On the eve of the WeDo Worldwide User Group event, one of the highlights of the telecoms assurance calendar, WeDo has signalled their intention to accelerate sales outside of the telecoms sector by launching a new channel partner program. Per their press release, WeDo seeks partnerships with mid-sized companies with existing customers/references in the retail, energy, healthcare or finance industries. Partners will be offered exclusive distribution agreements for a defined territory, industry and timeframe.
CEO Rui Paiva is quoted as saying WeDo will initially focus on finding partners in the USA, Russia, UAE, Turkey, Germany, UK, South Africa and Australia, but that the list will expand over time. He also said:
WeDo has defined a clear strategic goal to become a truly multi-industry software vendor by 2020.
One small but important observation relates to how WeDo describe themselves in the press release. The firm has adopted the phrase ‘enterprise business assurance’ to name their umbrella of controls functionality. This umbrella includes both revenue assurance and fraud management. However, this latest press release begins by describing WeDo as leaders in enterprise business assurance and fraud management. This suggests that fraud management will be especially important to driving sales outside of telcos.
When dealing with people who have no experience of the telecoms sector, it is likely that WeDo will face some challenges when explaining what business assurance is. Early practitioners of telco revenue assurance will remember that they had similar problems. There is an uphill struggle in explaining the purpose of controls that lack a common name and which have only been implemented in a small minority of businesses. In contrast, the concept of fraud management is immediate and intuitive. Every kind of business will face the risk of being exploited by cheats and criminals, and it is easy for people to understand how mitigating this risk will lead to financial benefits. WeDo is right to reach out to partners, who will each speak the native ‘language’ of their sector. However, this will also increase the pressure on WeDo to present themselves as suppliers of a single, coherent, compelling proposition whose relevance does not diminish as it crosses industry boundaries.
