BAssured Solutions
Operational & Rating Reference Data Assurance
Proactively assuring the accuracy and completeness of essential reference data across Network, OSS and BSS technology platforms and all business processes to ensure quality of service, accurate billing and charging, and optimum profitability.
Bad Reference Data = Revenue Leakage + Poor Customer Experience A formulae that is becoming increasingly apparent to Communications Service Providers (CSPs) globally as the complexity of rate-plans, service bundles and products increases, and the need for rapid development and launch of new and competitive offers becomes essential. Accurate billing, charging and service enablement critically relies on building and maintaining accurate reference data; a process that all-too-often fails for various reasons, with human error, process failure or technology issues at the core. The unique Operational & Rating Reference Data Assurance (ORRDA) solution and Managed Service from AssuringBusiness provides the mechanism to continuously assure operational and rating reference data - the business DNA. ORRDA reduces revenue leakage before impact, speeds up the time to market of new offers and eliminates data redundancy.
The Common Challenges
Reference data is not only complex in nature, but is also modelled and built in entirely different ways in each technology platform, and in each CSPs implementation of these platforms. Anywhere from 20 to 200+ tables may be used to store reference data so the administration of a product launch, and maintaining integrity and consistency of the data throughout its lifecycle across the Network/OSS/ BSS topology, can be very challenging.
Unnecessary Customer Services Costs? An audit of one major operators customer complaints over a 6-month period showed that 70% were related to reference data issues affecting the accuracy of charging and billing. And given that most customers would not complain if they were undercharged, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
What is Reference Data?
Reference data includes:
The key challenges and opportunities addressed by BAssured ORRDA include:
Assuring the accuracy of charging/billing Reducing under-charging/revenue leakage Reducing over-charging/negative customer
experience
Dialled digits that make up destination charging
zones or bands, or connectivity mapping
Service connectivity and rating tree structures
and business rules, e.g. in IN platforms
Retail and cost rates at which calls, events,
services and subscriptions are charged
Maintaining high-integrity and low redundancy
data across technology platforms & processes
Location data affecting rate selection Time periods that vary charging or discount
eligibility
Product-level margin and pricing analysis Enabling regulatory reporting of related product
and service data (offers, plans etc.)
Customer offers and bundles; their inclusive
components and compatibilities
Consistency in key data for communication with
customers and business partners BAssured ORRDA combines tools and process to prevent, detect and correct business-critical issues to proactively improve profitability, speed to market and customer experience. 1
Nature/applicability of promotions and bonuses
...basically all data that ensures a useable, chargeable and profitable product or service.
Business Assurance | Revenue Assurance | Fraud Management | Receivables Management | Security | Business Optimisation
BAssured Solutions
The BAssured ORRDA Solution
ORRDA is a software platform used to control and store golden -copy reference data, overcoming the common complexity and assurance challenges faced by most CSPs. Data is captured, validated and then used to: 1. Maintain Master data centrally and in relevant technology components acting as a single-point -of-control and update to ensure integrity and consistency across multiple platforms. Having pre-defined interfaces to relevant infrastructure components enables rapid roll-out of consistent data, improving time to product/offer launch and reducing errors in operational deployment. 2. Transform system-configureddata into human-readable and searchable formats resulting in accurate and accessible information for customers, partners and staff who need to know, delivered through browser based interfaces (e.g. the company web-site or Intranet) or reports as required (e.g. Regulatory Submissions). 3. Audit technology platforms against the goldencopy reference data. Audits can be on-request or automated, scheduled activities. ORRDA modules include: 1. iPC: Interactive Product Catalogue. The heart of the solution is a structured iPC that stores current, historic and future reference data in readable and searchable formats. iPC not only stores the golden-copy data but also enables tracking of offers and plans to validity periods and is used for various reporting needs, e.g. Revenue Assurance and Regulatory Affairs. 4. Data-Visualisation: a powerful method of allowing people to access and understand complex information as it is implemented within one or more technology components, decoding the complex platform-specific data structures. 5. Audit: discover and eliminate service enablement, billing and charging errors by comparing the reference data of any Network/ OSS/BSS component to that stored in iPC. Caters for ad-hoc or scheduled (automated) audits. 6. Process-Controller: This module enforces the required degree of control over the referencedata as it is being developed, deployed and changed. Hard-process (forcing dataentry and validation through a single point) or soft-process (more flexible process using ORRDA as an offline validation and audit tool) configurations may be deployed to suit the specific needs of the CSP. Process actors may include Product and Pricing Managers, Network/OSS/ BSS data and technical support specialists, Revenue Assurance, Audit, Regulatory Affairs etc. 7. Case Manager: The ORRDA Case & Workflow Manager enables tracking of anomaly investigations and corrective actions to successful conclusion, and may include any of the process actors. ORRDA may also be integrated to an existing Trouble Ticket solution if required. The implementation process for ORRDA usually discovers and corrects many reference data issues on target platforms and processes before go-live. ROI is therefore extremely rapid. Available as a Licensed Implementation, Managed Service or BAudit service. Complete the contact form on our web-site or E-mail us at [email protected] to discuss how ORRDA will help increase your top-line revenues and pr of itability, im prove competitiveness, enhance operational efficiency and strengthen customer experience. 2
2. Margin-Analyser: comparison of new and old
data for pricing validation, competitive analysis. margin and
3. Change-Tracker: full visibility of the changes
that are made to operational and rating reference data held within various technology components. Unauthorised or incorrect changes can be spotted and corrected.
