I was speaking to the new Revenue Assurance manager at a previous employer and was thrilled to hear my friend took over that department. The wellbeing of those team members has been renting space in mind for some time. I emailed an ex-colleague to say thanks for looking out for what remains of this team and was struck by a thought. What exactly was renting space in my mind? The wellbeing of the function I am passionate about or the great many people putting heart and soul into it?

The mind and language philosopher Wittgenstein says language belongs to groups, not to individual or isolated minds. Language reflects communal practices and specifically how those communities use the words in that language. The language also has context and is infused with socio-cultural detail, which further informs the common understanding and adoption of the specific language as practiced.

The term Revenue Assurance has a generic meaning to all who are interested in the subject, yet not specific enough to categorise its components when we reduce the term to a cipher, or a bit, or an atom. A lot of what is going on in blogs, advertorials, vendor white papers and certification efforts are based on pretty much the technical stuff. The how to, or with what cool tool. The sales pitch is about the technology, with added benefits of consulting and on-site support. It assumes that the question is How to do RA?

Is this the question? Does answering this question inform of us of what exactly RA is? I could not help to reflect that for many of us in the RA industry, RA is a logical certainty. One for which we are prepared to fight, motivate and convince. Is the question perhaps Whether to assure revenue? The answer would certainly be yes. Does this require a dedicated team and specialised tools? Ask a commercial bank or car manufacturer and the answer is no.

Is RA perhaps rather a personal relationship? In some of the material I review for the research I find reference to technique to convince the CFO of the merits and benefits of investing in RA. The mere fact that there are executives who do not immediately see the must have of this function and who need a compelling business case to assign funds in this direction rather than that, is cause to revisit the question.

What is the correct RA question to ask to get an answer of 42?

Many years ago I was contracted to do process re-engineering at a government department. Somewhere during this time I became involved in an ISO certification exercise for this particular department. Not having had much experienced with ISO implementations, I asked the project manager to explain to me in brief terms what ISO quality standards were. He responded with “document what you do and do what you have documented”.

That has pretty much become my motto for Revenue Assurance, and much broader really. This pertains to anything that should be documented. Business rules, business processes, system flows, system rules, you name it. Very often these are not documented which means we all do what we think we should, or are capable of doing given the uncoordinated chaos between systems and departments that is most often the norm.

It becomes difficult to assign and monitor KPI because you are not working from a known and agreed factor. Much like yelloware: firm enough to touch but not solid enough to hold. I have seen many first stabs at KPIs and these are based on gutfeel or general common sense things we should measure. These KPIs were not scientifically determined or based on any maturity index of the department or function’s capability and/or capacity.

I have recently spoken to a number of junior level staff, both in the RA field and other industries and disciplines on the topic of defining KPIs for their business functions (such as procurement and SLA Management) and their individual performance (how are they performance managed against the job’s KPI’s).

I was astounded to find that both the HR people I spoke with (1 was senior) did not see the relevance of the continuous string of interconnection between the organisation structure; to the job role (stating the role objective in context of the strategic and tactical plans); to defining the job outputs (those core responsibilities that would add the execution view to the strategy); to the KPIs to measure and manage the contribution to the organisation. A Balanced Scorecard was some academic thing that resides with the Head of Department and does not filter through to the job description. That means the performance management chain is broken.

I also found that all KPIs discussed with me assumed a process maturity of between 3 and 4. In other words, it assumed the processes involved in producing the output to be measured, or support processes to enable the output, are all in defined and managed mode. I did not find one KPI that was aimed at establishing a capability, as you would assign for a level 1 or 2 maturity. Needless to say, those poor individuals with these sky-high targets did not have the basic doing capability in place let alone the measuring and reporting capability. For some reason organisations assume that building the infrastructure and processes with which to run and grow the business are either in place or relatively easy to just do as part of the overall job.

It was quite alarming to realise how few individuals thought their personal KPIs had any relevance to any measurements that might be in place for specific financial or service related work they may be involved in. This I would put down to not speaking to an individual who had both a set of KPIs used for annual performance management as well as measurable and reportable work tasks, typically the stats you would find in a call centre, help desk or RA. The Customer Service and RA people I spoke with did not have a Balanced Scorecard and those individuals with a BSC don’t work in an environment where objective performance measure are taken.

I have seen this in telco and have tested it now at 2 Banks. Same mindset. There is a disconnection somewhere, a fragmented view on this complex whole we call an organisation. Yet, come financial yearend we are back to drawing up the new BSC because last year’s failed.

Am I seeing a connection where there isn’t one or have I just not seen this implemented anywhere?

As part of the literature review for the RA research dissertation, I contrasted the definition, objectives and approach to RA, mainly using the work of the TMF and Mattison, supported by similar work by other authors. While most additional sources covered certain aspects of these dimensions of RA, the TMF and Mattison’s work were more holistic in terms of the labels I chose to analyse RA from.

When I reviewed the material initially, I found Mattison’s The Revenue Assurance Handbook and The Revenue Assurance Standards very difficult to follow. The conclusion did not follow from the premises. However, these I can deal with in the analysis by comparing favorably those aspects that do add value and highlighting the inconsistencies or lack of cohesion where these are evident when summing up the contribution of a piece of work to this discipline. I included this work since it was one of the few sources, which gave a holistic view of the entire function. It did not try to sell me tools or consulting services. Instead, it tried to explain WHAT the function is about and HOW it should be done. Exactly what I needed for this chapter.

I learned from the last review done by the university that the content of academic contribution is not always as important as the method used to arrive at such insight. The thought or argument journey we take to arrive at the facts is what differentiates facts from fiction or in this case, opinion. The methodology determines the validity and reliability of the contribution. We are all well versed in the art of revenue assurance and have experience that make certain things fact, like it or not. We will take on any academic journal and have it for breakfast because nothing makes up for the roasties we earned burning ourselves.

In an age of self-publication, why then do we still put so much importance on peer-reviewed publications and what exactly do we mean with peer-reviewed? Surely when GRAPA says it ratified material amongst its members, this should constitute peer-reviewed, as it is clearly a number of subject matter experts who reviewed and clarified the material before publishing it?

The difference is in the rigor with which the review was done and the thoroughness of the methodology followed in writing the material as well as analysing the output or result prior to publication. An objective and very critical analysis of content and indeed intent of the writing, by a 3^rd party, unemotional to the blood, sweat and tears which created the initial output, culminates in a piece of work that can withstand any scrutiny. Such review will immediately eliminate an error of logic; an error of conclusion not following the premises. Peer-reviewed material also provides the opportunity to question the content and argue these until the facts hold up. This is difficult to attain when publishing a book or a non peer-reviewed article. However insightful such material may be, it does not provide a basis from which to build theory. It does not give one a bird’s eye view on the different points of view, contrasted against and for an argument or the evaluation of support for and against the initial stances to such material.

To sum up the research progress, I always wondered why it took so long to do it and often wish that I could give it more focus than I currently have time for. The last 6 months saw substantial review being done but sadly, it did not provide the academic base I needed, so back to the scientific databases.

Mark Graham Brown wrote a succinct little business savvy book called Get It, Set It, Move It, Prove It. 60 Ways to Get Real Results in Your Organization. The book contains a number of short chapters neatly summarising basic business issues or mistakes made by organisations in its attempt to achieve its objectives.

One such chapter is on the use of benchmarking as a way of obtaining ideas for business improvement. Tongue in cheek, he refers to a benchmarking trip as an opportunity to go somewhere warm and fun while you tell your boss you are doing a benchmarking study.

The idea of a benchmarking study is that you get some great ideas for improving processes by studying other companies that perform with much greater efficiency or at a lower cost that you do. Benchmarking should then be a way of shortcutting process improvements by letting other companies do the trial and error until they hit on an approach that works.

While I read this book I looked for the application to Revenue Assurance. Brown lists a few shortcomings of benchmarking which I believe are equally valid in our industry and it would be interesting to hear what our readers, who have participated in the TMF and GRAPA benchmarking studies, think about these common shortcomings in the context of furthering the RA standardisation effort.

• Well run businesses are inundated with requests to do benchmarking, so much so that one particular car manufacturer started asking money for benchmarking tours and ended up making more money from the tours than from manufacturing cars;
• Many companies who add themselves to the benchmarking databases are a legend in their own minds only. They volunteer information to others but are actually so outdated and generic that it is a total waste of time to review what they have to offer;
• A lack of focus and preparation. Benchmarking should focus on a singular goal and process. Once the process has been identified, a plan for selected the comparison data should be done. The outcome of an unplanned benchmarking study would not contribute to the organisational learning as you would realise after the field trip that you miss vital info or may even have selected an inappropriate partner against which to benchmark;
• Thinking that you have to benchmark again a large and well known company instead of a small company that actually do things differently.

When I read benchmarking reports I do not always understand what was benchmarked. I would think that we would like to take X and compare it against a number of sources to determine if X looks and feels the same when compared to others. I can see from the benchmarking questions that X is implied but it is not explicitly stated or described/labeled as X.

What is the expected benefit of being benchmarked? Many companies are looking for the perfect role model against which to benchmark themselves in the hope that they would learn how to do the job. Very often they do not have an idea what should be done and how. The exercise is seen more as a hunt for free advise, templates and how to. If they find a company against which to compare themselves, what benefit is there to the comparison company and how many companies end up training or guiding the benchmarking company? Is this still considered benchmarking?

While I still have plenty of cleaning up to do on the literature review, I am finally arriving at planning the fieldwork of the study, which made me reflect on discussions I had with a number of people on the standardisation of revenue assurance. I don’t need to add GRAPA’s drive in the certification of RA personnel to point out that there is an obvious movement toward standardisation or the implied assumption that by some miracle, standardisation actually already occurred.

MTN Group is on a drive to standardise technology across its operating units (OU’s). According to Deidre Ackermann, group CIO, ‘consideration must be given to how an organization implements operating models for achieving the efficiency that they seek but that does not stifle innovation or speed to market’. Add to this a healthy dose of diverse cultures and physical locations in their footprint and one can appreciate her challenge. Dr Ackermann is under no illusion that using a standard framework such as NGOSS, modeled and implemented will not solve the problem. She acknowledges the fundamental business practices that must change to comply with standardisation and that this change is not only affecting technology but business processes as well. MTN’s drive is on the total of its systems but lets just consider its RA technology across its footprint.

Do we mean standardisation of RA tools with the inclusion of all its new requirements or are we addressing the process of RA as well? The literature reviewed for my study provided some insight into the process of RA, which contributes to my list of plenty of clean up still to do. There are a number of white papers or magazine articles that propose a basic process of RA execution. A generalisation of these sources would culminate in, Identify, Prioritise, Correct, Follow up.

However, this is at a level 3 business process. What happens at levels 4 to 6? If we maintain that standardisation goes to operating model level only or at best, the adoption of an industry standard, which proposes a best practice at level 3, are we still driving standardisation? We have adopted Six Sigma….but implemented Two Sigma because that is all we could afford or managed to achieve.

In theory I agree that standardisation will benefit the organisation. One can create Centres of Excellence and I would be very surprised if the RA Maturity assessment did not show a marked improvement but have we considered the cost benefit ratio? A few thought leaders discussed the concept of RA being part of Risk Management and several people supported the concept of only doing something when the benefits outweighed the cost. What is the financial and emotional cost of driving such standardisation?

Now assume that there is industry agreement that we will drive standardisation to its nth degree. How do we approach it? Do we select a sample of organisations which we believe are doing RA right, document what they do and implement that at others? If it is sample based, how big a sample and what are the characteristics we consider for inclusion in such a sample? I have a distinct vision of Noah counting the animals two by two. Can we drive the standardisation of RA independent of the standardisation of technology and implied operating models? We can simply ask GRAPA to promptly issue certificates of process standardisation being achieved and demonstrated.

Leadership is concerned with the ability to give guidance within the constraints and boundaries of the objectives to be achieved. The “what’ is important. ‘How’ is a function of execution against that ‘what’. As long as the business ‘what’ has been achieved, does it really matter how it was done? Unless of course the ‘what’ could not be achieved. If in the MTN scenario the drive to have Centres of Excellence and recognition of skills and people empowerment become the ‘what’ objectives, then the ‘how’ would certainly include something close to a level 4 or 5 standardisation.

I am not sure we are all clear on the degree of cloning we are proposing.

It is with utter frustration that I write this blog tonight. I feel like saddling up my transformation horse and change the archaic processes of academic institutions. It is perhaps not their fault.

I am reading the same RA material over and over in different forms. Some industry magazines have articles which portrait a reality closer to our experience within RA.  However, very few make reference to where they got such insight. Is this the author’s experience, his opinion or somebody else’s opinion he happens to capture aptly in an article? It is rather frustrating when you read something and realize you have read this exact sentence before.

Now consider this for context first. I am using over 40 sources for 1 chapter of literature review. For the essence of RA, I am working through more than 40 sources, which range from a 2-page industry magazine article to a 705-page book on Revenue Management. Trying to remember the context of each of these sources so that it can be consulted again in subsequent sections is daunting on its own. Trying to figure out which source is more authentic than the next is quite difficult.

What is driving me to consume large quantities of Easter eggs at midnight? The fact that the real goodies do not appear in literature suitable for academic research.  The gap between the reality on the floor and half the “how to’s” does not allow me to portrait the vision of RA for the future. In a sense it is almost a case of “whoopee, somebody integrated 12 years of literature to serve as “RA over the last decade for Dummies” because it certainly does not provide much of a basis to build on other than confirming that we are all over the damn show. But then again, those of us interested enough in the discipline know that.

The upside is that there are more than 40 sources to use, even more still if I really wanted to incorporate them all but that would not add any value. It is just sad that good material is available in blogs and speaking to people too busy in the trench to bother with approaching an academic journal to publish such knowledge. That is tacit knowledge that you can never give justice to in a 2-page opinion-flavoured article.

Perhaps we should hunt down the review committees of academic journals in the ITC or Telco fields and offer them some of my Easter eggs in exchange for making the process easier to publish real stuff.