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 April 2004, 2nd Edition, quarterly edition |
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A talk with Alexandre Grizagoridis, Revenue Assurance General Manager from Oi, Brazil |
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WDC - What is the mission of Oi’s Revenue Assurance team?
AG - Revenue Assurance has the mission to prevent, identify and fix any revenue leakages within Oi’s environment.
WDC - What’s the importance of Revenue Assurance initiatives for an operator such as Oi? Which are the critical issues to be addressed?
AG - For any start-up company such as Oi, the main drivers are always market and sales. Matters such as revenue assurance would usually be left aside. However, having systems, processes and also staff taking care of revenue assurance since day one will prevent significant losses of gross revenue. The main critical issues that should be addressed are:
- Credit and Collections
- Fraud Management
- Systems Integrity
- Monitoring of Revenue flow
- Billing and Interconnections integrity
- Customer Acquisition
WDC – Which are the critical factors that explain the success of Revenue Assurance team at Oi?
AG - I would say that one of the most important success factors for Revenue Assurance at Oi, besides top management support, was the implementation, since the first day of operations, of the required processes, systems and staff to prevent and act upon potential revenue losses. You have to realize that before deciding upon which direction to take, coming to an understanding with top management about what should be the role and responsibility of Revenue Assurance within the company will give you the key driver.
WDC - What was the contribution of WeDo Consulting for that success?
AG - WeDo Consulting brought us a lot of knowledge in Telecommunications Revenue Assurance best practices. Its experience and RAID- Revenue Assurance Integrity Driller tool, coupled with our commitment, was a critical factor for success.
WDC - How do you feel about the future of Revenue Assurance? Where do you believe it is going to evolve?
AG – You can hear different new concepts such as “Revenue Maximization”, “Revenue Intelligence”, but wherever the concept evolves to, it always will have an important role in Telecom companies. I am sure that in the next couple of years this concept will be more frequently seen in other markets such as Finance, Oil, etc…
WDC - Do you have any particular interesting story or experience that you would like to share with us regarding Revenue Assurance?
AG – I remember an interesting story, which I heard many years ago from an old boss in a different company. “ I don’t know what Revenue Assurance means, but I am sure that you will not have any work here. As a start-up company we have the possibility to make all things right, so we’ll do it.” Several years later I met him again and these were his words “I wish I believed in you the first time you told me, we sure would have saved a lot of money”. So I would say, do it and do it quickly.
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