cVidya brings risk management to revenue assurance solution
Following a trend to break away from analyzing revenue leakage only after the damage is done, cVidya recently announced a new solution to provide a more holistic view of the problem.
The solution, dubbed ProactiV, is based on the emerging TM Forum standards and provides a ‘top-down’ approach to revenue intelligence. It allows management to increase risk awareness and proactively monitor exposure. Implemented through wizards and knowledge-based support, ProactiV is based on the forum’s best practices for revenue management, cVidya said.
Risk management has always been the logical next step for revenue assurance. Follow the careers of revenue assurance managers and they will often migrate from identifying and fixing threats to revenue to a more central role in risk management. Embedding risk management processes and concepts in revenue assurance products is logical and reflects the trend towards a proactive, intelligence based approach to analytics in telcos.
According to recent benchmarking exercises carried out among telco members of the TM Forum, revenue leakage stands at 6%, even in these difficult economic conditions. This translates into a multi-billion dollar problem.
cVidya is a major force in the work of the TM Forum, one of the chief architects of the extended revenue assurance and coverage model. This is part of the TM Forum’s flagship standard process framework, Frameworx 11, now available to 90% of the world’s telcos, through membership of the Forum.
There’s no doubt that revenue assurance and risk management are converging. As Connected Planet has uncovered in recent interviews and articles, revenue assurance is finally moving away from a post-event operation (CP: Telco analytics not in infancy, improving every day). Only dealing with problems after they occur not only results in revenue losses but doesn’t help a telco’s central objective these days – providing better customer experience.
What is needed for products such as ProactiV to become universally used in telcos is trust. The problem is that, culturally and career-wise, managers will find it risky to adopt the new working practices of moving from reactive to proactive processes. Embedding report and dashboard based revenue intelligence, fraud controls and predictive analytics are all effective tools in developing a strategy to achieve that goal.
Another barrier is politics, as revenue assurance and risk management professionals work out who now owns the ‘new, holistic’ revenue assurance approach. This will not be as tough as other culturally different departments – fraud and revenue assurance - have found it possible to work together.
