Revenue Assurance: Expert Opinions for Communications Providers

March 29, 2011 - PRLog -- This cutting-edge reference represents a new phase in the talkRA project—an initiative dedicated to improving the discipline of revenue assurance (RA) for communication providers. From blog to podcasts and now a book, the project offers a platform for a select group of RA experts to share ideas and best practices in revenue assurance, revenue management, business intelligence, and fraud prevention in telecommunications and other industries.

Drawing on the expertise and insights of some of the leading minds in RA, Revenue Assurance: Expert Opinions for Communications Providers supplies high-powered ideas and techniques for the effective management, planning, strategy formulation, and measurement of RA performance. Presented as a series of articles on current and emerging topics of interest, it provides extensive and multi-faceted guidance to help readers move up the scale from basic checks to optimizing performance.

•   Covers the fundamentals of revenue assurance
•   Explains the relationship between revenue assurance and fraud management and how revenue assurance sits within the wider context of enterprise risk management and the control environment
•   Provokes readers to think of creative ways to adapt RA to the needs of their business, whether they are initiating the RA process or seeking to take an established RA function to the next level
•   Shows how to measure the financial benefits delivered by the RA team and how to appraise the RA maturity of the whole business
•   Illustrates how to perform root cause analysis through Q&A discussion of how top experts deal with a variety of leakages
•   Identifies trends in how RA techniques are changing, and links these to developments in tools and technology
•   Entertains through sympathetic and sometimes irreverently humorous observations about the working life of an RA practitioner

Endorsements

This book draws upon the actual experience of a number of RA professionals—those who have actually lived through the journey, learned from setbacks, and adapted their approaches to determine best practices in the field. This work isn’t an academic exercise that will prove impossible to implement within your organization but one that is built upon the bedrock of actual implementation experience.
—Julian Hebden, Director of Enterprise Information Management, Telstra

About the Authors

Eric Priezkalns is the founder of talkRA.com, the Web site that gave rise to this book. He is currently an assistant director at Qtel International responsible for enterprise risk management. Eric has over ten years of experience in the communications industry in the fields of risk management and revenue assurance. Eric was the original (and much imitated) revenue assurance blogger. Having built a loyal readership worldwide, Eric decided to join forces with other thought leaders by forming talkRA, which went on to establish itself as the Web site for practitioners to get insightful views and the latest news about revenue assurance.

David Stuart is the assistant director of revenue assurance and fraud management at Qtel International. A revenue assurance expert with over 10 years of practical experience within telecoms revenue assurance, David graduated from Brunel University with a degree in mathematics and statistics, after which he moved into the financial services sector.David started his revenue assurance career at MCI WorldCom, where he designed and project-managed the development of a traffic assurance tool covering a dozen business units’ fixed line traffic. From here, David moved to One2One/T-Mobile, where he provided architectural assurance for all of the company’s developments. David’s expertise in the company’s architecture led him to be made test manager for UK’s first 2.5G launch.

Mike Willett currently works as a consultant. He has over 12 years of experience specific to the telecommunications industry in the field of fraud and revenue assurance. Until November 2009, Mike was the director for fraud and revenue assurance at Telstra Corporation, Ltd., Australia. Mike was at Telstra for 6.5 years and led the fraud and revenue assurance function in times of great organizational change as Telstra underwent its massive transformation program. His interest is in understanding theoretical approaches to improve revenue assurance outcomes and, more importantly, in how these can be practically implemented to provide tangible and recognizable business value.

Güera Romo has 13 years of experience in business transformation in the engineering, defense, government, banking, and telecommunication industries. She has experience in mergers and acquisitions, rightsizing, redeployment of personnel, business process reengineering, system selection, and implementation. Before this, she spent five years in finance and business administration. During this time, she was an accountant, after which she transitioned to financial application support on Oracle.

David Leshem is an expert in telecom and utilities enterprise solutions—billing, profitability, business intelligence, customer retention, churn, and revenue assurance. David has worked with major carriers all over the world, creating an enviable track record in improving the bottom line of telecom companies. He brings in-depth expertise to fixed-line, MNO, and MVNO businesses, helping them to get the best in pricing, margin reasonableness reconciliation, cost-effective customer retention and acquisition, and multiple revenue stream assurance.David has international experience in addressing the financial challenges faced by telecom providers.

Ashwin Menon began his foray into revenue assurance as an implementation on-site engineer with Subex. Being trained in both revenue assurance and fraud management, he undertook projects specifically pertaining to revenue assurance. During the course of his career, he has been involved with various clients across the Asia-Pacific region, including tier-1 telcos. Ashwin has witnessed various leakage scenarios across telecom operators in the Asia-Pacific region, and has been privy to the diff erent methods and controls that were implemented to target and plug issues in a telecom operator’s value chain. Ashwin is currently employed at Subex as a customer solutions consultant.

Hugh Roberts is senior strategist for Patni Telecoms Consulting (formerly Logan Orviss International) working with network operators, service providers, VAS suppliers, and vendors to develop their service and product strategies, market and brand positioning, revenue fulfillment, business modeling, and the interpretation of new business requirements into technical and business architectures. Hugh is also a nonexecutive director of TeleOnto Technologies, an Indian start-up specializing in revenue assurance and business intelligence analytics. Formerly, he was development director of the TM Forum, where he was responsible for the introduction of the TM Forum’s BSS Teams for revenue assurance, for content and data charging, and for pre–post convergence. He remains an active contributor to the TM Forum’s technical reports and guide books.

Mark Yelland is a revenue assurance consultant with over 10 years of experience from around the world. He coauthored with David Sherick Revenue Assurance for Service Providers, the fi rst new book on revenue assurance for five years, which was published in December 2009. He regularly contributes to discussions on LinkedIn, has had articles published via the Telecom Managers Forum, and has guest blogged on talkRA. His two passions are making RA more accessible to organizations feeling the pinch, and polar bears (see his Web site, www.raaiim.co.uk, for details).

Revenue Assurance: Expert Opinions for Communications Providers
ISBN: 9781439851500, 373 pp., Hardback, $79.95

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