Revenue Assurance is critical to a Mobile Network Operator’s (MNOs) success. Implementing Revenue Assurance software solutions ensures that an MNO can identify the areas where revenue leakage occurs within the network and assists in determining the effectiveness of product offerings for rate and product optimisation. When not identified and managed, these elements will lead to irrecoverable losses that will impact the MNOs revenue and profitability. Below we discuss Revenue Assurance and how Adapt IT Telecoms’ Revenue Assurance solution assist MNOs in future-proofing their business and profitability.
What is Revenue Assurance?
To fully understand Revenue Assurance’s role within an MNO, we must define it. According to Gartner, Revenue Assurance is implementing a process or a software solution that enables an MNO to accurately capture revenue for all services rendered. Instead of correcting errors after they occur or not detecting and correcting them at all, Revenue Assurance allows the MNO to examine and identify revenue leakage points throughout the network. In doing this, the MNO can correct the revenue leakage errors before the incorrect data enters the billing system to ensure minimal losses.
Adapt IT Telecoms has developed this specialist technology to assist MNOs in boosting profitability, revenue and cashflows by correctly allocating revenue from services rendered. This innovative software utilises advanced analytics to mitigate the risks associated with revenue leakage and cannibalisation and provide insight into product effectiveness. We unpack this in more detail below.
Why is Revenue Assurance Important?
The importance of Revenue Assurance lies in the ability of this process to reduce revenue leakage and highlight product effectiveness, but what does this mean for the MNO?
In simple terms, revenue leakage refers to the inability to bill clients correctly for the services used. Revenue leakage can occur across network usage services such as sms, data and voiceusage, interconnecting fees, roaming and bundle purchases. In this case, clients have used the services, but the incorrect billing amount has been captured somewhere through the process. In this case, the billing amount is less than what the customer used in terms of services. As you can imagine, an MNO has several different products, services and elements that are often siloed, so identifying where the revenue leakage is occurring is critical and, if not managed correctly, can result in massive losses. This is where Revenue Assurance software, like Adapt IT Telecom’s Revenue Assurance solution, takes centre stage.
This innovative software utilises Advanced Analytics modelling to assist MNOs in identifying and alerting to revenue leakage. In this way, an MNO is given complete visibility over elements that affect correct billing and can manage revenue leakage issues quickly and efficiently.
From a product effectiveness point of view, Adapt IT Telecom’s Revenue Assurance solution assists in determining the value of a product in relation to its profit. In this way, MNOs can identify their top-performing products and services and optimise them to increase profit, ultimately assisting with demographic and regional marketing strategies for these top-performing products. This process also assists in providing MNOs with the insight required for rate optimisation to ensure that products perform as well as possible.
Another critical role that this kind of Revenue Assurance solution provides is highlighting and identifying revenue cannibalisation. This refers to the profit loss caused by introducing a new product similar to an older product. In this case, the newer product will overtake the older product’s sales, resulting in a revenue loss.
How To Ensure Revenue Assurance
From the above, it is clear that Revenue Assurance is vital to the success of an MNO. The question that remains is how does an MNO ensure Revenue Assurance? The answer lies in implementing Adapt IT Telecom’s Revenue Assurance solution. This solution has been designed specifically for MNOs and utilises and depends on our unique, advanced CDRlive technology.
This technology consolidates all network data, including Call Data Records (CDRs) and event data related to billing records, usage records, subscriber information and more, in almost real time. It then leverages machine learning and data analytics to provide actionable insights and proactive Revenue Assurance measures.
This solution utilises the following features to make Revenue Assurance possible:
- CDRlive EDW Platform – The CDRlive Enterprise Data Warehouse is the central pillar of this solution as it provides a Telco-specific data warehouse with connectors to various data sources used by MNOs. This can be customised based on network-specific needs and is used for storing and analysing Call Data Records (CDRs), billing records, network events and reference and supplementary data.
- Advanced Analytics – This innovative software performs multidimensional analysis on large data volumes at high speeds. It is a Business Intelligence (BI) tool that encompasses report writing and data mining. Enables more advanced reporting based on aggregate and business logic applied data that will answer specific questions that MNOs require to solve problems related to revenue leakage and plan more effectively in terms of product and rate optimisation.
- Revenue Assurance Auditing Engine – Advanced Analytics powers this component. It provides an auditable solution to MNOs for collecting and processing event data for auditing purposes. This includes automated key KPI validation and alert mechanisms that can help MNOs to identify and resolve issues quickly. It also allows for configurable thresholds and highlights any threshold breaches within the network. This feature automatically provides reconciliation and validation of data for continuous revenue calculation and reporting. It effectively allows for identifying, reporting, and managing revenue leakage in the network due to tariff misconfiguration, roaming agreement misconfigurations, and more.
- Interactive Data Visualisation platform – The Interactive Data Visualisation platform provides essential reports that enable an MNO to have a comprehensive view across your entire business in near real-time. This innovative monitoring, trending and alerting tool will highlight issues or problems within the network related to Revenue Assurance. This feature provides MNOs with a complete view of what is happening within the network for effective monitoring and decision-making.Â
With these features in place MNOs will be able to:
- Safeguard the network from revenue leakage.
- Determine and optimise effective rates to increase profitability.
- Identify incorrect and non-charged usage.
- Have complete visibility and traceability of all consolidated network data and information.
- Make informed business decisions related to revenue-boosting opportunities and revenue leakage problems.Â
The Role and Scope of Revenue Assurance in Telecoms
From the above, it is clear that Revenue Assurance plays a significant role in financial management and identifying ways to reduce revenue leakage and optimise rates, offerings and services. Revenue Assurance also plays a vital role in fraud detection.
According to GSMA, Network fraud costs MNOs 1-2% of their revenue, dramatically impacting profitability. By utilising Adapt IT Telecoms Revenue Assurance software MNOs can quickly uncover and identify abnormalities and fraud patterns. This will allow MNOs to stop these abuses faster and more efficiently, reducing data misuse and preventing revenue loss.
Conclusion
From the above, there is no doubt that Revenue Assurance is critical to the success of an MNO’s business, especially where reducing revenue leakage, fraud detection and product and rate effectiveness is concerned. For Revenue Assurance to succeed, you need an innovative software solution, like the one provided by Adapt IT Telecoms. It makes it easy to gain insight into elements affecting Revenue Assurance. This Revenue Assurance solution consolidates all network data and leverages machine learning and data analytics to provide actionable insights and proactive Revenue Assurance measures. Armed with this insight MNOs can quickly identify elements impacting revenue and manage these effectively. Download our Revenue Assurance brochure for insight into this innovative solution and how this software can increase an MNO’s profitability. Â
Discover how CDR is key to making effective revenue and churn decisions in the Telco industry and why call data records are the lifeblood of telecommunications.Â
I’m the Advanced Analytics Solution Stream Owner at Adapt IT Telecoms. With my years of experience in the ICT industry, I have gained skills in various areas including Sales, Strategy, Professional Services, Management, Cloud, and Digital Transformation. My team and I specialise in providing niche large data solutions to markets such as mobile network, education, and regulatory. As the Solution Stream Owner, I’m responsible for ensuring that we deliver top-notch services and innovative solutions to our clients. My journey in this field started as a technical engineer and over the years, I have moved into pre-sales, business development, consulting, analytics, commercial, and operations management. This has given me a diverse set of skills, which allows me to have conversations that lead to innovative solutions. What I’m most passionate about is the integration between software and people, both within society and organisations. It’s a challenge, but one that I find extremely rewarding. I’m committed to ensuring that we continue to provide cutting-edge solutions that help our clients stay ahead of the competition.
