This video features Santhosh Laxmana, who describes himself as an Adjunct Professor at the Aegis School of Business. But how does somebody become a professor of revenue assurance?
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), a global association of professionals working in risk management and business assurance for communications providers.
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. He is a qualified chartered accountant, with degrees in information systems, and in mathematics and philosophy.
STEP 1: Methinks you first study for a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Billing Assurance – That makes you BABA. A Certified Revenue Assurance Professional (CRAP) designation from GRAPA is also advisable in case you want to be part of the elite in RA academia. STEP 2: Having achieved the above, you then study for a Masters Degree in any of the following specializations (Interconnection, Roaming, HLRtoBill Reconciliations, GSM Fraud in Nigeria….or any other topic that Rob Mattison of GRAPA decrees a requisite course). GRAPA uses a highly advanced formula which takes into consideration course fees, how exotic the training venue is on a scale of 1 to 10, the intensity of the easterly winds, temperature of an average-weight polar bear, the number of white-bellied planes taking off from Heathrow per unit time and the number of people who would most likely be interested in having the title of Master prefixing their names. Trust me, I can go into details of how that curriculum is arrived at but that would earn me a PhD…which I will describe shortly. STEP 3: To get a PhD in Revenue Assurance, you really don’t have to do what Guerra Romo is doing (methodical research grounded in a conceptual framework, testing hypotheses, review of literature etc)….oh no, who does that anymore? Such rigor is so old-fashioned and why would anybody want to spend years doing what you can do in a tick. You need to present a few flashy power-point slides at a number of conferences, make sure at least two RA vendors have you in their good books and basically strut off with a PhD. STEP 4: Now to become a professor in Revenue Assurance…ah, the good part. You need to polish your conversational English. If you are male, learn to speak in a deep baritone voice, get horn-rimmed glasses and cultivate at least one eccentric behavior (like whooping when you see something that looks like a CDR, insisting that the pizza delivery boy prove that the circumference of the pizza meets the standards of a large/medium pizza and punctuating every four sentences with “best practice dictates…”. If you are a lady, you need to make sure that you dress in old T-shirts preferably labeled “AT&T installation crew” or orange overalls emblazoned “US County Jail”. Lastly, to be a professor, you must post a few videos to YouTube. Yippee….Much more efficient than Guerra having to defend her work in front of a panel of professors and hey, it reaches many people.
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To be a Professor or not to be, eh?
STEP 1: Methinks you first study for a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Billing Assurance – That makes you BABA. A Certified Revenue Assurance Professional (CRAP) designation from GRAPA is also advisable in case you want to be part of the elite in RA academia.
STEP 2: Having achieved the above, you then study for a Masters Degree in any of the following specializations (Interconnection, Roaming, HLRtoBill Reconciliations, GSM Fraud in Nigeria….or any other topic that Rob Mattison of GRAPA decrees a requisite course). GRAPA uses a highly advanced formula which takes into consideration course fees, how exotic the training venue is on a scale of 1 to 10, the intensity of the easterly winds, temperature of an average-weight polar bear, the number of white-bellied planes taking off from Heathrow per unit time and the number of people who would most likely be interested in having the title of Master prefixing their names. Trust me, I can go into details of how that curriculum is arrived at but that would earn me a PhD…which I will describe shortly.
STEP 3: To get a PhD in Revenue Assurance, you really don’t have to do what Guerra Romo is doing (methodical research grounded in a conceptual framework, testing hypotheses, review of literature etc)….oh no, who does that anymore? Such rigor is so old-fashioned and why would anybody want to spend years doing what you can do in a tick. You need to present a few flashy power-point slides at a number of conferences, make sure at least two RA vendors have you in their good books and basically strut off with a PhD.
STEP 4: Now to become a professor in Revenue Assurance…ah, the good part. You need to polish your conversational English. If you are male, learn to speak in a deep baritone voice, get horn-rimmed glasses and cultivate at least one eccentric behavior (like whooping when you see something that looks like a CDR, insisting that the pizza delivery boy prove that the circumference of the pizza meets the standards of a large/medium pizza and punctuating every four sentences with “best practice dictates…”. If you are a lady, you need to make sure that you dress in old T-shirts preferably labeled “AT&T installation crew” or orange overalls emblazoned “US County Jail”. Lastly, to be a professor, you must post a few videos to YouTube. Yippee….Much more efficient than Guerra having to defend her work in front of a panel of professors and hey, it reaches many people.
Thanks Joe, I needed this :-D
I sent email to Aegis to request more detail on the Revenue Assurance module offered but have not received anything. Makes one wonder….