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They do things differently in Portugal. Normally the prospect of sitting through a software vendor’s user group meeting would have me grinding my teeth and clenching my buttocks. Such events normally involve three kinds of sales technique: cross sell, up sell and hard sell. But at the WeDo Technologies User Group conference (the “WUG”!) they tried a fourth approach: the no sell. Instead, they took care of customers and every last detail, sat back and let their guests talk about what they do and how they do it. To borrow from an ad campaign for Carlsberg… “WeDo don’t do industry conferences, but if WeDo did do industry conferences, they’d be the best industry conferences…” Let us just say that if WeDo write software as well as they host events, then they must have written some immaculate and smooth-running code. Perhaps the very best marketing technique is just to take care of the environment and allow the customers to talk about what they do (and how they use your products to do it). They say the best advertising is a word of mouth recommendation, and WeDo must be confident they can rely on that. Perhaps they are right – look at what I just wrote!
WeDo amassed a really high-calibre panel for their 2010 WUG. Unfortunately, for all their perfect planning, they did make one mistake – they let me sit on the panel too. Luckily the other guests were so clever and knowledgeable that my insane ramblings only served to make them look even better. Listen to podcast 12 to hear the panel session at WeDo’s WUG, which turned out to be a really entertaining and insightful discussion about the current circumstances and challenges faced by revenue assurance, business assurance and fraud management. Not counting me and my big mouth, the star-studded panel consisted of:
- Tony Poulos, Head of the Revenue Management Sector at the TM Forum, Anchor for The Telecom Channel and too many other things to mention;
- Nick Mann, former Head of Fraud, Risk and Security at Vodafone Group and ex-Chairman of the GSM Association’s Fraud Forum;
- Susan McNeice, Global Director at Stratecast, the strategic research and forecasting division of Frost & Sullivan; and
- the chair was Alun Lewis, respected independent telecoms writer, consultant, and man of deep thoughts as well as fine words.
Many thanks to WeDo for hosting an excellent event, and to both WeDo and my fellow panelists for permitting me to share the recording with you.
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Podcast 11 is dedicated to the topic of managed services – services which might have been performed in-house but are instead delivered by an external supplier. It is a topic that gets considered from time to time by telcos wanting to improve their revenue assurance and fraud management, although it is not so common to see initial conversations progress to completing an actual deal. Indian firm Subex is a market leader in supplying revenue assurance and fraud management software, and also earns a significant chunk of its revenues through managed services for those functions and others. I asked them to talk with me about the current status and future potential for managed services. Vinod Kumar, Subex’s Group President, joined me from India, and Des Rehinsi, their Director of Sales for Managed Services, joined me from the UK. We talked about the reasons why telcos opt for managed services, the factors that drive competitive advantage in this market, and their expectations for future sales from managed services. You can listen to the full podcast at talkRA.com, or by subscribing through the iTunes store.
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Mark Yelland joined me for talkRA podcast number 10. Mark has just co-written a new book with David Sherick, entitled “Revenue Assurance for Service Providers”. You can obtain the book from Amazon.com by following this link. The book is also available from Amazon.co.uk and Authors OnLine. We talked about Mark’s experience as a revenue assurance practitioner and how he has translated this into practical advice which is especially useful for the smaller operation that wants big RA results without necessarily needing to buy big RA systems. You can listen to the full hour-long conversation at talkRA.com, or by subscribing to the talkRA podcast through iTunes.
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For episode 9 of the talkRA podcast I was joined by Lee Scargall, regular talkRA contributor and Director of Risk and Revenue Assurance at Qtel, and Paul Lewis-Borman, owner of software house Symbox. Before you wonder, Symbox does not make simboxes. Symbox develop software used to ‘webify’ business processes, and in particular have worked with telcos like Qtel to enhance their revenue assurance management. For all the software created to do revenue assurance reconciliations, many RA departments still pour time and effort into consolidating the status of their work and presenting it to executives. We talked about the ways software can automate the management and reporting of revenue assurance, eliminating manual tasks that add no value and which limit the ability of the RA department to explain their performance to C-level execs. You can exclusively listen to the full 30-minute conversation at talkRA.com, or by subscribing to the podcast at iTunes.
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My guest for episode 8 of the talkRA podcast was Nitin Patel, revenue assurance consultant. He told me about his experiences from different countries, in particular focusing on what he has learned from working on revenue assurance projects in African telcos. Nitin recounted some interesting anecdotes. His stories conveyed some very telling insights about the best and worst examples of how to do revenue assurance, and it was a pleasure to talk with him. You can exclusively listen to the full 30-minute conversation at talkRA.com, or by subscribing to the podcast at iTunes.
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Geoff Ibbett is an independent consultant with tremendous experience in the field of revenue assurance. Over the years he has held a string of senior roles at businesses like Subex, Azure, Connexn and Telecomms Consultancy & Solutions. I asked Geoff to join me for podcast 7, and we talked about the new revenue assurance training and accreditation program Geoff has developed for the TM Forum. We also talked about his work on the TMF’s new leakage framework, as well as his views on trends in the RA software market and about the professionalization of RA. You can listen to this informative interview by playing or downloading the podcast from talkRA. Better still, subscribe to the podcast via iTunes, and you will never miss a future episode.
The first of the TMF’s RA training and accreditation courses will be held in London, England and runs from September 14th to September 16th. Geoff told me there are still some spaces left, so if you are interested in booking a spot, you can find out more by visiting the TMF’s website.
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