I’ve talked previously about Revenue Management, especially in relation to “operational responsibility” and how it tends to be a return to the BOM (Billing Operations Manager) model.
But I recognize that there are many many perspectives on Revenue Management, and I wanted to look at another aspect of it that has to do with it becoming a centralized point of reporting and responsibility within the telco.
I don’t know how many of you remember the original Transformers The Movie – the animated one, not the recent Michael Bay movies. But in that movie, there was a giant planet that ate other planets, called Unicron.
(And if there are any film geeks out there, you should know that planet was voiced by Orson Welles, the guy who directed Citizen Kane –it was the last role he played before he passed away.)
Anyway, the reason I bring it up, is because when I listen to some people talk about Revenue Management, that’s what I picture in my head – a giant planet that eats everything in its path.
Revenue Management, Smash!
Because what these people talk about is all the things (on top of what they call “Revenue Assurance”) that are part of Revenue Management, and that have to be included in Revenue Management. It’s as if they want Revenue Management to take over the entire telco, devouring it!
They talk about adding in “finance, network life-cycle, CRM, supply chain, ordering/provisioning,” and more and more stuff down to “regulatory compliance, revenue recognition and audit compliance with IFRS/SOX etc.”
And if you know me, I’m all for Revenue Assurance expanding its scope into more areas, like designing new revenue models, optimizing margins on lines of business/assets, implementing finance controls on marketing etc. But at a certain point with what I read, it stops being realistic, and my mind goes back to the giant devouring planet.
“Taking Over the Telco” and “Operational Responsibility”
But I think what’s at the base of all this is something these people don’t always talk about. The reason why they think Revenue Management can “take over the telco” is that they view the function as mainly a monitoring and reporting function.
What they’re talking about still has aspects of “operational responsibility,” in that by monitoring every aspect of the revenue chain, they may often be held responsible for the revenue generating aspects of all the departments they monitor.
Regardless, I’m going to focus on the monitoring and reporting aspect, since I’ve talked about “operational responsibility” enough for the time being.
Who Monitors the Controls?
When we talk about Revenue Assurance, I always talk about how operational departments (billing, mediation, interconnect, network) need to remain responsible for their own domain.
This meant that while Revenue Assurance could design controls for them that help control revenue risk, the operational departments would still be responsible for monitoring the controls. After all, they are responsible for their own department, not Revenue Assurance.
Revenue Management sees it the other way – that operational departments should not monitor their own controls, and that should be done by the Revenue Management team.
And this is certainly a legitimate way of looking at things. Especially if you understand that most Revenue departments are never going to be “pure” Revenue Assurance or Revenue Management, but an optimized mixture of the two depending on their specific situation.
Can I Monitor Every Control Everywhere?
So this aspect of Revenue Management I can actually accept and get on board with – especially if the specific environment of the telco demands it. Someone has to monitor the controls, and if it’s better, easier and cheaper for Revenue Management to do it rather than the operational departments, who am I to say differently?
If this means Revenue Management ends up having to take on responsibility for these departments when it comes to revenue, that’s fine too.
The problem is that I don’t think you can usefully and practically monitor any and every aspect of telco operations just because your primary function is monitoring and reporting, whether it has to do with revenue or not.
This is Not a “Fat” Joke
Maybe you can, and I’m just not thinking big enough, but I’m happy with Revenue Assurance and Revenue Management the way they are, and with the idea of them expanding scope in ways that are practical, useful, and clearly deliver value to the organization.
I don’t need to be a giant planet that eats everything in its path.
You might even say that’s why I LOVE Revenue Management just as much as I LOVE Revenue Assurance.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment