TM Forum has published on the last week of March their free Revenue Assurance (RA) survey report 2015 which was compiled in TM Forum’s revenue management community by experienced RA practitioners with collaborative efforts.
Revenue Assurance Maturity is on the rise globally
122 survey participants worldwide submitted their responses to 32 questions in the areas of RA organization, coverage, risk & control management, data analytics & skillsets as well as “change”. No doubt Revenue Assurance maturity is definitely on the rise!
The use of effective technology helps companies cover their most important revenue streams, improve processes, automate controls and provides process end-to-end transparency for risk management/performance measures. Leading RA organizations have formulated their value proposition in a way to “secure profitability for business”.
Fact Based Report
The report contains tens of detailed commented charts showing key results in detail with selected correlations (primarily maturity and geography). In addition to the free main report, TM Forum has just released a technical report for its registered members containing an appendix with all questions and answers (raw distributions shown in charts) as well as the responses related to selected dimensions (geography, number of subscribers and revenues).
The highest coverage levels are reported in traditional RA domains such as “rating & billing” and “network & usage management”. This indicates where most RA journeys have started.
We observe that CSPs (Content/ Service Providers) are increasingly looking into product development & offer management areas to ensure proper revenue coverage early. Leading CSPs are building profitability based coverage frameworks as opposed to looking at revenue only.
Reflections by top RA domain experts
The survey report contains 12 top survey takeaways on key findings, trends and critical challenges for RA by Tony Poulos, Alex Leslie, Dan Baker and Gadi Solotorevsky.
Here are a few of the headlines:
- “New services and new partners will pose the biggest RA threat", Tony Poulos
- “New services are still not covered well enough”, Alex Leslie
- “RA in enterprise segments has only been scrateched on the surface”, Dan Baker
- “RA practitioners are thirsty for more information and willing to cooperate”, Gadi Solotorevsky
Change – A real challenge for RA!
Often, revenue assurance functions, as well as risks/control frameworks, don’t have a strong enough focus on change management, because their attention is on current operations, which are well understood, measured and supported by clear policies and ownership. However, the lack of focus on change often leads to serious incidents which have a financial impact, particularly if risk management activity is weak or absent, for example unexpected revenue leakage due to changes in the network that affect billing.
Over 60% of the respondents say that the lack of organizational empowerment and change management process immaturity are the main challenges regarding change management and new product development
Often, revenue assurance functions, as well as risks/control frameworks, don’t have a strong enough focus on change management, because their attention is on current operations, which are well understood, measured and supported by clear policies and ownership. However, the lack of focus on change often leads to serious incidents which have a financial impact, particularly if risk management activity is weak or absent, for example unexpected revenue leakage due to changes in the network that affect billing.
Business transformations are critical
Large-scale changes such as business transformations are even more demanding as whole business operations (people, organizations, process and systems) are affected. In such environments it makes sense to keep a close eye on both the current and the target environment to ensure key risks are recognized, owned and mitigated with effective controls. Revenue Assurance must play an important role in putting smart controls in place in time and to help plan migrations with a “what could go wrong perspective”.
Coverage of new services and technologies demand systematic involvement
New products/offerings as well as underlying technologies are another area of challenges, where risks/control and revenue assurance functions may not have the necessary visibility of the change to put basic controls in place on time.
New services/ technologies are well covered (“Nearly all covered” & “Mostly covered”) by 24% (API digital services) to 58% (DOB). Remark: Responses “Not applicable” and “don’t know” have been excluded
A strategy to cover new key services early demands constant communication with business management based on a clear mission to help business secure revenue and profitability.
Mastering “digitization”
New types of competitors and business/ revenue models are emerging. CSPs (Content/Service Providers) are delivering more often a part of the service together with other business partners. CSPs are still providing “the pipe” and interact directly with the customer. Complexity increases, availability, security & customer experience matter even more. Big data becomes increasingly important also as an integral component of modern digital services.
Many RA organizations have been expanding over the time to areas such as fraud management. There were also high interaction levels reported with BI analysis teams.
RA functions are assigned additional duties in adjacent areas especially when performance improves over the years and skill-sets and tools provide new grounds for a widened Revenue assurance agenda.
Revenue Assurance is increasingly about profitability
Understanding and applying profitability and acquiring agility to master the new pace of change will be a must have for CSPs to stay in the game. Modern revenue assurance functions with business minded leaders will be well placed to keep pace with change. RA functions that are equipped with a business partnering mindset and operate in a combination of risks management and money spotting mode will have a great opportunity to help their companies flourish.
Overall, the survey results depict a clear trend: “State of the art RA organizations are empowered, interconnected, operate cross-functionally, can cover end-to-end processes and are very skilled at data analytics”
Enjoy now the Revenue Assurance survey report!
In our recently established LinkedIn group RA practitioners discuss about hot topics and challenges they face. Everyone wants to learn how to get complex problems solved effectively and to find support to climb-up the maturity latter faster. That way of collaboration also serves as a powerful tool to provide benefits to the ones who sponsor and interact with RA.
Let’s collaborate because there are a lot of practitioners and experts out there who are willing to share as well. Together we can turn numbers into meanings and master challenges!
Rene Felber is leading TM Forum’s global Revenue Assurance (RA) survey since 2014 transforming it into an insight based collaborative experience. Rene is currently responsible for Risks/Controls, RA and Credit Control at TeliaSonera Finland. He has over 13 years industry expertise with a 10 year international consulting and auditing background in GRC, RA and Outsourcing/ Partner management.
Let Us Know What You Thought about this Post.
Put your Comment Below.