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Frens Jan Rumph
Profile: I am a researcher, technical consultant and software engineer based in Holland. I have specialized in Charging, Accounting and Billing architectures. From both a technical point of view (IETF, 3GPP, etc) and a business point of view (TM Forum, GBA).
Main interests: Telecom, Charging, Accounting, Billing, Service Orientation, Software Architectures, Software Engineering
Disclaimer: All data and information provided on this site is for informational purposes only.
I do not make any representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis.
Furthermore, this is a personal weblog, the opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer.
BIMS 2008 World BSS Awards
The BIMS 2008 World BSS Awards were announced Tuesday 10th of June, and are as follows:
Overall – Best Contribution to BSS
2008: LHS
2007: Amdocs & Orga Systems
2006: LHS
Judges’ Award: ‘Above And Beyond The Call Of Duty’
2008: Nawras
2007: BSNL
Innovation In Billing & Information Management
2008: Highdeal
2007: Progress Software
2006: Highdeal
Best Billing / Charging Implementation
2008: NTT DoCoMo
2007: Vodafone UK /Flexphone
2006: BT Mobile / Martin Dawes Systems
Best Content / Partner Management Implementation
2008: No nominations carried forward
2007: Interia PDTM / Comarch
2006: MTN South Africa and Echostar / MetraTech (Co-Winners)
Best e/m-Commerce / Payments / Collections Implementation
2008: Maxis/paybox & Garanti Bank
Best Revenue Assurance / Management Project
2008: BT / cVidya
2007: BT
2006: Allround/Magyar Telekom
Best Customer Management / Business Intelligence / Marketing Project
2008: No nominations carried forward
2007: Mobilink
2006 -Thuraya Satellite Telecommunications
This years Judges:
Anil Prakash – President, Telecom Users Group of India
Barbara Lancaster – President, LTC International
Chris Sanders – Partner, Business Change Partners
Hugh Roberts (Chair) – Consultant Director, BSS/OSS RM Events, IIR Telecoms &
Senior Strategist – Patni Telecoms Consulting
Olga Botero – CIO, Bancolombia
Peter Smith – Director of Information Technology, Hong Kong CSL
Teresa Cottam – Principal Telecoms Analyst, Analysys
Frens Jan Rumph
Customer Billing Satisfaction Linked to Churn
An article on billingworld.com was published yesterday, by Khali Henderson:
As always: Customer is King! These results are again an indication that Charging and Billing present opportunities for improvement.
Customer Billing Satisfaction Linked to Churn, TM Forum Study Shows
Customer satisfaction with telecom billing systems, especially for mobile services, is a key to customer loss rates, according to the results of the latest TM Forum Business Benchmarking study, released this week at Management World 2008 World in Nice, France.
The telco benchmarking data show a large gap between the top and average billing inquiry rates among service providers. Average performers logged 16.21 percent of inquiries as billing-related while leading companies reported billing inquiries at 1 percent of all inquiries. Significantly, good performers in this area show lower customer loss rates with less effective performers showing high loss rates.
“Since the largest cause of customer services calls for mobile subscribers is for billing- related issues, investments in streamlined billing plans and multiple-play plans can generate a good rate of return,” the report noted.
The study, “Building on Success: Investment Opportunities in Changing Times,” was produced for TM Forum by OSS Observer and included input from more than 40 communications service providers from Central and Western Europe, Asia-Pacific, North and Latin America. The poll has been conducted each spring and fall over the past three years.
The TM Forum Business Benchmarking results show a widening gap between communications service providers with the best and the worst churn rates. In fourth quarter 2005, the providers with the worst churn rates (2.81 percent) had nearly three times the churn as providers with the best churn rates (.94 percent). In second quarter 2007, providers with the worst rates (3.7 percent) had 5.5 times the churn as those with the best rates (.67 percent).
“To retain and acquire customers [communications service providers] must continue to pursue improvements in operations: service delivery and customer management,” the report added.
Benchmarking data show leading service providers deliver orders in seven days or less 99 percent of the time and need to rework those orders less than 10 percent of the time. Further, the investment in processes leads to an average resolution by leaders in less than one hour.
“Clearly customer satisfaction, and therefore the revenue opportunities for additional services, is related to this high level of performance at service delivery. Investment in mature process development at the onset of service offerings is much less expensive than fixing a process once fielded,” the report stated.
BIMS 2008 - World BSS awards finalists
The judges for the World BSS awards of the BIMS 2008 conference have announced the finalists. Please note the lack of finalists in two categories!
I hope that the lack of finalists in the categories ‘Best Content / Partner Management Implementation’ and ‘Best Customer Management / Business Intelligence / Marketing Project’ is only due to a lack of proposals from the industry. Since these categories (in my view) contain a lot of opportunities for innovation, as well as challenges to overcome.
I must say that I get an increasingly desire to know the rationale for these types of award show nominees. Especially in the innovations category: what are these great new innovations? I wonder if all of the nominees in that categorie have even released a new product or version of a product. But perhaps that’s not the right criterion.
BTW: notice that Oracle and its Communications Billing and Revenue Management (a.k.a. Portal Infranet) is not on any list!
The finalists are:
1. Overall - Best Contribution to BSS
- Amdocs
- Comverse
- Intec Systems
- LHS
- MetraTech
- Orga Systems
- In addition, the Judges decided to give an Honourable Mention to AsiaInfo
2. Judges’ Award: ‘Above And Beyond The Call Of Duty’
- kajeet / Telcordia
- Nawras
- SFR / Capgemini
- Virgin Media / TMNG Global
3. Innovation In Billing & Information Management
- Garanti Technology
- Highdeal
- kajeet / Telcordia
- LHS
- MetraTech
- Orga Systems
4. Best Billing / Charging Implementation
- Astelit life / Orga Systems
- City Of Chicago / MetraTech
- du / LHS
- NTT DoCoMo
- Utel / Comverse
- In addition, the Judges decided to give an Honourable Mention to Opal / CTI Group
5. Best Content / Partner Management Implementation
- The Judges decided not to carry any nominations forward as Finalists in this category.
6. Best e/m-Commerce / Payments / Collections Implementation
- Garanti Bank
- Maxis / paybox
- QQ Coin
- VimpelCom / Kabira
7. Best Revenue Assurance / Management Project
- AT&T / ECtel
- BT / cVidya Networks
- Carphone Warehouse
- Etisalat Egypt / Connectiva Systems
8. Best Customer Management / Business Intelligence / Marketing Project
- The Judges decided not to carry any nominations forward as Finalists in this category. However, they did decide to give an Honourable Mention to George Kohl
The judges are:
Hugh Roberts (Chair) - Consultant Director, BSS/OSS RM Events, IIR Telecoms & Senior Strategist, Patni Telecoms Consulting
Anil Prakash - President, Telecom User Group Of India
Barbara Lancaster - President, LTC International
Chris Sanders - Partner, Business Change Partners
Olga Botero - CIO, Bancolombia
Peter Smith - Director of Information Technology, Hong Kong CSL
Teresa Cottam - Prinicipal Teldcoms Analyst, Analysys Mason
Frens Jan Rumph
BIMS 2008 coming up, another awardshow
The Billing & Information Management Systems 2008 conference, held in Amsterdam, is coming up. And of course including an award show.
And the categories are:
1. Overall – Best Contribution to BSS (Open Category)
The organisation which has had the largest impact on the BSS landscape over the past year.
- Current Holder: Amdocs & Orga Systems
2. Judges’ Award: ‘Above And Beyond The Call Of Duty’ (Open Category)
The organisation or individual who has, in the opinion of the Judges, overcome significant difficulties or hardship in the fulfillment of a BSS objective
- Current Holder: BSNL
3. Innovation In Billing & Information Management (Open Category)
Innovation and enhanced functionality in product / service offering, approach to market &/or business modelling or methodology
- Current Holder: Progress Software
4. Best Billing / Charging Implementation (Network Operator / Service Provider / Partners)
Effective implementation of all (or part) of a system to deliver new or improved billing &/or charging functionality
- Current Holder: Vodafone UK /Flexphone
5. Best Content / Partner Management Implementation (Network Operator / Service Provider / Partners)
Suitability, innovation and profitability (win-win-win) for inter-business processes, relationships and architecture for a content or other 3rd party service implementation
- Current (Joint) Holders - Interia PDTM / Comarch
6. Best e/m-Commerce / Payments / Collections Implementation (Open Category)
Effective implementation of all (or part) of systems and business processes to deliver financial transaction processing capability for commerce, payments &/or collections
- Current Holde - G-Xchange
7. Best Revenue Assurance / Management Project (Network Operator / Service Provider / Partners)
Effectiveness of a proactive or reactive project to enhance data quality and business processes that improves profits, revenues and/or cash flows
- Current Holder: BT
8. Best Customer Management / Business Intelligence / Marketing Project (Open Category)
Effective implementation of CRM, CEM, BI, data integration &/or marketing systems and processes to improve customer information management &/or enhance brand loyalty for the organisation’s portfolio of services offered
- Current Holder: Mobilink
No nominees are announced yet.
Let’s see how this will compare with the Billing & OSS World 2008 Excellence Awards:
Best Revenue Management Solution:
1# Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (a.k.a. Portal Infranet)
2# Highdeal Transactive
Best Billing Solution:
1# Tech Mahindra Integration of the LHS BSCS iX with the Ericsson Charging System
2# Comverse Real-Time Billing Solution
Frens Jan Rumph
HP and Amdocs claim IMS interoperability with legacy billing
Resulting from their joint efforts at the 4th IMS Forum’s plugfest, HP and Amdocs claim that they prove IMS interoperability with a Legacy Billing System.
The efforts by HP and Amdocs are indeed great steps that need to be taken in order for the IMS architecture to be successfully developed and brought to the industry. HP is even re-using this strategy toward other vendors as well. One of those vendors is Highdeal. They claim a ‘dramatic brakethrough’ in online charging. I do applaud these activities, as they strengthen the commercial viability of the IMS.
I do have some issues however with the claims. First of all, how legacy are the systems from Amdocs or Highdeal? It is claimed that Amdocs for instance communicates with HP through (at least some flavour) of diameter. Both products are top of the notch billing systems, and can hardly be called legacy!
Secondly, and even more important for me, is the question: what does this do to standardisation? I have raised the question earlier already in a previous post. This might make all the efforts put in the development of Online Charging System specifications useless. Is that a bad thing? I’m not sure, but one of the reasons for standardisation is to decrease vendor lock-in possibilities, so I’d say that this work should be continued. However if the industry is not adopting the standards… It would be nice to see HP, Amdocs, Highdeal and others to give back to 3GPP in the form of their protocols for communication towards rating and account balance management systems.
Source: HP and Amdocs claim (pdf)
Source: HP and Highdeal announcement
Frens Jan Rumph