This document provides an overview of revenue assurance for a telecommunications company. It defines revenue assurance, outlines a methodology including detection, correction and prevention, and discusses organizational considerations. It also covers the scope and domains of revenue assurance work. Risks discussed include changes and human errors. The document concludes that a balanced approach to revenue assurance embedded in operations can drive profitability and minimize risk. It includes case studies on interconnect fraud and margin leakage.

1. Revenue Assurance
PITA AGM 2016
Tahiti
Workshop Session
April 29th, 2016
Tobias Skog
Head Revenue Assurance
Parcus Group

2. Agenda
1. Background
2. What is Revenue Assurance (RA)?
3. Methodology
4. Organizational Considerations
5. Scope & Domain
6. Detection / Correction
7. Prevention
8. The biggest risks?
9. Things to consider
10. Conclusions
11. Fraud / Abuse
Case studies:
a: Interconnect – “insider job”
b: Margin leakage in bilateral voice

3. Background
• Increasingly competitive environment
• Shrinking margins
• Cost cutting
• Growing complexity – systems – products – partnerships – M&A
• High volume – low value transactions => “small errors” have big financial implications

4. What is Revenue Assurance (RA)
“Recovery of lost revenues or costs”
“Revenue Assurance” is a practical response to perceived or actual issues with
operational under performance”
“A means to identify, remedy, and prevent, problems that result in financial under
performance without seeking to generate additional sales”
“All products & services delivered as expected; all products & services correctly and
completely charged, including expected margin, in a timely manner”

5. Methodology
Detection
Correction
Prevention
Fig 1; AssuringBusiness’ RA maturity model
“Organizational issues” can have a large impact on especially the long term
effectiveness of the RA activities

6. Organizational Considerations
Origination:
Commercial functions / Business units - aiming at improving financial performance
Nature:
Financial control, Audit and Reporting
Domain:
Technology, BSS / OSS
 Cross organizational activity requiring broad and specialized competencies

7. Scope & Domain
Revenue
or – Revenue & Cost?
Margin & Pricing?
What about risk
and fraud?
Opportunity loss?
Customer experience?
In order to ensure that the RA activities can be measured and targeted effectively the
scope in terms of objective (what to look for) and domain (where) must be defined.
REV
MARG
&
PRICE
RISK
OPPOR
TUNITY
LOSS
COST
FRAUD
CUST
EXPERI
ENCE

8. Detection / Correction
Detection
Monitor, compare and audit data in order to identify errors
Passive:
• Absolute & Relative comparisons
• Benchmarks
• Aggregate samples
• Trends
• Algorithms
Active:
• Test Event Generation and Interception
Forensic RA – finding the root cause to known or unknown RA issues
Correction
• Addressing RA issues identified by the detection activities

9. Prevention
Prevention
Implementing measures that minimise the risk of anomalies
• Synchronisation of data and systems
• Data Integrity enhancing measures
• Pre-process checks
• Post-process checks
• Ensuring RA is included in Product Development / Pricing process

10. The biggest risks?
CHANGES
Prices
Products and Services
Technology
Processes
Systems very rarely make mistakes
Humans do

11. Things to consider
Scope & Domain
Balance between Detection & Prevention
Cost – benefit ratio
Organization
Competence / Resourcing
Internal / External
Manual / Automated
Indirect costs of rectifying RA issues

12. Conclusions
A balanced and deliberate approach to Revenue Assurance, embedding the activities
into the operational activities of the organization, is an effective tool to drive profitability
and to minimize risk.

13. What is Fraud?
Wikipedia:
In law, fraud is deliberate deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain.
The purpose of fraud may be monetary gain or other benefits.

14. What is Fraud?
• Civil fraud
i.e., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator
“breach of contract”
• Criminal fraud
i.e., a fraud perpetrator may be prosecuted and imprisoned by
governmental authorities
“breaking the law”

15. How it is done
• Origination
Subscription fraud
SIM theft
SIM cloning
• Traffic
Artificial Inflation of Traffic (e.g.. via call generators)
Fake voice mail or IVR etc.
• Destination / Termination
Number hijacking
Traffic short-stopping / FAS
Manipulation of B-numbers (double country codes)
SMS /call spamming
Roaming fraud
PBX hacking

16. Fraud-like scenarios
• Abuse of price plans
• Customer insolvency / non-intention to pay
• Call re-selling

17. Interconnection Fraud / Risk
Abuse of National & International MTR’s
Re-origination of traffic
Manipulation of A-numbers
SIM boxes
Leaky PBX
“Insider jobs”
IP spoofing
Network hacking

18. Case study – Premium / Fraud traffic
Acquisition of number range
• legitimate
• Hi-jack
Find a distributor
• Someone that has traffic to the number range used
• Blend with large volume of ”normal traffic”
Create / buy content
• Fake ring signal / Fake Voice mail / IVR
Generate traffic
• Normal traffic / abuse price plans

19. What about you?
Are you exposed to Fraud?
Have you considered buying ”grey routes”?

20. Case studies
Interconnect – “insider job”
Margin leakage – bilateral voice

21. Thank You
For more information contact:
Parcus Group
Tobias Skog
ts@parcusgroup.com
+61 468 767 760
www.parcusgroup.com