The current financial constraints rocking the telecom industry provides one of the greatest opportunities ever for revenue assurance groups within the communications service providers to shine. Come to the TeleStrategies' Revenue Assurance & Management '09 to learn the latest practices and procedures being implemented by service providers to manage the integrity of their revenue stream while maximizing the efficacy of their processes and procedures.
Now in its 10th year, TeleStrategies' annual Revenue Assurance conference has become the largest show of its kind in the U.S. focusing on educating and training communications industry professionals on realizing best-in-class' revenue assurance and management practices for their companies. Attracting nearly 200 attendees, with a majority of the attendees being service providers, the TeleStrategies' Revenue Assurance show is also a great opportunity to network with your peers and share experiences and lessons learned.
Don't miss this valuable and important program. Register today to attend. Save the most be getting one of your colleagues to join you. Each paid registrant gets a free pass for one of their colleagues.
REVENUE ASSURANCE & MANAGEMENT 2009
TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 2009
7:00
Registration Open
8:00
Exhibits Open
8:45-10:00
Beyond the Leaky Bucket – Leveraging RA to Support Business Operations
In these trying financial times, communications service providers are under tremendous pressure to maximize the profitability of their existing investments and get their costs under control. It is in this environment that service providers are looking to their revenue assurance operations to expand beyond its original mandate of detecting causes of revenue leakage to a role of integrated revenue and cost management across the enterprise. The panelists will discuss the evolving scope of revenue assurance within their companies, how RA can support the demands being asked of it, and the challenges resulting from new service offerings and business models.
Molly Akers, Director of Revenue Assurance, T-Mobile
Gabriela Gil, Director of Operational Risk and ERP, Telefonica Latinoamerica
Angel Lopez, Revenue Assurance and Fraud Prevention Director, NII Holdings
Joan Pieros, Assistant Vice President, Caribbean Billing & Revenue Assurance, Centennial Communications
Gary McCloskey, Manager - Business Operation Support, Verizon
Joe Villarreal, Senior Executive Director - Finance, AT&T Mobility
Launi Martin, Director of Financial Assurance and Fraud Management , Level (3) Communications
10:00-10:30
Break/Exhibits/Networking
10:30-11:15 Session A
Revenue Intelligence: Driving Better Decision Making with One Understanding of Cause and Effect
Revenue is a hot topic - everyone in the company cares about it. But who owns it? Who makes decisions about revenue impacting actions? Are the various teams in your organization synched up on revenue accountabilities, actions, decisions and results? Hear about how T-Mobile's RA group is working to take all the valuable information, research, ideas and analysis focused on revenue at the company to create a more unified process for better decision making and results.
Molly Akers, Director of Revenue Assurance, T-Mobile
Session B
Revenue, Billing and Fraud Assurance: A Transformation
The presentation will talk about the importance of revenue management especially in times of economic recession and uncertainty. The speakers will discuss the transformation revenue management needs to take in order to overcome the changes in the environment both in the telecommunication market and in the global economy.
Joe Villarreal, Senior Executive Director - Finance, AT&T Mobility
Hezi Zelevski, Associate Vice President, Business Development, ECtel
11:25-12:15 Session A
Revenue Assurance's Role in Customer Experience Management: A Case Study
At Verizon, revenue assurance has been incorporated into its customer experience management process. Learn how Verizon's revenue assurance group is contributing to the company's customer experience management efforts through effective error detection using mechanized controls and problem resolution prior to bill release.
Gary McCloskey, Manager - Business Operation Support, Verizon
Session B
Effective Ways to Detect VoIP and Subscription Fraud
The speaker will give an overview of the existing and emerging fraud scenarios, including voice phishing, in next-generation multi-service network environments. Attendees will learn techniques for detecting and preventing such fraud, minimizing damages and revenue loss.
Larry Kepfer, Fraud Specialist, Connectiva Systems
12:15-1:30
Lunch/Exhibits/Networking
1:30-2:20 Session A
Assessing the Maturity Your RA Function
Assessing the RA maturity of your organization is a great way to understand and value how the RA function is positioned in your organization, how it interacts with other areas, and the scope of its working methods and methodologies. Telefonica recently developed for its Latin American group (18 operators) a Maturity Assessment Model, based on TMF standards, to enable them to identify how mature their RA function is and from there, set an improvement strategy covering the organization, tools, processes and measurement. The speaker will share the key aspects of this model and her view on how it will help to improve the RA group's strategies.
Gabriela Gil, Director of Operational Risk and ERP, Telefonica Latinoamerica
Session B
Analytics and Controls for Mobile Content
Mobile content is taking a larger share of ARPU, up to 40%, and is now central in financial and customer experience results. Mobile content order-to-cash, particularly extended order-to-cash to include the content supply chain, is substantially more complex than traditional voice. However, the analytics and controls currently in place were designed and optimized for voice, not data, presenting severe risk to providers. This presentation investigates the issues, applies real-life examples, and discusses models to de-risk and strengthen mobile content.
Drew Rockwell, CEO, Martin Dawes Analytics
2:30-3:20 Session A
Revenue Leakage: Discovering What, Where, and the Root Cause
Revenue assurance in a circuit-switched environment primarily focuses on usage reconciliation based on data captured directly from the switch, running that data through mediation and rating, and ultimately comparing it to billing data. Attendees will learn about a more detailed, comprehensive option to switch-to-bill revenue assurance that can help in determining what revenue leakage is occurring, where along the switch-to-bill path it's happening, and ultimately the root cause to which those lost revenues are specifically attributed.
Jim Hayden, Executive Director Business Intelligence, TEOCO
Session B
Generating End-to-End Test Events as Part of Your Revenue Assurance Strategy
End-to-end test events generation for xDR reconciliation, metering and billing accuracy is one of the most overlooked fundamental controls of a revenue assurance program. The speaker will walk attendees through the end-to-end test concept and explain the steps required to successfully implement a proactive RA event generation function. He will also discuss the core benefits and solution areas, highlighting how it can assist in detecting and investigating new and existing revenue leakage opportunities. Real life findings, wins and ROI will also be discussed.
Juan Prieto, Product Manager, Roscom
3:20-3:45
Break/Exhibits/Networking
3:45-4:30 Session A
Restructuring the Internal Placement and Function of Your Revenue Assurance Controls
The speaker will describe efforts undertaken at Centennial Communication to increase the efficiency and manageability of its revenue assurance process -- while addressing the need for end-to-end assurance involvement -- through the strategic redeployment of its revenue assurance controls. Current flaws in the internal placement of controls within a service provider's operations will be discussed.
Joan Pieros, Assistant Vice President, Caribbean Billing & Revenue Assurance, Centennial Communications
Session B
Effectively Monitoring Your Network Traffic and Controlling Fraud Using SS7 Data
Telecom carriers are suffering major revenue losses due to poor network monitoring capability combined with the dramatic rise of phantom, bypass, unidentified, and undipped network call traffic. The speaker will describe how to use SS7 and SIP/SIGTRAN non-intrusive monitoring to detect fraud and render extremely accurate and reliable billing records for revenue and profit maximization.
Darrell Merschak, Manager Hosted Applications, Tekno Telecom
4:40-5:30 Session A
You're Gathering the Data...Are You Optimizing Its Use?
You're gathering critical data at points all along the revenue chain so you can check for revenue leakage. However, are you using that data to its fullest potential? In this session, the speaker will address the state of wireline, wireless, and cable operators' use of advanced data analytics technologies; how they're realizing value from analytics; and the state of "analytics maturity" in the industry.
Bill Zimmer, Worldwide Solutions Manager, Customer Intelligence & Billing, Hewlett-Packard
Session B
Rating and Billing Verification for Next Generation Services
In the emerging multi-service world, characterized by an increasing number of services and types of customers, it becomes much more complicated to track and bill correctly. Some of the challenges service providers are facing in this area are increasing number of price plans, rapid introduction of next generation services and content, bundles of services, tighter regulations, and zero customer tolerance for billing errors. The speaker will discuss ways to monitor and identify errors in the billing and rating process before they become a revenue assurance and a customer service issue.
Amir Gefen, Director of Business Development, cVidya Networks
5:30-6:30
Reception and Exhibits
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11
8:00
Exhibits Open
8:30-9:20 Session A
Implementing Mass Correction Strategies to Fully Recover Detected Leakage
In recent months there has been growing concerns in the industry regarding the recapture of revenue when the number of errors detected is very large. In this presentation, the speakers will discuss strategies and tools used by Verizon to successfully correct large numbers of individualized errors. The discussion will include a brief history of tool-based correction processes, and examples where carrier strategies have succeeded --- and where they have failed.
Michael Carey, Facilitation Manager, Billing & Revenue Assurance, Verizon
John Brooks, Vice President, Subex Limited
Session B
Consolidating Access Billing and Revenue Assurance
Not every company can afford or justify separate cost centers for Billing and RA. Why not combine the two? The speakers will discuss why carriers should consider combining their access billing and revenue assurance processes to reduce costs, improve accuracy, and drive department synergies while maximizing revenue.
Brian Preston, Director, ASP Services, Kansys
Jim Steele, Technical Manager/Consultant, Telesphere Software
9:30-10:15 Session A
Measuring and Improving RA
Learn how operators can use the Telemanagement Forum's standard RA KPIs and RA maturity model to measure and improve their RA. Hear about the challenges in measuring the value of proactive RA activities, and how an operator can deal with these challenges.
Dr. Gadi Solotorevsky, cVidya Chief Scientist, and an advisory board member of TeleManagement Forum (TMF)
Session B
Cost Management Solutions for a Real-Time Interconnected Telecom World
Flat rate billing for long distance, data, and content has put a big premium on cost management programs that lower costs and ensure billing accuracy. .Drawing on Dittberner Associates' RA market research, the panel will discuss trends and the latest techniques in least cost routing, electronic conversion, rate verification, and software/managed services.
Dan Baker, Research Director, Dittberner Associates
Geoff Knoerzer, Vice President, Engel Consulting Group, and former CIO, Verizon Wireless, Midwest Region
Rob Khoury, Vice President, Pulse Voice
10:15-10:45
Break
10:45-11:30 Session A
Revenue Assurance for Triple Play
Triple play service providers (cable TV, Internet, VOIP) face unique revenue assurance challenges. The speakers will discuss the challenges, and the automated and enhanced RA controls that Cablevision Mexico, Mexico's largest digital cable company, implemented to address them.
Paul O'Malley, Sales Manager, WeDo Technologies
Federico Juarez Valdez, CIO, Cablevision Mexico
Session B
Recording Verification Workshop
Call through testing for verifying recording, billing, features and restrictions is one of the most basic yet fundamental procedures of any revenue assurance program. In this workshop, the leader will show you how to: create a controlled environment for switch testing; verify basic switch recording; verify account restrictions; and build confidence in your switch to bill processes
Glenn Ross, Director of Revenue Recovery Services, The Board Room
11:40-12:30 Session A
Leveraging a Billing System Implementation to Increase the Maturity of the Revenue Assurance Function
NII Holdings, a mobile communication services provider that operates in Latin America under the Nextel brand name, is in the process of upgrading its billing and OSS system throughout the five countries it operates in. The speakers will discuss how this upgrade has provided NII with a unique opportunity to increase the maturity of its RA practices by developing a common Revenue Assurance controls framework based on the implementation of RA industry standards and to strike a fine balance between reactive, active and proactive controls.
Angel Lopez, Revenue Assurance and Fraud Prevention Director, NII Holdings
Roberto Fernandez, Manager, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Luis Felipe Segura, Manager, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Session B
Detail Level Usage Analytics – The Missing Link for True 360 Degree Switch-to-Bill Lifecycle Visibility
One of the biggest challenges facing today's revenue assurance and cost management solutions is the ability to sift through the massive quantities of detailed Customer and Network Usage Data to be able to provide true root-cause analysis of revenue leakage and cost discrepancies. Most revenue assurance and cost management solutions today primarily focus on the first 30 days of usage data and use sampling techniques to be able to pick out the most glaring issues. This session will focus on the results that are possible using granular detail-level analytics on several months of historic usage data to provide true root cause analysis by providing a clear 360 degree view of the lifecycle of each customer transaction.
John Gillespie, VP and GM, Global Telecommunications, Netezza Corporation