 percent. Some
respondents in Africa acknowledged revenue
leakage greater than 10 percent.
30%
17%
17%
18%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
Europ and America
ASPAC
Africa and Middle East
% of fraud leakage
% of revenue leakage
58%
61%
Leakage – Estimated, Identified and Recovered
% of respondents with revenue and fraud leakage greater than 1%
18%
29%
23%
41%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%
Africa and Middle East
ASPAC
% of respondents with no information on leakage estimation
% of fraud leakages
% of revenue leakages
37%
Europ and America
5%
Source: Global revenue assurance survey by KPMG, 2009
24
25. regions.
Forty percent of respondents estimated
that less than half of the total leakage is
identified by the RA function.
Sixty percent of respondents estimated
that less than half of identified leakage is
recovered from subscriber or partner
billing.
More than one-quarter of respondents
did not have information to estimate the
percentage of actual leakages identified.
Leakage identification seemed a bigger
challenge in developing markets where
large numbers of respondents from Africa,
the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific
region indicated identification of less than
10 percent of estimated leakages. But
while identification of leakages is a hurdle
for a handful of operators, recovery of
leakages is a challenge across all
10%
10%
30%
44% 50% 81%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
70%
60%
100%
90%
80%
28%
0%
28%
Africa and Middle East ASPAC
19%
0%
Europe and America
% Greater than 50% 25-50% 10-25% Less than 10%
Leakage – Estimated, Identified and Recovered (cont‟d)
Regional breakdown of revenue leakage identified
55%
23%
0%
23%
35%
12%
24%
29%
63%
5%
5%
26%
0%
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
Africa and Middle East ASPAC Europe and America
Regional breakdown of revenue leakage identified
% Greater than 50% 25-50% 10-25% Less than 1
Source: Global revenue assurance survey by KPMG, 2009
25
27. Agenda
1
2
3
4
What is revenue assurance?
How to assure revenue?
Sources , Type and Statistics of Revenue Leakages
Revenue Assurance KPI and Tools
Who will assure revenue?5
Key factor to consider6
27
28. Average Balanced Mix of KPIs Utilized
It is good practice to have a well-
balanced set of KPIs covering four
aspects:
• revenue leakage
•
•
•
data quality
Revenue Assurance
management
control efficiency and
effectiveness.
Most operators cite Revenue
Assurance KPIs around revenue
leakage.
Data quality KPIs are also used by
many operators (27% of KPIs
monitored). But KPIs around
Revenue Assurance management
(6% of KPIs monitored) and
process and control efficiency and
effectiveness (10% of KPIs
monitored) are not widely used.
Data Quality
Measuring the validity,
accuracy and coherency
within the operational
systems and databases,
eg., misaligned
customer records/total
customer records
Revenue Leakage
Measuring the
implication of revenue
leakage on the bottom
line, eg., recovered and
billed records/total billed
records
RA Management
Measuring the efficiency
and effectiveness (result
oriented) of RA
organization and RA
practices, eg., solved
RA incidents/total RA
incidents
Process and Control
Efficiency and
Effectiveness
Measuring the efficiency
and effectiveness (result
oriented) of individual
controls, eg., value of
cases from control
X/total RA cases value
RA
KPIs
27% 57%
10% 6%
Source: Global revenue assurance survey by Ernst & Young, 2009
28
29. Measurement via KPIs is common practice:
• Almost all participants use KPIs.
With a focus on all kind of data records
(„xDRs‟) leakage, rating, and billing errors:
•
•
The number one KPI is total revenue
leakage.
Rating and billing errors are closely
•
followed up.
Quantity of xDRs recovered or recycled is
also used.
• However, only 13% of respondents
mention average revenue per user
(„ARPU‟) as a KPI in the Revenue
Assurance context.
Balanced scorecard and benchmarking are
not widely used:
•
•
Only 21% use a balanced scorecard.
Benchmarking is not widespread, due to a
lack of relevant benchmarks.
Revenue Assurance‟s Performance is Measured
Mainly via Revenue Leakage KPIs
10
0
50
40
30
20
Revenue Loss
Reported Value
XDRs Written Off Billing Errors Rating Errors XDRs in Suspense
and Errors
KPIs monitored by the RA function
30
20
10
0
KPIs Audits (Internal) Audits
(External)
Bench-marking Balanced
Scorecard
Others Not Formally
Measuring
Indications in place measuring Revenue Assurance
effectiveness
%100
90
80
70
60
% 90
80
70
60
50
40
Source: Global revenue assurance survey by Ernst & Young, 2009 29
30. % of revenue
Operators‟ targets vary by geographical
area, but are commonly about 1%:
The leakage acceptance spectrum is wide –
operators in Central and Latin America
tolerate leakage of only 0.51%, while those in
the Middle East accept an average of 1.75%
– based on our respondents.
Acceptance of revenue leakage also
varies by maturity level:
Less mature operators target leakage of
1.5% on average, while mature operators
accept less than 0.5%.
…but 1% of a lot of revenue is still a
lot of money:
1% of US$1 billion is still US$10 million; so
operators still have room for further efforts to
reduce leakage.
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6
Middle East
North America
Asia
Average
South-East Europe
Western Europe
Africa
Americas
1.8 2
% of revenue
The Average Leakage Reduction Target is 1%
Level of accepted revenue leakage
Average accepted revenue leakage by maturity level
1.80
1.60
1.40
1.20
1.00
0.80
0.60
0.40
0.20
0.00
M1 M2 M3 M4 M5
Source: Global revenue assurance survey by Ernst & Young, 2009
30
31. Revenue Assurance Technologies/Systems/Tools
Leading practice tools
RA Software
Test Call Generator (TCG)
Fraud Management System (FMS)
Probes
Data warehouse (DWH)
Typical controls performed with the tool
Trend analysis
Switch to bill reconciliation
Provisioning reconciliations
Independent Revenue Reporting
Test calling with CDR generation and rating validation
Near real time usage monitoring
Traffic pattern analysis
Generating independent traffic records which could be
reconciled with CDRs
Reconciliations
Trend analysis
31
33. 33
OPEX RATIO
OPEX and CAPEX Analysis
• Opex per total subscriber connection
• Opex per Minute
• Opex per site
• Opex % of revenue
• Service Opex (Customer Care &
Billing, Service Creation &
Administration) as % Revenue
• Network Operating Cost as %
Revenue
• Marketing Opex/Gross Connection
• Marketing Opex/Net Connection
• Rental as % Network Opex
• Power & Fuel as % Network Opex
• Repair & Maintenance as %Network
Opex
• Transmission as % Network Opex
• Core Network as % Network Opex
34. OPEX and CAPEX Analysis
34
CAPEX RATIO
• Capex (% Revenue)
• Capex per total connection
• Capex per Minute
• Capex per Site
• Capex-MSC/ Subs
• Capex-BTS/ Subs
• Gross Capex ( Gross Fixed Assets
+ Incremental Capex)
• Spectrum Charges as % Revenue
• License Fee as % Revenue
• Capex (Intelligent network)/Prepaid Revenue
• Capex (Core Network-Voice, SMS excluding Data)/Total Revenue
• Capex (core Network-Data)/Data Revenue
• IT infrastrucrure /Total Revenue
• Transmission Backbone/Total Revenue
• Product related CAPEX/Revenue from Product
35. 35
Marketing and Sales
Operating Efficiency
Growth Performance, Quality and Coverage
Financial and Revenue
Usage and Subscriber
Financials
• Gearing ( net Debt/ EBIDTA)
• EBIDTA % Revenue ,PAT % Revenue
• ROIC (EBIDTA/ Gross Capex)
• FCF (EBIDTA – Capex –Tax) % Revenue
• Capital Productivity (Revenue / Gross Capex)
• P/E
Revenue
• ARPU ( Average Revenue Per User)
• ARPU Segmentation: Voice , Data , Aggregate
• ARPU Segmentation: Prepaid, Post-paid , Blended
• ARPM (Average Revenue Per Minute)
• ARPM Segmentation: Prepaid , Post-paid , Blended
• Average Revenue Per Call
• Average Revenue Per Cell Site
• Average Revenue Per Employee
• Revenue Breakup (%)
• Access: Connection, Subscription
• Wireless Voice
• Data ,Internet,Interconnect
• Roaming , International Roaming Revenue
70+ Key Telecom Financial and Management KPI’s
36. 36
Marketing and Sales
Operating Efficiency
Growth Performance, Quality and Coverage
Financial and Revenue
Usage and Subscriber
• Subscriber Acquisition Cost (SAC ) : Dealer
Commission, Terminal Subsidy, Sales, Marketing,
Distribution cost
• SAC as % Revenue
• SAC / net Addition
• SAC / Minute
• Sales Outlet
• Company Owned Sales Outlet
• Number of Retail Outlets or Point of Presence
(POP)
• Customer segmentation
• Analysis of subscriptions
• Top N customers
• Churn (No. of Subscriber who stopped using Services
or left particular network)
• Total Subs
• Subs Segmentation: Prepaid, Post Paid
• Churn per month per segments
• Subscriber per Employee (13,000)
• Subs Share
• Revenue Market Share
• Minutes Market Share
70+ Key Telecom Financial and Management KPI’s
37. 37
Marketing and Sales
Operating Efficiency
Growth Performance, Quality and Coverage
Financial and Revenue
Usage and Subscriber
• Number of BTS Sites
• Number of MSC Sites
• Number of Employees
• MSC/ Subs
• MSC/ BTS
• BTS/ Subs (1000)
• BTS/ Km2
• Spectrum Charges as % Revenue
• License Fee as % Revenue
• Interconnect Cost as % Revenue
• Labour Cost (% Revenue)
• OSS/ BSS Ratio
• Share of Net Adds Subs
• Share of Incremental Revenue
• Quarterly Sites Added
• MRPU ( Marginal Revenue Per User)
• Growth
• Subs Growth
• Revenue Growth
• Services Revenue Growth
• Services Revenue Acceleration
• ARPU Growth
• ARPM Growth
• Subs Added / Retail Point of Presence (POP)
70+ Key Telecom Financial and Management KPI’s
38. 38
Marketing and Sales
Operating Efficiency
Growth Performance, Quality and Coverage
Financial and Revenue
Subscriber Usage
Usage
• Minutes of Usage (MOU)
• MOU Segmentation: Prepaid , Post-paid , Aggregate
• MOU Segmentation: Incoming, Outgoing , Aggregate
• Number of Outgoing SMS Per Sub Per Month
• Minutes Carried Per Month (MON)
• Number of recharges per subscriber
• Average Data usage per subscriber per month( MB)
• % Airtime Capacity Utilization
• Minutes Per Site
• Number of Calls
• Number of Calls per Subscriber
• Average Call Duration
• Roaming Minutes
• International Roaming Minutes
• International Roaming Minutes Segmentation: Incoming ,
Outgoing
• Top 50% Users Revenue %
• Top 50% Sites Revenue %
70+ Key Telecom Financial and Management KPI’s
39. 39
Marketing and Sales
Operating Efficiency
Quality and Coverage
Financial and Revenue
Subscriber Usage
Coverage and Spread
• Towns ,Area and Population Covered
• % Traffic Within Own Mobile
• Service Performance
• RTT Delay (Ms) (800)
• Application Through Put ( kbps) (25 Kbps)
• Call Setup Time
• Network Congestion
Point of Interconnection (POI) Congestion (<0.5%)
• Connection Establishment (Accessibility)
• Call Setup Success Rate (CSSR) (>95%)
• Standalone Dedicated Control Channel (SDCCH) Congestion
(<1%)
• TDH Congestion (<2%)
• Connection Maintenance (Retain ability)
• Call Drop Rate (CDR) (< 2%)
• Worst Affected Cells for Call Drop Rate (<5%)
• Connection with Good voice quality (>95%)
• Service Quality
• Prepaid – Prepaid Service Success Rate
• Number Portability – Drop Rate
• Handover Success Rate
• Network Availability
• BTSs Accumulated downtime (<2%)
• Worst Affected BTSs due to downtime (<2%)
• % of open and Closed and level of escalation priority required
• Mean time to resolved
• Work in progress & Customer service level statistics
70+ Key Telecom Financial and Management KPI’s
40. 40
Marketing and Sales
Operating Efficiency
Country Telecom Sector
Financial and Revenue
Subscriber Usage
• Penetration
• Penetration ( >5Years Population)
• Penetration per House Hold
• Top 2 Players Share
• Top 2 Players Share Change
• HHI Index
• Pricing Long Distance/ Local Price Ratio
• Average F2M Interconnect Rate
• Average M2M Interconnect Rate
• Sim/ User ( Number of Subscribers/ Number of
handset Sales)
• ARPU ARPU % of disposable income
• Mobile Revenue/ GDP
• Regional Roaming Usage (Roaming Travelers / Intra
Regional Travelers)
• Subs/Km2/MHz
• Subs/Km2 (Urban)
• Spectrum per Operator (MHz)
70+ Key Telecom Financial and Management KPI’s
41. Agenda
1
2
3
4
What is revenue assurance?
How to assure revenue?
Sources , Type and Statistics of Revenue Leakages
Revenue Assurance KPI and Tools
Who will assure revenue?5
Key factor to consider6
41
42. Revenue Assurance Organization
Objective
To provide and sustain an effective enterprise-wide process that will independently
confirm the end-to-end completeness, accuracy, integrity and timely capture, billing and
reporting of all revenue generating events; while identifying emerging revenue risks
and/or opportunities with a view to mitigating/exploiting same.
42
45. Revenue Assurance Function Maturity Levels
Strategy
Process
and tools
Maturity Level 1
Early
•No formalized
strategy and limited
RA influence
Maturity Level 2
Recurring
•No formalized
strategy, but some
RA successes
Maturity Level 3
Established
•Formalized strategy
and influence at
executive level
Maturity Level 4
Administered
•Formalized
strategy with
strategic papers
and elements of
group integration
Maturity Level 5
Optimized
•Strategy is risk-
based, includes
cost reduction
parameters, and is
integrated within the
group
•Undefined RA
structure. Limited to
isolated and
personal initiatives
Organization •Small team not
focusing exclusively
on RA activities
•Early formalization
of the RA function,
but with low
influence
•Skillset in
development
•Defined and
recognizable team
focusing on RA
activities
•Availability of
multidisciplinary
skills. Training on
an ad hoc basis
•RA activities are
spread into the
organization and
monitored by the RA
team
•RA staff have key
technical skills and
subject matter
expertise. Training
budgets are available
•RA primarily
undertakes a
monitoring and
advisory role
•RA staff also have
accounting and
auditing skills.
Formal training and
skills optimization
plans are in place
•Reactive and
instinct-based RA
activities. Only basic
RA tasks
•Substantial manual
effort and end-user
computing tools only
•Basic revenue
leakage-related
tasks performed
•Automation remains
fragmented
•Major RA process
covered
•Some automated
RA processes
•All revenue leakage
and fraud processes
are covered
•Tools are widely
available
•All RA processes
are covered
•Optimized
automation of RA
tasks
45
48. In its early stages, Revenue
Assurance tends to focus on revenue
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
Revenue Assurance Strategy
100%
M1 M2 M3 M4 M5
leakage and fraud. As it becomes
more mature, Revenue Assurance
Profitability enhancement gets increasingly involved in cost
reduction matters.
Cost reduction
Fraud
Revenue leakage
Maturity level
Source: Global revenue assurance survey by Ernst & Young, 2009
48
49. The Revenue Assurance Function is well empowered
within the Organization
Reporting line of the RA function
Reporting to the CFO or CEO gives Revenue
Assurance access to senior management:
• In most organizations, Revenue Assurance sits
under the finance function and reports directly to
the CFO.
• Championing of Revenue Assurance by the
CEO/CFO is crucial to its success. In some
organizations, changes in sponsorship however
continue to affect RA‟s influence across the
business.
…But Revenue Assurance managers still cite
influence as a key challenge:
• Although most Revenue Assurance managers are
CFO -2 levels and above, almost half cite their lack
of influence as a key challenge.
Chief Financial Officer
Chief InformationOfficer/IT Director
Headof Internal Audit/Audit
Committee
Chief Executive Officer
Risk and Compliance Manager
Billing Manager
Chief Technical Officer
Revenue Assurance function positioning in
the C-Suite organization
Same level
Level -1
Level -2
Below level -2
4%
6%
2%
4%
6%
12%
66%
43%
40%
13%
4%
Source: Global revenue assurance survey by Ernst & Young, 2009
49
50. Two conflicting factors impact Revenue Assurance's
positioning:
The need for across departments influence
…And the sometime inadequate hierarchical
positioning of Revenue Assurance within the
organization which could limit RA‟s ability of action.
Technical departments (billing, IT, network) are key
collaborators, together with Finance.
It is believed that Revenue Assurance should:
Operate as a subset of enterprise risk
management
…And benefit from formal links with the internal
audit, risk management and compliance functions.
More mature RA functions maintain strong ties and
synergies with other risk management functions.
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Other
Customer care
Internal Audit
Sales and Marketing
Risk and Compliance
Regulatory
Finance
Billing
IT
Network operations
Involved
Ad hoc
Collaboration with Other Departments is Progressing,
But Challenges Remain
Collaboration level with the RA function
Source: Global revenue assurance survey by Ernst & Young, 2009
Less than 40% of respondents have a
continuous relationship with internal audit, less
than 30% with risk and compliance, and less
than 20% with regulatory functions. This lack of
linkage makes it harder to implement a risk-
based Revenue Assurance strategy.
50
51. People Capabilities of Revenue Assurance
What determines RA skills needs?
The wider the product mix, the greater the need for a mixed skills group
The more skills, the greater the size of the department and the greater the need for multiple
applications in order to provide coverage and assurance across the various product streams
Do you have to be able to respond quickly and adapt to constant change?
Do you need to ensure an appropriate presence and input at senior Level and across various
Change forums?
51
52. Billing, IT and Technical are Revenue Assurance
teams‟ key skills:
Around 75% of respondents have expertise in
billing solutions and network, traffic, and switching.
Despite this, Revenue Assurance is seen as a finance
function:
The balance of skills will depend on the scope of
work delivered by Revenue Assurance.
Start-up Revenue Assurance functions often use
consultant roles to identify areas for improvement,
plus basic technical skills.
More mature Revenue Assurance capabilities start
specializing in specific areas.
Reporting may be overlooked in the RA function‟s
early days, but is a powerful tool for gaining
influence.
60 70 80
Billing Solution Subject Matter Expert
Network, Traffic, Switching Subject…
Accounting
Data Mining Subject Matter Expert
Auditing
Fraud Subject Matter Expert
others
The Skills Paradox: A Finance Function with Mainly IT,
and Technical Competencies
Revenue Assurance people core skill
90
%
0 10 20 30 40 50
Part of the Core Finance
Risk and Compliance Function
Audit-like Function
Function within Billing
Policing Funtion
Function within IT or Network
0 10 20 30 40 50
Functional perception of the RA function
%
Source: Global revenue assurance survey by Ernst & Young, 2009
52
53. A substantial majority of respondents believe they are
doing quality work, have sufficient competence and
knowledge, and are given enough responsibilities and
challenges.
The idea that having a Revenue Assurance
function adds value to the organization has yet to
be proven.
The industry is struggling to recruit people with the
full range of skills needed.
Automation and implementing the right tools are
key for RA teams to focus on value-added
activities, and to establish an end-to-end capability.
Influence remains a key concern, reflecting the
potential conflict between RA‟s need for across
departments authority and its position in the
hierarchy.
Budget Available
Availability of Resources (People)
Effectiveness of Tools
However, they face four key challenges:
Influence and Authority
Quality of Work Performed
Competence and Knowledge
Scope and Responsibilities
Medium High
Excellent
Continue
Demonstrating
it brings added
value
Automation Knowledge Senior
Management
Awareness
Power,
Influence, and
Authority within
the
Organization
Budget Others
Value Contribution, Automation, and People are the
Top Organizational Priorities
RA performance self-assessment
Low
Poor
Revenue Assurance challenges
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Source Global revenue assurance survey by Ernst & Young, 2009 53
54. Key Factors to be Considered
• Collective responsibility for revenue assurance – the root cause for revenue leakage
being the lack of coordination, it is important to have a separate team with clear responsibility
towards revenue assurance.
• There should be a framework document for the revenue assurance activities. The
revenue assurance team should come out with a framework document with due consideration
for measurements and best practices
• The revenue assurance team should also consider the external events related to the
reliability factors such as system failures, their impact and the effectiveness of the
contingency procedures.
• Tracking and reporting as specified in the framework document should be strictly
implemented.
54