Email a colleague    

October 2012

RA Prevention: How to Manage Revenue Risks and Communicate RA’s Value to Senior Execs

RA Prevention: How to Manage Revenue Risks and Communicate RA’s Value to Senior Execs

Revenue assurance organizations have been a mainstay at operators for a decade or more, yet to this very day, the mission of RA departments is often not fully understood.

Too many telecom executives decide their revenue assurance department’s budget and staffing solely on how well RA identifies, stops, and recovers actual revenue leaks.  Meanwhile, the all important preventative role that RA plays goes unappreciated.

I’d like to illustrate this problem through a short tale:

The Mayor of London Assesses Her Fire Department

The City of London elected a new mayor.  And on her first day in office, a fire broke out in Piccadilly Circus which tied up traffic and disrupted the London Underground for a couple hours.

So the mayor made it her first order of business to assess the effectiveness of the City’s fire department.  She dispatched her staff secretary to collect statistics on the recent firefighting capability of the department.  How quickly did firemen respond to fires?  How many lives were lost?  How successfully were the fires contained to minimize collateral damage?

Armed with this information, she had the Fire Chief report to her office.  The Fire Chief was a calm and intelligent veteran (in the mould of a Winston Churchill).  He had held the Fire Chief post for 6 years and he was unruffled by the fact that the grim-faced mayor had called him to her office at short notice.  Just as the mayor was about to reprimand him over yesterday’s fire, the Chief politely interrupted:

“Ms.  Mayor, yesterday’s fire began in an old warehouse that’s been known to be a fire hazard for years.  If you check the facts, you’ll see that we arrived at the fire quickly and handled it with minor disruption to the City.  Fortunately, no one was hurt.  To be honest, firefighting is only one aspect of our job.  A good fire department prevents fires from starting in the first place and that’s where we spend most of our effort when we are not actually fighting fires. ”

“Now as you know, Ms.  Mayor, the fire department has no authority or money to install alarms and sprinkler systems in individual homes and businesses, but the fire department does conduct frequent safety inspections throughout the City and we regularly take code violators to task for their negligence.”

At that point the Chief unrolled a large color-coded map of the City showing the well protected areas and those where additional fire prevention investments needed to be made.  The Chief also presented to the Mayor the Fire Department’s budget and his latest fire safety report documenting all the areas of risk and justifying requests for additional fire prevention work.

Seeing the resourcefulness of the Fire Chief, the mayor changed her frown into a smile for she now realized the fire department was in good hands.  It seems the department was not only good at firefighting, but also had an active, well-documented prevention program tied to budget priorities.  Pleased with the Chief’s work, the mayor awarded the Chief a public service medal at the afternoon press conference.

And after the press conference the Mayor and Chief resolved to improve fire prevention planning and to meet monthly to review safety enforcement, fire alarms/sensors, fire-fighting performance, and the public education needed in specific boroughs of the City.


I hope you liked my little story.  As you can see, there are many parallels between the mission of a city’s fire department and that of a revenue assurance department.  There are three lessons I’d like to draw from this analogy:

  1. Preventing a Future Crisis is as Vital as Responding to the Current One.  The threats of fire and revenue leakages need to be looked at holistically.  In truth, a well-run RA department does both tasks well: it achieves a judicious balance between leakage management and leakage prevention.  And by leakage prevention we mean a mixture of RA controls, process improvements, system fixes, education of the larger telecom organization in RA principles, and enforcing best practices that reduce the likelihood of risks in the first place.
  2. Measuring Prevention Excellence is an Imprecise Science.  Gauging the firefighting performance of her Fire Department was relatively easy for the mayor.  All she had to do was collect statistics.  But when it came to prevention, no easy measures were available because excellence in prevention doesn‘t directly relate to the number of firemen and the Fire Department’s budget.  Similarly, an RA department cannot be measured alone on the total of revenue leaks identified or recovered.  In fact, at mature operators, pre-billing checks are reducing leakages to a minimum, so tying RA’s value to actual leakage greatly understate the value that RA is delivering.
  3. Developing a Thorough Revenue Risk Management & Prevention Program Builds Management Confidence.  While the mayor could not arrive at a precise measure of fire prevention, the fire chief’s program of risk assessment, safety inspections, and enforcement actions ultimately won the mayor’s trust.  Likewise, the more an RA manager can show a detailed analysis of revenue risks and the steps being taken or planned to address key issues, the more confident senior management becomes in the RA program, and the less likely they will judge RA simply by the amount leakage recovered in a particular month, quarter, or year.

A New Category of RA Software: Prevention Management

cVidya has recognized the need for greater focus on preventative techniques for a long time.  And that should come as no surprise because our most mature RA customers have developed methodologies and home-grown tools to assess revenue risks.

And recently, several companies came up with ideas for prevention assessment.  Those ideas were further developed into an industry model through the contribution of several vendor and carrier experts.  This work resulted in a TM Forum standard (document GB941E).

In turn, cVidya has gone one step further by implementing the model into its ProactiV product.

A Quick Overview of How Preventative
Risk Assessment Software Works

I’d now like to briefly walk you through the methodology behind our ProactiV software so you understand it at a high level.

First of all, since a key objective of our assessment is to make the subject of revenue risk management familiar to senior executives, we decided to adopt the terminology of operational risk management.

So in ProactiV we use three conventional measures of risk:

  • Inherent risk — essentially the base level of risk where no controls or other preventative measures are put in place;
  • Residual risk — the risk being experience right now, which should be a reduced risk since some management controls are in place; and finally,
  • Risk appetite — the target risk that the company finds acceptable.

Shortly I’ll discuss how these different risks interact with each other, but first let’s first focus on “inherent risk”.

Calculating Inherent Risk

The steps involved in estimating the state of inherent risk is where most of the real intelligence enters the ProactiV system.

That’s because inherent risk tabulates the opinions of your company experts through a series of guided questions and assessments recorded by write-in and multiple choice answers.

Who should fill out the assessment?  Ideally it’s done by the experts in the various different lines of your business (mobile, fixed, broadband, etc) and operational areas such as billing, ordering, provisioning, etc.

Three types of questionnaires are involved — organization-wide, line of business, and business process.

For instance, in the line of business areas, you have fairly straightforward questions like:

  • How many years has the business line been in operation?
  • What are the revenues of the business line? and so forth.

Clearly, the more your resident experts get involved in this phase, the better the final assessment will be.  But let me stress something important here: this assessment is not a one-time exercise.  Later on, you will get input from your controls and revise the answers to the inherent risk questions to keep them up to date.

The business process questionnaire is where much of the deep functional expertise is recorded.  For example, questions are presented where the expert is asked to assess the likelihood and severity of risks in “order entry and provisioning”.  The expert can also access “guiding questions” that present questions such as “How often in the last 3 years were you hit with order delay problems?”

The expert is also free to customize the questions.  In addition the expert can add sub-risks to the model.

I think you can see from this one example the depth of revenue assurance knowledge that’s imbedded in the tool.  I can tell you that arriving at the underlying business process questions required tapping into the knowledge of dozens of industry experts.

Comparing and Evaluating the Risks

Once the initial assessment is complete, we’re now ready to produce reports and actually putting the tool to work.  The dashboard below shows how the risk assessment rolls up.

ProactiV’s Executive Dashboard

ProactiV Dashboard


In the diagram above, the inherent risk (orange), residual risk (green) and risk appetite (purple) are graphed for each line of business on a 5-point scale where 1 = no risk and 5 = maximum risk.

Where the residual (current) risk is too high above the risk appetite (target) risk, the risk exposure is too high requiring more controls or other preventative action to reduce the risk.  There’s a caveat, of course: the cost of the implementing the control must be less than the benefit it delivers.

Likewise, if the residual risk falls below the risk appetite, it means we are spending too much money or resources trying to perfect this area beyond what it’s actually worth to the business.

The whole idea here is to understand priorities -- where should you concentrate your investments in controls and people resources to make a particular business process less risky.

The model is not static.  Leakage reports are automatically entered in the system and as an analyst finishes an assessment of leakage loss, he sends that over to the ProactiV system.

Now in any sort of exercise like this where factors are being weighed on qualitative judgments, controversies will arise.  And at one point or another senior execs will challenge the risk assessment.

This is perfectly fine.  Resolving the issue is usually a matter of seeing what the controls say.  For instance, if RA estimated that a certain area is leakage-prone but your controls don‘t find anything, then something is happening that needs a further explanation.

An important aspect of implement controls is weighing the cost of the control versus the benefit it’s expected to deliver.  This cost/benefit analysis is not included in the current version of ProactiV, but we plan to introduce that feature in the next version.

Cloud based solution

ProactiV does not load mass of data such as detailed CDRs or customer information.  It focuses mainly on which controls are running in the organization and on leakage reports.

As such, cVidya has rolled out ProactiV as a cloud based solution, providing the following benefits:

  • Minimal to no IT involvement and investment. Hardware, OS, databases, software upgrades are all managed by cVidya, eliminating operational costs and maintenance headaches.
  • Monthly fee based on use of the product as opposed to bearing the full cost upfront as in the software license model.  Customers are free to decide whether they continue to use the software at any point in time.

Managing Revenue Protection: A Case Study

We’re pleased to say that the ProactiV’s approach I’ve just described is no longer theoretical.  The tool has been adopted by a large EMEA mobile operator who we’ll call ProMobile.  Here’s a high level description of their revenue prevention program, showing how ProactiV fits in.

Over the last several years, the ProMobile’s business has great expanded.  The company continues to add new services, try new business models, and approach new types of customers at a fairly rapid pace.  In turn, the greater complexity of their business has exposed them to higher risk.

Buttressed by its mature revenue assurance practice, ProMobile has several hundred controls in place already.  Most of these controls are implemented in cVidya’s revenue assurance system, but not all.  There are also many in-house managed RA controls, third party-developed RA controls, and controls that operations has implemented.

One of ProMobile’s chief goals today is to introduce controls to manage the many new services being deployed.  But the challenge they face is it’s hard to understand which area should be made priorities.  In other words, where should ProMobile spend its next dollar in RA controls?

Now complicating that question, of course, is that the areas where lots of leakage occurs are not necessarily the most critical in terms of where greater prevention steps need to be applied.  So this is one of the chief benefits of risk assessment — getting a wider perspective on risk problems so informed decisions can be made.

In the beginning, ProMobile managed its prevention program on a large Excel spreadsheet.  But as the number of RA analyst grew to twenty, it became unmanageable to update a single spreadsheet.

This fact and the opportunity to make the RA team more productive ultimately led ProMobile to adopt the ProactiV tool.  Today, ProMobile has connected ProactiV to the underlying RA system.  They are streaming the leakage reports directly from cVidya’s MoneyMap.

What’s more, ProMobile has now developed a well-structured process of revenue risk assessment and reporting to executive management.  Risk reviews are coordinated monthly for all teams under the CFO’s control.

Conclusion

To summarize, the era of prevention and risk assessment in revenue assurance is upon us!

Several of the mature operators of the world have developed their own methodologies and it’s now time for industry standards and commercial products to enter this critical area.

The purpose of a prevention program is two-fold.  First, it’s a useful tool for setting internal priorities and ensuring the large picture of operational risks is understood and our longer-term decision-making is not based on a sudden surge or decline in a particular area month’s leakage.  A solid prevention program is desperately needed at a time when the breath of services has exploded and RA needs to set priorities.

Second, a prevention tool and program becomes a great way to explain our value creation to senior management.  We can use it to educate executives on the things that matter to us.  And by laying out a thoughtful assessment of revenue risks and drawing logical recommendations from it, executives can better appreciate our problems and keep RA budgets adequate to continue our vital work.

Copyright 2012 Black Swan Telecom Journal

 
Shaul Moav

Shaul Moav

Shaul is the Director of Risk Management Solutions and the Product Manager of the ProactiV™ Product in the Marketing Department of cVidya.  Shaul has over 12 years of experience in the communications industry, covering various domains, including Risk Management, Revenue Assurance, Fraud Management and Business Analytics.

Prior to cVidya, Shaul worked as a Product Manager and Solution Engineer of the Revenue Assurance products in ECtel.   Contact Shaul via

Black Swan Solution Guides & Papers

cSwans of a Feather

Related Articles

  • Tokopedia, Indonesia’s E-Commerce King, Partners with 11 Million Merchants; Adopts Multi-Cloud to Drive Innovation interview with Warren Aw & Ryan de Melo — Indonesia’s Tokopedia, founded in 2009, has grown to become one of world’s leading e-commerce players.  Read about its success, technology direction, and multi-cloud connectivity adoption.
  • Bridge Alliance: Knocking Down Regional & Mobile Connectivity Barriers so Connected Car Markets Get Rolling in Asia interview with Kwee Kchwee — The CEO of an Asian consortium of mobile operators explains how they  help simplify and harmonize their members‘ operations in support of multi-national corporations.  This integration is enabling two huge industries to come together in Asia: auto manufacturing and telco.
  • Epsilon’s Infiny NaaS Platform Brings Global Connection, Agility & Fast Provision for IoT, Clouds & Enterprises in Southeast Asia, China & Beyond interview with Warren Aw — Network as a Service, powered by Software Defined Networks, are a faster, more agile, and more partner-friendly way of making data global connections.  A leading NaaS provider explains the benefits for cloud apps, enterprise IT, and IoT.
  • PCCW Global: On Leveraging Global IoT Connectivity to Create Mission Critical Use Cases for Enterprises interview with Craig Price — A leading wholesale executive explains the business challenges of the current global IoT scene as it spans many spheres: technical, political, marketing, and enterprise customer value creation.
  • Senet’s Cloud & Shared Gateways Drive LoRaWAN IoT Adoption for Enterprise Businesses, Smart Cities & Telecoms interview with Bruce Chatterley — An IoT netowork pioneer explains how LoRaWAN tech fits in the larger IoT ecosystem.  He gives use case examples, describes deployment restraints/costs, and shows how partnering, gateway sharing, and flexible deployment options are stimulating growth.
  • ARM Data Center Software’s Cloud-Based Network Inventory Links Network, Operations, Billing, Sales & CRM to One Database interview with Joe McDermott & Frank McDermott — A firm offering a cloud-based network inventory system explains the virtues of: a single underlying database, flexible conversions, task-checking workflow, new software business models, views that identify stranded assets, and connecting to Microsoft’s cloud platform.
  • Pure Play NFV: Lessons Learned from Masergy’s Virtual Deployment for a Global Enterprise interview with Prayson Pate — NFV is just getting off the ground, but one cloud provider to enterprises making a stir in virtual technology waters is Masergy.  Here are lessons learned from Masergy’s recent global deployment using a NFV pure play software approach.
  • The Digital Enabler: A Charging, Self-Care & Marketing Platform at the Core of the Mobile Business interview with Jennifer Kyriakakis — The digital enabler is a central platform that ties together charging, self-care, and marketing.  The article explains why leading operators consider digital enablers pivotal to their digital strategies.
  • Delivering Service Assurance Excellence at a Reduced Operating Cost interview with Gregg Hara — The great diversity and complexity of today’s networks make service assurance a big challenge.  But advances in off-the-shelf software now permit the configuring and visualizing of services across multiple technologies on a modest operating budget.
  • Are Cloud-Based Call Centers the Next Hot Product for the SMB Market? interview with Doron Dovrat — Quality customer service can improve a company’s corporate identity and drive business growth.  But many SMBs are priced out of acquiring modern call center technology.  This article explains the benefits of affordable and flexible cloud-based call centers.
  • Flexing the OSS & Network to Support the Digital Ecosystem interview with Ken Dilbeck — The need for telecoms to support a broader digital ecosystem requires an enormous change to OSS infrastructures and the way networks are being managed.  This interview sheds light on these challenges.
  • Crossing the Rubicon: Is it Time for Tier Ones to Move to a Real-Time Analytics BSS? interview with Andy Tiller — Will tier one operators continue to maintain their quilt works of legacy and adjunct platforms — or will they radically transform their BSS architecture into a new  system designed to address the new telecom era?  An advocate for radical transformation discusses: real-time analytics, billing for enterprises, partnering mashups, and on-going transformation work at Telenor.
  • Paradigm Shift in OSS Software: Network Topology Views via Enterprise-Search interview with Benedict Enweani — Enterprise-search is a wildly successful technology on the web, yet its influence has not yet rippled to the IT main stream.  But now a large Middle Eastern operator has deployed a major service assurance application using enterprise-search.  The interview discusses this multi-dimensional topology solution and compares it to traditional network inventory.
  • The Multi-Vendor MPLS: Enabling Tier 2 and 3 Telecoms to Offer World-Class Networks to SMBs interview with Prabhu Ramachandran — MPLS is a networking technology that has caught fire in the last decade.  Yet the complexity of MPLS has relegated to being mostly a large carrier solution.  Now a developer of a multi-vendor MPLS solutions explains why the next wave of MPLS adoption will come from tier 2/3 carriers supporting SMB customers.
  • Enabling Telecoms & Utilities to Adapt to the Winds of Business Change interview with Kirill Rechter — Billing is in the midst of momentous change.  Its value is no longer just around delivering multi-play services or sophisticated rating.  In this article you’ll learn how a billing/CRM supplier has adapted to the times by offering deeper value around the larger business issues of its telecom and utility clients.
  • Driving Customer Care Results & Cost Savings from Big Data Facts interview with Brian Jurutka — Mobile broadband and today’s dizzying array of app and network technology present a big challenge to customer care.  In fact, care agents have a hard time staying one step ahead of customers who call to report problems.  But network analytics comes to the rescue with advanced mobile handset troubleshooting and an ability to put greater intelligence at the fingertips of highly trained reps.
  • Hadoop and M2M Meet Device and Network Management Systems interview with Eric Wegner — Telecom big-data in networks is more than customer experience managment: it’s also about M2M plus network and element management systems.  This interview discusses the explosion in machine-to-machine devices, the virtues and drawbacks of Hadoop, and the network impact of shrink-wrapped search.
  • The Data Center & Cloud Infrastructure Boom: Is Your Sales/Engineering Team Equipped to Win? by Dan Baker — The build-out of enterprise clouds and data centers is a golden opportunity for systems integrators, carriers, and cloud providers.  But the firms who win this business will have sales and engineering teams who can drive an effective and streamlined requirements-to-design-to-order process.  This white paper points to a solution — a collaborative solution designs system — and explains 8 key capabilities of an ideal platform.
  • Big Data: Is it Ready for Prime Time in Customer Experience Management? interview with Thomas Sutter — Customer experience management is one of the most challenging of OSS domains and some suppliers are touting “big data” solutions as the silver bullet for CEM upgrades and consolidation.  This interview challenges the readiness of big data soluions to tackle OSS issues and deliver the cost savings.  The article also provides advice on managing technology risks, software vendor partnering, and the strategies of different OSS suppliers.
  • Calculated Risk: The Race to Deliver the Next Generation of LTE Service Management interview with Edoardo Rizzi — LTE and the emerging heterogeneous networks are likely to shake up the service management and customer experience management worlds.  Learn about the many new network management challenges LTE presents, and how a small OSS software firm aims to beat the big established players to market with a bold new technology and strategy.
  • Decom Dilemma: Why Tearing Down Networks is Often Harder than Deploying Them interview with Dan Hays — For every new 4G LTE and IP-based infrastructure deployed, there typically a legacy network that’s been rendered obsolete and needs to be decommissioned.  This article takes you through the many complexities of network decom, such as facilities planning, site lease terminations, green-safe equipment disposal, and tax relief programs.
  • Migration Success or Migraine Headache: Why Upfront Planning is Key to Network Decom interview with Ron Angner — Shutting down old networks and migrating customers to new ones is among the most challenging activities a network operators does today.  This article provides advice on the many network issues surrounding migration and decommissioning.  Topics discussed include inventory reconciliation, LEC/CLEC coordination, and protection of customers in the midst of projects that require great program management skills.
  • Navigating the Telecom Solutions Wilderness: Advice from Some Veteran Mountaineers interview with Al Brisard — Telecom solutions vendors struggle mightily to position their solutions and figure out what to offer next in a market where there’s considerable product and service crossover.  In this article, a veteran order management specialist firm lays out its strategy for mixing deep-bench functional expertise with process consulting, analytics, and custom API development.
  • Will Telecoms Sink Under the Weight of their Bloated and Out-of-Control Product Stacks? interview with Simon Muderack — Telecoms pay daily for their lack of product integration as they constantly reinvent product wheels, lose customer intelligence, and waste time/money.  This article makes the case of an enterprise product catalog.  Drawing on central catalog cases at a few Tier 1 operators, the article explains the benefits: reducing billing and provisioning costs, promoting product reuse, and smoothing operations.
  • Virtual Operator Life: Enabling Multi-Level Resellers Through an Active Product Catalog interview with Rob Hill — The value of product distribution via virtual operators is immense.  They enable a carrier to sell to markets it cannot profitably serve directly.  Yet the need for greater reseller flexibility in the bundling and pricing of increasingly complex IP and cloud services is now a major channel barrier.  This article explains what’s behind an innovative product catalog solution that doubles as a service creation environment for resellers in multiple tiers.
  • Telecom Blocking & Tackling: Executing the Fundamentals of the Order-to-Bill Process interview with Ron Angner — Just as football teams need to be good at the basics of blocking and tackling, telecoms need to excel at their own fundamental skillset: the order-to-cash process.  In this article, a leading consulting firm explains its methodology for taking operators on the path towards order-to-cash excellence.  Issues discussed include: provisioning intervals; standardization and simplicity; the transition from legacy to improved process; and the major role that industry metrics play.
  • Wireline Act IV, Scene II: Packaging Network & SaaS Services Together to Serve SMBs by John Frame — As revenue from telephony services has steadily declined, fixed network operators have scrambled to support VoIP, enhanced IP services, and now cloud applications.  This shift has also brought challenges to the provisioning software vendors who support the operators.  In this interview, a leading supplier explains how it’s transforming from plain ol‘ OSS software provider to packager of on-net and SaaS solutions from an array of third party cloud providers.
  • Telecom Merger Juggling Act: How to Convert the Back Office and Keep Customers and Investors Happy at the Same Time interview with Curtis Mills — Billing and OSS conversions as the result of a merger are a risky activity as evidenced by famous cases at Fairpoint and Hawaiian Telcom.  This article offers advice on how to head off problems by monitoring key operations checkpoints, asking the right questions, and leading with a proven conversion methodology.
  • Is Order Management a Provisioning System or Your Best Salesperson? by John Konczal — Order management as a differentiator is a very new concept to many CSP people, but it’s become a very real sales booster in many industries.  Using electronics retailer BestBuy as an example, the article points to several innovations that can — and are — being applied by CSPs today.  The article concludes with 8 key questions an operator should ask to measure advanced order management progress.
  • NEC Takes the Telecom Cloud from PowerPoint to Live Customers interview with Shinya Kukita — In the cloud computing world, it’s a long road from technology success to telecom busness opportunity.  But this story about how NEC and Telefonica are partnering to offer cloud services to small and medium enterprises shows the experience of early cloud adoption.  Issues discussed in the article include: customer types, cloud application varieties, geographic region acceptance, and selling challenges.
  • Billing As Enabler for the Next Killer Business Model interview with Scott Swartz — Facebook, cloud services, and Google Ads are examples of innovative business models that demand unique or non-standard billing techniques.  The article shows how flexible, change-on-the-fly, and metadata-driven billing architectures are enabling CSPs to offer truly ground breaking services.
  • Real-Time Provisioning of SIM Cards: A Boon to GSM Operators interview with Simo Isomaki — Software-controlled SIM card configuration is revolutionizing the activation of GSM phones.  The article explains how dynamic SIM management decouples the selection of numbers/services and delivers new opportunities to market during the customer acquisition and intial provisoining phase.
  • A Cynic Converted: IN/Prepaid Platforms Are Now Pretty Cool interview with Grant Lenahan — Service delivery platforms born in the IN era are often painted as inflexible and expensive to maintain.  Learn how modern SDPs with protocol mediation, high availability, and flexible Service Creation Environments are delivering value for operators such as Brazil’s Oi.
  • Achieving Revenue Maximization in the Telecom Contact Center interview with Robert Lamb — Optimizing the contact center offers one of the greatest returns on investment for a CSP.  The director of AT&T’s contact center services business explains how telecoms can strike an “artful balance” between contact center investment and cost savings.  The discussion draws from AT&T’s consulting with world class customers like Ford, Dell, Discover Financial, DISH Network, and General Motors.
  • Mobile Broadband: The Customer Service Assurance Challenge interview with Michele Campriani — iPhone and Android traffic is surging but operators struggle with network congestion and dropping ARPUs.  The answer?  Direct  resources and service quality measures to ensure VIPs are indeed getting the quality they expect.  Using real-life examples that cut to the chase of technical complexities, this article explains the chief causes of service quality degradation and describes efficient ways to deal with the problem.
  • Telco-in-a-Box: Are Telecoms Back in the B/OSS Business? interview with Jim Dunlap — Most telecoms have long since folded their merchant B/OSS software/services businesses.  But now Cycle30, a subsidiary of Alaskan operator GCI, is offering a order-to-cash managed service for other operators and utilities.  The article discusses the company’s unique business model and contrasts it with billing service bureau and licensed software approaches.
  • Bricks, Mortar & Well-Trained Reps Make a Comeback in Customer Management interview with Scott Kohlman — Greater industry competition, service complexity, and employee turnover have raised the bar in the customer support.  Indeed, complex services are putting an emphasis on quality care interactions in the store, on the web, and through the call center.  In this article you’ll learn about innovations in CRM, multi-tabbed agent portals,  call center agent training, customer treatment philosophies, and the impact of  self-service.
  • 21st Century Order Management: The Cross-Channel Sales Conversation by John Konczal — Selling a mobile service is generally not a one-and-done transaction.  It often involves several interactions — across the web, call center, store, and even kiosks.  This article explains the power of a “cross-channel hub” which sits above all sales channels, interacts with them all, and allows a CSP to keep the sales conversation moving forward seamlessly.
  • Building a B/OSS Business Through Common Sense Customer Service by David West — Delivering customer service excellence doesn‘t require mastering some secret technique.  The premise of this article is that plain dealing with customers and employees is all that’s needed for a winning formula.  The argument is spelling out in a simple 4 step methodology along with some practical examples.