It’s been almost a week since the latest edition of TM Forum’s Team Action Week in Madrid, but my memories are as fresh as the weather I found in Spain. Moving on, this was one of the most anticipated TM Forum Team Action Weeks since I became involved in the forum four years ago. Under the umbrella of the Business Assurance group, WeDo Technologies’ team was directly involved in two sessions: the Fraud session led by Raul Azevedo (Product Development Director) and the Revenue Assurance one where Luis Rebelo (Product Customer Services Director) and I had a planned presentation.
The Fraud Group’s agenda included important updates to the Fraud Classification Guide (GB954) initially presented in TAW Baltimore during July, 2012. For those who aren’t aware of the TM Forum terminology, the Fraud Classification Guide (GB954) has been developed as a periodically growing resource to arm operators with the latest information on fraud. It is structured to support Fraud Operations activities associated with the TM Forum Business Frameworx model.
With this new proposal the Fraud Classification Guide takes a giant step in defining a set of industry Fraud detection KPIs that will be capable of supporting a common framework that will measure five important aspects associated with fraud management activities: Loss Analysis; Volume Analysis; Process Effectiveness; Process Efficiency and Rank Analysis.
Additionally, the team also took this opportunity to discuss the existing Business Process Framework (eTOM) fraud management processes and propose new ones; always keeping in mind the terminology used in order to keep these processes aligned with TM Forum’s Frameworx naming conventions and requirements.
Unexpected but well deserved, was José Sobreira, Optimus Portugal’s Fraud Manager, who received recognition from the TM Forum on behalf of Optimus for its outstanding contributions to the group. Optimus brought what Kenneth Lipnickey described as “bringing a Service Provider's pragmatic experience to pioneering work on the second generation of the Fraud Classification Mode.” A well-deserved award, I have to admit.
One of the things I’ve been noticing is the progression of the role of the revenue assurance manager within a telecom organization. What we see as a trend is that Revenue Assurance is evolving beyond just finding and correcting revenue leakages, to now becoming part of the product planning, preventative activities, and risk reduction initiatives within the organization. This evolution, or if you prefer to call it – revolution – has been one of the main drivers for the Revenue Assurance group as we review the existing standards and work hard to improve materials and documentation to support all the elements that work in this area.
During the event, software vendors and revenue assurance consulting companies aligned a charter that over the next four months will lead to the revision of the existing Revenue Assurance Maturity Model (RAMM GB941-B), and the extension of Revenue Assurance Standard KPIs (GB941-A) by introducing new ones specifically for cost issues. We also reviewed the existing Revenue Assurance risk coverage model (GB941-E and F).
Taking into consideration the large amount of companies that adopted these guidelines into their organizations, you can now understand why expectations for TM Forum Management Nice couldn’t be higher. The contribution to the first phase for the development of these standards is open to all TM Forum members, and will culminate with a catalyst at TM Forum Management World Nice in 2013. Hope to see you there!