For some telecom operators, working with a third-party risk management supplier can be simply a way to ensure compliance with the company’s corporate governance policies.
Like a system of checks and balances between many stakeholders, a good relationship with an external partner, just like an independent auditor, will ensure that the right controls are in place to meet internal and external reporting requirements.
For others, working with a third-party risk management supplier can be far more existential, in that it’s a way to ringfence the company against real and daily fraud threats, or other immediate challenges to the financial integrity of the business itself.
As a revenue assurance community, the focus is always on greater efficiency: seeking ways to detect and prevent revenue leakages, to ensure accurate billing, and to optimise revenue streams more quickly and more cost-effectively.
As a community we are increasingly turning to analytics and AI technologies to analyse large volumes of data. This includes RPA (robotic process automation), which is also key to making revenue assurance processes more accurate and scalable when it comes to handling bigger volumes of more complex data.
Though the fundamentals of revenue assurance have not changed – it still involves monitoring and validating billing processes, ensuring accurate revenue recognition, and managing complex pricing structures – the advent of 5G networks and the growing adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, have made the revenue assurance domain increasingly vast.
Telecom companies must be able to adapt quickly to change, and to develop strategies to mitigate the risks associated with uncertainty.
Irrespective of the reasons for electing to work with a third-party supplier, managing uncertainty is here to stay, and we’re all in it together.