Revenue Management

Re: Is there any intelligence in Revenue Management?

IvanH2 — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:33:00 GMT

Hello Gadi,

Well, we need to understand that BI is valuable contributor to RA function. But with its own boundaries, as has been pointed out by You in previous post. There is a danger for any RA manager when his focus would be strictly limited to the BI only. There is a danger of neglecting other functions of RA. Perhaps this is related to the fact that RA is understood by some collegues as a transactional typer of data validation. By my own experience RA is more than that. It is the Art of Money making within Telco BSS/OSS complexity. This is what it is. Limited BI function can contribute to this, but can never deal with other important aspects of RA. BI contribution if You like is X-Ray type of function. But it will never tell You which part of the discrepancy is right, who is data owner, what is the root cause of the problem, BI hardly transfers collected information into financial language etc. Let me just mention one real example when "one copy" problem occured in our Company. One of the reports that I am receiving from DWH is comparison of SMS traffic between Medation and Rating engine. Discrepancy occured in DWH and it was investigated by Billing team. Fix was applied, but what happen to the DWH report? Nothing. Discrepancy was still there, becausse DWH is just loading data once and refresh or re-rating does not happen. And this is one of the examples where BI is limited. All of us should stop look at the RA as transactional type of function. It is art of money making within OSS/BSS complexity and I love it. More info in Nice about my passion.
Have a nice day,
Ivan

Re: Is there any intelligence in Revenue Management?

GadiS — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:29:46 GMT

Hi Ivan,

I agree with you, that the DW can be use a good source for reports for RA. Yet a typical DW should not be considered as the sole source of data for RA, the main reason is that in many DW you have cleaned data (e.g., omit records without appropriate external reference) or have only “one copy” of the info (e.g., you do not keep the calls info both from the switch, and the signaling). This limits the info the RA can obtain of a DW.

Do you agree?

Gadi

Re: Is there any intelligence in Revenue Management?

GadiS — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:16:16 GMT

Hi David

To this clarification I can agree, but still with one remark. Not al the data sources used in RA are found in a typical DW (e.g., CDRs from multiple layers: SS7, Switch, Post Mediation) - so in a strict sence on a typical case it is not a subset.

Best Regards
Gadi

Re: Is there any intelligence in Revenue Management?

DavidS133 — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:59:37 GMT

Gadi,

Just to pick up on your comment about the third paragraph in my posting. On reflection it wasn't very well written (lesson: don't write material late at night when my brain isn't fully in gear).

The point I was trying to make was that there are many more raw data sources required to feed into BI compared to Revenue Assurance, data such as market intelligence, competitor data, margin predictions related to product launches etc. Also BI should be in a postion to "know" how many customers are inactive / dormant, revenues generated by product etc. So from a volume and type of data aquisition and analysis perspective RA could be viewed as a subset of BI's data requirements.

I fully accept that there can be a very useful interchange of information between BI, RA, FM, RM wherever these functions are placed in an organisation. From an operational point of view I also agree that an RA function should exist in its own right and be as independent from other functions as possible.

Hope this clarifies what I was originally trying to convey.

Regard
David

Re: Is there any intelligence in Revenue Management?

IvanH2 — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 12:00:24 GMT

Totally Agree. BI is the mean not the Goal. I am cooperating with our BI team for past 3 years, they provide RA reports for me. How it works? I design RA control point, create Change request for BI team a they provide analysis a implementation of new report into DWH . In this way we created more than 25 reports, now working on thresholds. I will talk about them in Nice.
So shortly, I as RA Manager know what I want, BI team provide me the options for data feed and develop reports, than I can check them daily. There is just one small risk - conflict of interest. How can I be sure that BI that is part of IT and other supporting department like Billing or Mediation are part of the same team? well, when discrepancy occurs in 80 percent it is claimed thats data feed problem instead of data source problem. I thing that for this reason external review would be alwas necessary.
Best Regards,
Ivan Hlavanda
RA Manager, Telefonica O2 Slovakia

Flat-rate interconnect? I’d like to see that!

TonyP2 — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 06:32:46 GMT

There’s a revolution starting in the USA that could have a dramatic revenue impact on all operators in a few years. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ’s National Broadband Plan, formally released yesterday in Washington, provides a roadmap for revamping the Universal Service Fund (USF) and Intercarrier Compensation, two long-standing hot-button issues for telecom service providers.

A story, published in Light Reading mentions that, ‘Sharon Gillett, Wireline Competition bureau chief for the FCC, said the broadband plan will lay out a three-phased blueprint to shift intercarrier compensation over a 10-year period away from today’s per-minute rates and toward a flat-rate that's likely to be lower.’

"What the plan lays out in that 10-year transition is a three-phase decline in the intercarrier compensation curve - not really a decline, but a shift. The idea is to provide adequate cost recovery coverage, but not to do it on a per-minute basis."

In an all-IP world, it doesn’t make sense to try to identify the long-distance voice packets and try to count them for intercarrier compensation purposes, Gillett said, when flat rates are more logical.

Ms Gillett is a very bright lady indeed. Just as CSPs are grappling with the move from timed/volume services to ‘all you can eat’, flat rate packages it seems eminently sensible that the same pricing regimen should exist in the wholesale and interconnect areas.

This also raises the issue of whether it is economically viable, or even necessary, to measure IP packets and traffic and also try to disseminate their source and what service they belong to. As our demand for bandwidth and speed continues to grow exponentially this will become more and more a challenge that will increase costs.

By changing the wholesale billing structure the simplified pricing would carry through to retail. I suspect many people are crying out, “bring it on”! But let’s not get carried away, this could take years to be accepted and ten years to transition, but it is a start.

Re: Is there any intelligence in Revenue Management?

GadiS — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:07:35 GMT

Hi David,

Sorry, but I have to strongly disagree with your sentence “Revenue Assurance is certainly a sub-set of BI”

Revenue Assurance can use BI to many things (e.g., root cause analysis, advanced data visualization, ad hoc querying, etc.)

BI can use data in RA systems to give added value to other segments in the organization (e.g., Marketing).

But I do not see RA (or RM) as a sub set of BI.

Best Regards

Gadi

Re: Is there any intelligence in Revenue Management?

DavidS133 — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:46:55 GMT

Folks,

Lots of good discussion and points being made in relation to the BI initiative. Just one observation, many of the comments reflect an introspective view of the role of BI (and RA for that matter).

Let's not forget that any business operates within a complex environment that includes competitors, customers (who can exercise choices), regulatory obligations and socio-economic drivers. To be fully effective in providing "intelligence" data to support business decisions BI should also seek to consider these external factors.

If you agree with this perspective then Revenue Assurance is certainly a sub-set of BI, but there is a much closer relationship between Revenue Management and BI where a shared goal should be the enhancement of revenues and margins by facilitating improved business decision making.

Having said that by all means start BI internally first and show that it can deliver business benefits.

David Smith
ABIS & Associates
www.abisq.co.uk

Re: RA team call Wednesday 10th March – Draft Questionnaire for Review

StephenF2 — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:03:31 GMT

GoToMeeting link for today's call...
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/join/879388441

Re: Is there any intelligence in Revenue Management?

JohnB109 — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:37:21 GMT

Ian -

I agree with your points, and would also offer that BI (when best applied) shouldn't just focus on DW information. By definition, BI should incorporate, blend, compare/contrast, and generally highlight data from sources all over the business. As near real time as possible would be a nice addition as well, and as "pure" as possible (unfiltered, unmanipulated)...

Looking forward to the catalyst -

jb

Re: Is there any intelligence in Revenue Management?

IanE — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:40:34 GMT

I agree with both of these last 2 points:
Gadi: BI is a tool, not a goal
Kathy: RA data has value that can't be provided by a DW.

The goal of the team is to describe how BI tools can be applied to the business processes of a CSP, and one of the first questions we hear is
"I have a DW and BI tools (and I've invested significantly in them), but there's still a disconnect between the BI department and the company's decision making process. We get great reports out of the DW, but we still don't make good use of them when making (strategic and tactical) decisions. Why is that?".

IMO the reasons are:
1) The data in the DW is not 100% accurate and therefore not fully trusted (Kathy's point)
2) The data in the DW is not timely enough to make some tactical decisions (although I would argue that this is not a problem for more strategic decisions)
3) The data in the DW is not granular enough for all decisions.
Here is where incorporating RA data can overcome these problems (IMO). The "timely, accurate, granular" RA data, coupled with strategic data from the DW, gives a decision maker what (s)he needs.

The team is working on a Catalyst for Nice that will explore this theme, i.e.,
- what data is needed to make selected strategic and tactical decisions?
- what BI tools are needed?
- where should the data come from?
- etc.

No longer a lonely voice

TonyP2 — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:28:06 GMT

Now I'm really getting worried. Someone is actually agreeing with me. I've been harping on for so long about how 'billing' is the differentiator, I thought I was the lone voice in the wilderness. Commenting on the Wholesale Applications Community that 24 mobile operators are forming, dkainer on his Viva La Blog site writes:

"It’s ambitious, it will be wracked with technical challenges, and it will no doubt take way longer to achieve than planned. But it has to be done. Mobile networks have watched over the last 12 months as their content revenues plunged – cannibalized by the app stores of the very handsets they are selling. The only way to combat this is to provide a rival offering that can go toe-to-toe on a global scale, and the key factor will be billing.

Billing, or inability to easily perform billing, has been a thorn in the side of developers and distributors for time immemorial (okay, 8 years or so)."

I don't know who 'dkainer' is, but I like him!

Re: Is there any intelligence in Revenue Management?

KathyR — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 23:36:38 GMT

We are finding that the RA data is very much in demand in our business. The difference between the data in the data warehouse and RA data is that the RA data is validated every day due to the nature of what we do in RA. If we find an anomaly, it is either due to a true business issue or a data problem. Data issues in the data warehouse often go undiscovered for a much longer period of time. We are looking at using the RA data as a jumping off point for a number of customer service analytics. I would be very interested in exploring other avenues for leveraging RA data to support our business.

RM Team Call on Monday, March 8th

HenkE2 — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:14:39 GMT

Dear RM friends,

Our next RM team call will take place on Monday the 8th of March at 15:00 CET (08:00 PST, 14:00 GMT, 15:00 CET ).

In the RM team call we’re going to discuss the first draft of the customer experience article.

Kind Regards,

Henk

Re: Is there any intelligence in Revenue Management?

GadiS — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 10:53:22 GMT

I am very fond of BI; BI can do a lot of good things for RM. So I am very happy about the foundation of the team.

We should keep in mind that BI is a mean and not the goal.

Many times people get the wrong perception that BI is the silver bullet that solves everything, without people having to know anything. This is far from reality; BI needs experienced people, appropriate tools, methodology, and hard work to achieve good results. When people just “trough” BI at a problem without the appropriate know-how the results are often disappointing.

I trust that the new team will not transform BI from a mean to a goal, and will not trivialize the complexity of properly using BI.

I will be very happy to contribute and participate in the team’s activities

Re: Is there any intelligence in Revenue Management?

IanE — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:25:43 GMT

Eric,
We'd be delighted to have you in the team!
You can sign up to the "decision analytics" topic.
The workspace has recently become active so there's not much material there yet, but please take a look
http://www.tmforum.org/community/groups/revenue_management_group/forum/t/4918.aspx

OSS/BSS Research Survey

TonyP2 — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:27:04 GMT

Telecom Asia, with its research partner Stratecast, is surveying operators about their future OSS/BSS plans and priorities to cope with the changing landscape.

I'd like you to add your views as TM Forum members so please take a few minutes to complete the questions. All those who complete the survey will have a chance two win a BlackBerry Storm smartphone. Click here to take the survey.

We will have access to the results which will be published on the Community in April.

RA team call Wednesday 10th March – Draft Questionnaire for Review

ThomasL2 — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:20:41 GMT

Dear RA team members,

As Gadi announced, our next RA team call will take place on Wednesday the 10th of March at 3PM GMT ( 4PM CET, 10AM EST, 7AM PST).

Link to Gadi’s post:
http://www.tmforum.org/community/groups/revenue_management_group/forum/p/4843/10245.aspx#10245

In the RA team call we’re going to discuss the first draft of the planned survey.

As a preparation for the RA team call, please review the attached draft questionnaire (e.g. comprehensibility of the questions, structuring etc.). Many thanks in advance!

I wish you all a nice weekend.

Best regards

Thomas

Re: Is there any intelligence in Revenue Management?

EricP6 — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:22:39 GMT

I agree Tony. In my experience, I find the term 'BI' tends to get associated with the technological capability, and not with the uses it gets put to. If you're aiming to build a team that will equally cover the 'why' and the 'what' with the 'how', then you can count me in!

Re: Is there any intelligence in Revenue Management?

TonyP2 — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:05:51 GMT

Actually, Eric, we have a Decision Analytics team being formed. BI is such old hat and very limiting, don't you think? Until it gains traction, the DA team it has to go somewhere and be sponsored by an existing initiative, hence it coming under the RM remit in the first instance. No doubt, it will get its own space in due course, especially if more dynamic people like you jump on board!