Paul trained as an engineer but has spent his working life in Corporate Sales. Financial services, Facilities Management and for the last 13 years mobile telecommunications are the fields where Paul has worked on both a national and international level. Paul has spent many years identifying billing errors in large corporate mobile phone bills and used this experience to move into the Revenue Assurance field where he helps network operators to identify issues in their billing systems. The concept of externally validating a billing system using independent test calls has not yet been adopted by 100% of network operators so there is plenty of work to do.
- Why did you decide to do a webinar with Business Review Webinars?
Most of the networks we speak to about Revenue Assurance are already SIGOS customers. We wanted to reach out and speak to networks who perhaps had not worked with SIGOS previously. Also there are many networks where we have relationships with the Network Quality Teams but may have no connection with the Finance and Revenue Assurance Teams. The webinar is a great opportunity to engage with new teams inside our existing customers.
- How did you get into the industry?
I have worked in Telecoms for 14 years. Initially I was responsible for looking after corporate and Global accounts. The key to building long term productive relationships with these accounts was to pay attention to the details. So one of the tasks I focused on was to analyze my accounts mobile phone bills each month and investigate any queries or incorrect charges from the network. This gave me a decade of billing experience both from a customer’s point of view and also from the networks perspective. It was an easy progression from there into the world of Revenue Assurance and helping networks to identify errors before they become a problem for their customers.
- What do you most enjoy about your role?
I help networks all around the world in many different countries. I enjoy the different priorities and cultural differences. Things which some cultures hold very dear are unimportant for other cultures who are more concerned with other aspects. Building relationships with people from so many different countries is very interesting and rewarding. It is also quite easy because my role is to help them to save money and most people will like you if you can save them money.
4. What would you take with you to a desert island?
My desert island would have a race track, so I would take my bike.
5. What motivates you?
I have a genuine belief that every network should be using active testing to externally validate their billing processes. If I were a CFO I could not contemplate having no independent means of checking that the revenue I am responsible for is being billed correctly. And yet there are more networks who don’t use active RA testing than those who do. There are many reasons for this including the belief by many CFO’s that their expensive RA system which tracks all of the CDRs through the billing process is managing the risks for them. This is a case of not fully understanding the processes and differences between active testing and passive testing. I feel like an evangelist who has a role to explain the need for active RA testing to the 50% + networks who do not use it. That is over 400 networks. I have spoken to 40 networks this year so I have a lot of work left to do and this keeps me very motivated.