Revenue assurance continues to be a priority for operators in the telecommunications space and beyond.
Eliminating revenue risk and reducing revenue losses through appropriate assurance measures is critical to ensure sustainable financial performance for any business. In an increasingly competitive and disruptive business environment, this not only ensures ongoing profitability but is a vital component of remaining competitive.
These revenue assurance solutions increasingly fall under the umbrella of wider business assurance solutions like those provided by Neural Technologies, offering advanced revenue protection against avoidable leakage and business losses.
With the growing focus on these solutions in the industry, the Revenue and Assurance Group (RAG) has compiled its Leakage Coverage Survey 2021, highlighting the five key risk areas of revenue assurance that companies should focus on.
- Rating assurance
Rating assurance is now the number one risk area identified by telecom operators, replacing billing assurance as the key priority to reduce revenue leakage since a previous survey undertaken in 2019. The RAG RAFMCS Survey 2021 indicates that rating and tariff errors combined cost telecom operators USD5.03 billion annually.
While the priority of rating assurance has increased, operators indicated that they have relatively good cover in this area, with almost 70% of respondents to the RAG survey noting they had very good or good leakage coverage. This still leaves significant room for improvement in order to reduce revenue losses.
- Charging assurance
Charging assurance is the second-highest risk area identified for revenue leakage, echoing its place in the earlier 2019 revenue leakage survey undertaken by RAG, and making it a clear focus for communication service providers (CSPs).
Charging is becoming increasingly complex in the current landscape, leading to growing adoption of sophisticated solutions with dynamic and multilevel tariff offerings such as Neural Technologies’ own Charging-as-a-Service (CAAS) solution. Billing and collection errors cost operators USD4.48bil according to RAG’s RAFMCS Survey 2021.
- Billing assurance
Billing assurance has dropped three places in the list since the 2019 survey, and is now the third-highest priority for respondents. Billing and collection errors cost CSPs USD4.48 billion annually according to the RAG RAFMCS Survey 2021.
This could indicate that businesses are increasingly focused on tackling revenue leakage, and that the previous priority for billing assurance has seen growing adoption of solutions. Once again, more than 70% of respondents indicated they had very good or good coverage for billing assurance.
- Usage assurance
Usage assurance takes fourth spot on the priorities list for operators, indicating another key area of focus. The RAFMCS 2021 survey indicates that usage errors cost operators USD4.09 billion annually.
While broadly speaking respondents indicated good leakage coverage in this area, it’s also one of the top five priorities with less robust cover, with over 20% of respondents rating their leakage coverage poor, very poor, or none.
- Tariff assurance
Tariff assurance rounds out our top five priorities list, demonstrating the critical importance of appropriate revenue assurance systems across the end-to-end operational landscape. Rating and tariff errors cost USD5.03 billion in 2021 according to the RAFMCS survey.
With operators potentially suffering significant fines from regulators for tariff errors, as well as facing the prospect of lost customer revenue in a competitive marketplace, tariff assurance is clearly a key risk area for CSPs to address.
Effective solutions in an evolving landscape
Revenue assurance solutions are an essential part of an optimized business system for organizations in the telecommunications space and beyond. They not only reduce the risk of revenue leakage through inefficient operations, but also ensure regulatory compliance that can lead to millions of dollars of savings in avoided fines.
There have been significant revenue losses to CSPs for poor operational practice in recent years, including USD14mil fine for UK operator O2 for overcharging and billing errors and USD33mil fine for Italian operator TIM for inaccurate and unclear data processing and usage. This is just a small sample of the revenue impact of poor data management and operational systems.
Neural Technologies’ advanced machine learning solutions are designed to provide revenue assurance protection that adapts to this changing landscape, providing both clear oversight and a flexible solution that can evolve with changing market conditions. The automated functionality means continuous process monitoring that allows users to quickly identify and eliminate revenue risks.
Revenue assurance will continue to be a key priority for operators in the years ahead, facing the growing pressures of a competitive and high-volume data landscape.
Get in touch to find out more about revenue assurance at Neural Technologies
