Challenge

TMNG Global was engaged by the billing services organization of a major wireless provider to examine how their internal customers’ business processes interact with the systems they manage.  The project’s objective was to identify revenue leakage opportunities and cost improvement and operational efficiency opportunities.  The “Customer Billing End-to-End” project encompassed all business and operational aspects of customer account management and billing services, including order entry, credit management, provisioning/fulfillment, usage collection and management, invoicing, payments and collection management.

TMNG Global Solution

TMNG Global designed the project as a comprehensive evaluation of all existing core processes that impacted revenue and documented revenue-affecting processes, beginning with sales order entry and finishing with the management of payment postings.

The TMNG Global team began the Discovery Phase by interviewing all key business users of the billing services managed systems and performed an evaluation of the client’s systems, processes and controls from the time an order is placed through the time cash is collected.   As part of this effort, the organization’s internal customers were also queried on how billing services could improve its billing process and systems performance to its customers.  Internal departments interviewed included Sales, Marketing, Engineering and Operations, Customer Care, Finance, Field Operations, IT and Strategic Planning.

The team utilized the TMNG proprietary Quality Business Controls™ (QBC™) toolset to identify the targets of opportunity:

• QBC Process Analysis Methodology™
• QBC Opportunity Prioritization Methodology™
• QBC Process Efficiency Metrics™
• QBC Statistical Process Control Tools
• QBC Deming Workbench Templates
• QBC Business Process Templates™
• QBC Methods and Procedures Templates™
• QBC Reporting Templates™
• QBC Organization Design and Position Description Templates™

We then revised existing process analysis diagrams and created new core process flows as required to accurately reflect the “as is” environment. The team identified revenue leakage areas and quantified them to determine their severity and compared actual performance with key metrics / indicators and developed plans to close the gap. The team identified opportunities for improvement and created new processes and control points to ensure Irreversible Corrective Action (ICA). The final part of the project involved the development of a high level design for the client’s Revenue Assurance organization.

The project deliverables included: 1) prioritized, actionable initiatives that could be executed to recover revenue, reduce expenses and introduce operational efficiencies in both systems and business processes; 2) anticipated financial benefit of each initiative; and 3) a high-level project plan for each initiative accepted initiative. 

Lessons Learned

• All business process and systems owner input must be solicited to ensure that single process or systems components are not sub-optimized to the extent that the entire end to end process quality and efficiency could be compromised.
• Business process and systems owners highly desire quality and cost efficiency in software quality in addition to time to market.
• Outsourcing of IT development can lead to gaps in users’ understanding of systems functionality.

Benefits to the Client

During the initial assessment phase, TMNG found more than $6 million in revenue leaks and assisted the client in their resolution. Within six months of the completion of Phase I, the client had realized savings of over $5 million. Ongoing process optimization efforts have increased the realized savings to over $6 million.