ENDING revenue leakages

By Joseph Nderitu 28 Feb 2012

Lebara Mobile has chosen Aricent Group for Revenue Assurance in 7 countries and therefore a press release was quite in order. The last line in the first paragraph reads:

The multi-country solution has ended revenue leakage and reduced operating expenditure through a more agile and responsive IT infrastructure.

I must have missed the memo. We have advanced to the level of ending revenue leakages! And this is not just a possibility – it has already happened.

I just imagined myself as RA manager having this conversation with my CFO.

Me (leaning forward): Sir,I am committing my efforts to eliminating revenue leakage.

CFO: Oh, you don’t say!

Me: Totally abolish it. I will leave no stone unturned. I mean, no CDR unaccounted for.

CFO: By when?

Me: End of current financial year.

CFO: You do realize we are in Feb and our financial year ends on 31st Mar?

Me: I am well aware. That’s why we just upgraded our RA tool.

CFO: My prayers are with you.

Me: Thanks. What’s that list that you are scrutinizing?

CFO: It’s just a list of people we wish to get rid of.

Me: We are downsizing?

CFO: No, we are just getting rid of bull-shitters and peddlers of hog-wash.

Me: Looks like it has 39 people. Those idiots are that many?

CFO: You have no idea. I will shortly add the 40th person as soon as you close the door behind you.

Me: If we can eliminate revenue leakages and also get rid of those 40 pests, this company will be on its way to the big league.

CFO: It sure will.

Me: OK. See you later

CFO: Don’t count on it.

I exit the office wondering what he meant by that last statement. But I cant be bothered. I am going to eliminate revenue leakage.

Joseph Nderitu

Joseph Nderitu is a director at Integrated Risk Services Ltd and specializes in revenue assurance. He previously worked as Head of Revenue Assurance and Fraud Management at Vodacom's operation in Tanzania, having previously served in the same role at Vodacom Mozambique.

Before his work with Vodacom, Joseph was an internal audit manager for Airtel, with responsibility that covered their 17 countries in Africa. Whilst at Airtel, Joseph led reviews of the Revenue Assurance, Customer Service and Sales & Marketing functions.

Prior to his stint at Airtel, Joseph was an RA manager at Safaricom in Kenya. He holds an MSc Degree in Information Systems.

3 Comments on "ENDING revenue leakages"

Matt | 3 Mar 2012 at 7:12 pm |
That is hilarious! I think I have met this guy on more than one occasion.
Ashwin Menon | 5 Mar 2012 at 4:52 am |
Joseph,
I was laughing my head off reading this piece. I loved the bit about “Don’t count on it”…
I love reading bits like this on a site dedicated to an otherwise humor-free domain. Reminds me that those of us who work in RA can have our moments too.
Joseph Nderitu | 5 Mar 2012 at 7:50 am |
@Matt
It is possible we have met. Cool site you are running there. Will definitely be checking out the stuff you have at flexbandit.
@Ashwin
Thanks for the kind words. I think RA should be fun. I surely hope the situation in that post does not happen to somebody though.