Revenue share should be pretty simple, really. You sell something, you take a percentage of the money made, and you give that percentage to somebody else. Problems occur if you cannot keep a track of what you sold. A few weeks ago I blogged about how Vodafone UK had failed to process SMS text message votes for an interactive tv show on a timely basis, and how that would also have an impact on revenue sharing partners. This weekend there was a news story that Vodafone UK has admitted to problems with reporting of revenue share. Stories like that tend should cause concern for any business in a revenue share relationship with Vodafone. The resources Vodafone employs to assure revenue share will be stretched even further by the challenges involved in assuring the new advertising and search deals that Vodafone has with both Yahoo and Google. They say good relationships are based on trust, and bad ones on vigilance. If Vodafone are unable to keep track of what they owe, their business partners would be well advised to stop trusting and start auditing.
Vodafone UK Admits to Revenue Share Errors
