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Revenue Assurance
Academy |
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Useful Links
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RA903:
All that glitters
(is not revenue!)
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Prepaid, CAMEL,
Margins and Market Assurance.
Just
because a product or service line seems to
be generating a lot of ACTIVITY does not
especially mean that it is generating
REVENUE.
In fact, even
the presence of a lot of "MONEY" somewhere
in the revenue chain does not especially
mean that the activity is generating PROFIT
(REALIZED REVENUE).
In this class,
we will consider the fundamental question of
revenue assurance, the difference between
RECOGNIZED REVENUE (a cost accounting
concept) and REALIZED REVENUE (revenue that
actually contributes to the profitability of
the firm).
Guarantee: You will learn
to question your organization's assumptions
about which activities are REALLY PRODUCING
REVENUE and learn techniques for the rapid
determination of where the real risks to
revenue are and how to place controls around
those risks.
Guarantee: You
will learn teh GRAPA approach for the
injection of risk assessments, controls and
measures on "market risk", the risk of loss
due to marketing activities including rate
plans, bundles, promotions and churn.
This class will
review the assurance of those areas where
Telco's have found that they are exposed to
the MOST risk. These include:
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Prepaid - How
much of this activity is actually profitable? Where are the
"hidden" fraud and revenue loss risks that many telco's miss?
How do you know that your prepaid is really assured?
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CAMEL - CAMEL
represents a large portion of revenue for many telcos, but many
are reporting losses in the millions due to mis-understandings,
poor execution and poor controls. Find out what those exposures
are, and what you can do about it. |
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Market
Assurance - Everybody knows that it is IMPOSSIBLE to manage the
risk of loss due to poorly defined marketing promotions..RIGHT?
Wrong. Discover how aggressive and innovative RA Departments are
instituting controls that help management understand, assess and
make better informed decisions about this most critical area of
risk to revenue including promotion, program, bundle and churn
risks. |
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Margin
Assurance - Learn how to create a standard set of controls that
allow you to assess, report and address shifting margin
exposures in the areas of Interconnect, Content, Rate Plans,
Bundles. Learn the concept of the "shadow costs" which can turn
a seemingly profitable transaction into a money looser without
you ever knowing. |
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Content
Management - Learn the 8 standard control points for the
deployment of any content management service offering and how to
apply it to best effect |
This class provides the
student with the fundamental knowledge
necessary to understand, diagnose, assure
and manage the many different forms and
aspects of the prepaid billing processes.
Duration:
1 day
Who Should Attend?
| CFO's and Financial Executives
interested in learning about those areas where most telcos in
the world today are experience their greatest risks to revenues,
and the greatest losses due to fraud and mis-management, and how
they are being addressed
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| Revenue assurance professional
interested in learning about fraud and leakage cases in the
prepaid, CAMEL, margin management and marketing program controls
areas, and how they are addressing those risks in cost effective
ways. |
| People interested in learning
where the biggest risks to revenue in the telco are and how to
find them |
| Internal
auditors who want to be able to audit
and review prepaid billing operations
, CAMEL, Margins and Marketing areas.
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| Regulators and Regulatory
Compliance officers interested in understanding where the
compliance vulnerabilities lie in the areas of inaccurately
rated prepaid or roaming, lack of controls over margins and
other areas
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| Regulators, Compliance Officers
and Executives interested in understanding the Revenue Assurance
Based approach to the measurement and remedy of CHURN.
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Overview:
This course
provides a comprehensive review of the many
different aspects of prepaid revenue streams
including transaction capture, accounting,
accuracy and management.
Prepaid Operations and Architecture
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Understanding SS7, IN’S and prepaid
management processes |
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The Prepaid Systems
Architecture and Control Domains including:
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Traffic
Control and Monitoring
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Sales
Channels Controls and Monitoring
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Rating
Controls |
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Account
Management Controls and Monitoring
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Revenue
Recognition issues for prepaid
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Forensic (Risk Assessment) of revenue
risks for prepaid business activity,
standard controls, fraud and major
leakage case studies |
Camel and Prepaid
Roaming Operations and Architecture
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Prepaid ROAMING Revenue
Management
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What is a
CAMEL system? How does it work?
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Key
operational characteristics
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Key controls
and assurance issues |
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DCH,
TAP Processing |
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Credit
Exposure and Management |
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USSD Prepaid
Billing Architecture |
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Forensic (Risk Assessment) of
revenue risks for prepaid business activity, standard controls,
fraud and major leakage case studies |
Margin
Assurance
Margin assurance is the process of
making sure that the revenue received for different services are in
fact greater than the monies paid to partners and vendors who
support the business. The biggest contributor to "failed" margins
are what are referred to as "shadow costs". "Shadow costs" are
components relating to the profitability of an offering that are not
included in the calculation of the net revenue generated by a rate
plan, product, bundle or promotion due to the lack of comprehensive
controls in the tracking of revenue generating activities.
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Principles
of Margin Assurance |
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Definitions
and Mapping of Shadow Costs |
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Forensic
techniques for the location and quantification of "red margins"
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Analysis
techniques for the diagnosis and definition of root cause and
rationalized remedy (corrections/controls) for each
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Standard
controls and corrections for the major categories of margin loss
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Review of
the Major Margin Loss Domains
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Interconnect Margins (Trunkgroup, Rate Variance, Traffic
Variance Loss) |
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Content
Margins (Partner, Content QoS, Content SLA, Settlement)
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Bundle
Margins (Subsidy Break Even Point, Cannibalization, Network
Impact) |
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Rate
Plans (Break Even Point, Cannibalization, Network Impact)
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Market
Assurance and Churn
For many
telcos, the biggest risks to revenue come, not from the maintenance
of the existing business but from the hectic and often chaotic
release of dozens of different marketing programs and campaigns. The
creation of innovative and paradigm breaking programs is one of the
hallmarks of any successful telecom, but in far too many cases, the
risks can outweigh the benefits resulting in a program that
generates heavy losses.
For decades,
CFO's have struggled with the risk / reward tradeoffs associated
with this activity and until recently it was considered to be a fact
that there was no way to set controls over these risks.
The GRAPA
standards provide financial executives with an alternative to the
"control-less" world of market risk. By making use of the standard
controls and benchmarks method applied to other areas of revenue
assurance practice, GRAPA has been able to develop a sound method
for the cataloging, quantification, assessment and establishment of
controls around this critical form of risk.
In this
class we cover:
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Principles of market assurance and market risk management
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The
WAR© balanced marketing KPI assessment method
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The
Universal Control Framework© for the measurement of all
market activity and the tracking and verification of
forecasted results |
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Cumulative Effect - Impact Controls and Measures
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Multi-Influence Effect - Impact Controls and Measures
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Dynamic Segment Based Targeting methodologies and protocols
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Marketing control protocols |
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Marketing assurance as a change management procedure
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Forensic techniques for the assessment of market risk /
revenue risk |
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Standard controls for the creation of risk tracking
mechanisms |
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Techniques for the implementation of controls based market risk
assessment and management |
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Case
studies illustrating successful implementation of the principles
and methods |
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Case
studies of disasters and how these controls can be used to
prevent them |
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Most common
manifestations of high-risk market cases (Churn, Brand Erosion,
Channel Revolution) |
Content Management Systems and Revenue
Management
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Alternative
Content Management Architectures Review
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WAP |
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SMS |
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MMS |
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GPRS |
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Streaming
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Content
Management billing scenarios
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Key controls
and assurance issues for each content
management protocol |
Key Concepts:
Principles of revenue assurance for
prepaid billing including forensics, standard controls, the four
major prepaid control domains (traffic, channel, rating, account
management), fraud and major leakage cases reviewed and addressed.
Key prepaid forensics approaches and toolsets. Standard prepaid
controls. Principles of revenue assurance for prepaid roaming
including USSD and CAMEL. Review of the major controls CAMEL (SS7,
Credit Risk, TAP IN Integrity, TAP-OUT Integrity, DCH Exposures,
Settlement, RAP File Management, Margin Analysis), CAMEL Forensics,
Risk Scenarios. Margin Analysis Techniques. Red vs Black Margins,
Actual vs Shadow Costs, Standard Margin Forensics, Standard Margin
controls, High Risk Margin Domains (Interconnect, Roaming, Content,
Bundle, Rate Plans), Market Assurance, Revenue Assurance For Churn,
Churn and Market Assurance Forensics, Predictive Churn Models, Churn
Indicators, Churn Predictors, Churn Controls, Cumulative Effect
Controls, Targeting Controls
GRAPA
Certification Credit
Successful completion of this course,
testing and experience verification will result in the student being
awarded GRAPA
Competency Credit for the following areas from the GRAPA "Body of
Knowledge":
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Principles of Prepaid
Billing Assurance |
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Principles of
Prepaid Roaming Assurance |
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LOB Principles - Prepaid
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LOB Principles - CAMEL
Roaming |
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Principles of Market
Assurance |
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Principles of WAR© (Wallet
Share, Acquisition, Retention) Framework |
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Principles of UCF©
(Universal Control Framework) for Marketing |
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Principles of Assessment for
Cumulative Effect and Multi-Influence Effect |
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Principles of Content
Management Control Architectures |
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Forensics, Models and Risk
Assessment for Churn |
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Forensics, Models and Risk
Assessment for Market Assurance |
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Principles of Margin
Assurance |
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Margin Risk Domains
(Interconnect, Bundle, Content, Rate Plan) |
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Forensics and Risk
Assessment for Margin Assurance |
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Controls and Remedies for
Margin Risk |
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LOB Principles - Line of
Business Knowledge including Revenue Streams, Operations,
Business Models and Margin Analysis |
Prerequisite:
RA900,
RA901, RA902 are required before students can take this class
This class is prerequisite to RA904 and many advanced courses.
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