A History of RA, Part 1

Play

This May I was asked back to WeDo’s Worldwide User Group (WWUG) event, held at a beautiful resort near Óbidos, Portugal. WWUG is now legendary in the industry, thanks to impeccable organization and top-notch hospitality. Honestly, the quality of WWUG makes me wonder why anyone still bothers going to a mainstream RA conference. But not being a WeDo customer, there was a catch – to be allowed to come, I would have to share some of my opinions with the WWUG audience. Some catch! There are other firms who would fly me to a luxury beach hotel just to stop me talking to their customers.

My fellow panelists were a distinguished bunch…

  • The one and only Tony Poulos was chairman of the panel. B/OSS World recognized Tony as one of the 25 most influential people in telecoms software.
  • Inviting Andrew Doyle surely proves that WeDo hold no grudges. Andrew spent a decade competing against WeDo, holding senior roles at some of their biggest rivals: Connexn, Lavastorm and Connectiva. Since 2010, Andrew has been VP Sales at Telepo.
  • Last but not least, Simon Collins is the General Manager of Praesidium, a business that WeDo acquired in 2007 and have turned into their consulting division. Over a period of 15 years, Simon has helped Praesidium to establish an enviable reputation as deeply knowledgeable specialists in business assurance.

When we got up on stage, somebody in the crowd commented on the combined age of the panel. How rude! But seriously, the panel had a lot of experience from a lot of different perspectives – consultant, vendor and telco management. So Tony decided the perfect topic of conversation would be a review of the history of revenue assurance, fraud management, and what we now call business assurance. And there was plenty to say on the subject! I am happy to say that my fellow guests all gave their permission to share the recording of their conversation. In fact, there was so much to say on the history of RA, that I have had to split the discussion into two parts. Part 1 is available now; you can download the mp3 file for this podcast from here or listen to it through the browser player. Part 2 will be available from talkRA next week. And if you never want to worry about missing the talkRA podcast, you can also subscribe to it for free, via the iTunes store.

Eric Priezkalns
Eric Priezkalnshttp://revenueprotect.com

Eric is the Editor of Commsrisk. Look here for more about the history of Commsrisk and the role played by Eric.

Eric is also the Chief Executive of the Risk & Assurance Group (RAG), an association of professionals working in risk management and business assurance for communications providers. RAG was founded in 2003 and Eric was appointed CEO in 2016.

Previously Eric was Director of Risk Management for Qatar Telecom and he has worked with Cable & Wireless, T‑Mobile, Sky, Worldcom and other telcos. He was lead author of Revenue Assurance: Expert Opinions for Communications Providers, published by CRC Press.

Related Articles

1 COMMENT

  1. talkRA fans,

    Heard this panel when I attended the WeDo conference in Portugal. And I’m fired up to listen to it again — it’s that good.

    The four veteran panelists play off each other very well. Each of them is so clear and articulate that there are tremendous insights to be gained. On the face of it, the title, “History of Revenue Assurance”, sounds rather bland. But something about the chemistry of these guys make this unstructured chat about how RA evolved into a very forward-looking session. It’s also great for learning how telecom-savvy problem solvers dissect assurance issues.

    Thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining at the same time. Don’t miss this one!

Comments are closed.

Get Our Weekly Newsletter by Email