Zain Kuwait & RAID - WeDo Technologies 2015... · Project: Ericsson Charging System Migration...
Transcript of Zain Kuwait & RAID - WeDo Technologies 2015... · Project: Ericsson Charging System Migration...
Zain Kuwait & RAIDAssurance In The Time of Transformation
Zaid K. Alothman
WeDo Worldwide User Group, 10th Edition
May 2015
Contents
1. Zain Kuwait Overview
2. The Transformation Challenge
3. The Implementation and Role of RAID
4. What’s Next? Lessons, More Challenges, and Future Plans
23/07/2015Zain Limited2
Overview of Zain
Zain Group Overview
23/07/2015Zain Limited4
Operating in 8 MENA countries
Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan,
Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Sudan,
and South Sudan
Workforce of over 7,000
employees
Providing a comprehensive range
of mobile services to over 46.1m
active customers, generating
USD $4.3 billion in consolidated
revenues(Customer Base as of 12th May 2015, Revenues As of Dec
31st, 2014)
Zain Kuwait Overview
23/07/2015Zain Limited5
Group’s flagship operation, established
in 1983
The first operator in the region
to launch nationwide:
• 2G GSM in 1994
• 3G UMTS in 2007
• 4G LTE in 2012
• 4G LTE-A in 2014
Customer base exceeding 2.9m with
6% growth in the last 12 months,
generating ARPUs of $36 USD
Leading customer market share of 35%
Efficient operation with EBITDA
margin of 50%
Kuwait Mobile Telecom Environment
23/07/2015Zain Limited6
221%Penetration Rate
3Mobile Operators
LTE-ANew standard access
technology
500 GBData Package Offerings
35%Of Revenue is Data
(Zain KW, Q1 2015)
80%Of Broadband is Mobile
2013Mobile Number
Portability Launched
2014Independent TRA Established
$2.6bnService Revenues
(2014)
The Transformation
Challenge
Limited Coverage and automation
• ETL of basic network subsystems
• No prepaid charging or VAS coverage
• Ad-hoc, no automated validations
Slow To Cope With Changes
• Turnaround time of 3-5 months for new streams
– e.g. LTE transactional information
• Once solution is provided, two to three UAT cycles until cleared for production
• Usual response was: “Launch now, RA to check later”
• Most products launched without RA verification and approval Losses, errors, and less than ideal customer experience
Revenue Assurance Before RAID
23/07/2015Zain Limited8
Performance
• Transactions recorded 2+ days after actual occurrence
• Data integrity doubted and verified several times before issue confirmed further delays
• Manual file checks, house-keeping, and database maintenance
The Challenges
23/07/2015Zain Limited9
Prepaid Charging System Replacement
Mediation System Replacement
Provisioning System Replacement
Order Management System ReplacementBilling System Replacement
CRM System Replacement
100+ New Consumer Products
Dunning System Replacement
Introduction of VoLTE
Network/VAS Subsystems UpgradesGMSC Migrations
Packet Core Migrations
International Voice Gateway Migration
30+ Corporate/B2B Product Launches
RA Usage Assurance Tool
RA Subscription Assurance Tool
RA Rating Validation Tool
No Customer Impact
No Revenue Loss
Expectations of new solution
23/07/2015Zain Limited10
Expanded controls and coverage for all revenue streams
Reduce steps of finding anomalies to a minimum
Traceability of issues and reporting of findings and process errors
Automation of routine checks requiring no/little intelligence
Move Revenue Assurance from reactive to proactive
Find issues within hours, not days/weeks
WeDo RAID
Implementation
Implementation Plan of WeDo RAID
23/07/2015Zain Limited12
Phase 1 - Usage Control
Full visibility over possible discrepancies of customer usage from 17
Zain network elements covering all critical Voice/Messaging/Data
services
“Switch to Bill” coverage
Project duration: 7 months - Completed in Apr 2014
Phase 2 - Platform Integrity
Guaranteeing customer profile consistency on 80 control points
across different Zain network platforms to reduce possible revenue
leakages
Project duration: 5 months - Completed in Nov 2014
Phase 3 – Rating Validation
Automated validation of usage charging via ‘virtual’ rating system to
reconcile with actual Zain postpaid and prepaid rating systems
Scoping ongoing - Planned for production by end of Q3 2015
RAID in the Technology Transformation
23/07/2015Zain Limited13
Data integrity during migrations
Project: Ericsson Charging System Migration
Capturing errors with data model transformation within the migration
window full data integrity maintained after migration
Usage Assurance of new network elements
Project: Ericsson EMA Provisioning, Nokia R4/SIP Migration,
Ericsson Charging System Migration
Inter-system validations ready before migrations
Issues found within hours post-launch minimal errors and losses
RAID as a Revenue Assurance Tool
23/07/2015Zain Limited14
Automation of Routine RA checks
• 97 daily checks are fully automated
• RA Analyst no longer needs to perform manual data gathering and
cross-system verification
• Focus on issue capture, reproduction, follow-up, workarounds and
permanent fixes
Automation of Financial Reconciliations
• Revenue share partner reports troubleshooting in minutes
• Discrepancies fell from 8% to <1% in 6 months from production
• Revenue, interconnect, and international gateway reconciliations
require no technical expertise
Quick Adaptation to Network Evolution
• WeDo Technologies’ experience with leading technology providers
Semi-Plug-n-Play integration
• Turnaround time to develop new loadings 3 weeks on average
RAID as a Revenue Assurance Tool
23/07/2015Zain Limited15
~$7.6m USD(2014 RA exposures)
Interconnect &
Roaming
VAS
Profile Integrity
Revenue Reporting
Rating/Billing
Infrastructure
Products
What’s Next?
Challenges and Lessons during Transformation
23/07/2015Zain Limited17
• The Frequency of Change
• Overlap, Overlap, Overlap
• SME availability
• Reference Data Accuracy
• RAID for Ad-hoc usage
queries
Challenges
• Agility is Paramount
• Get Enterprise-level Support
• Repeat Fine-tuning process till
perfect• 234 changes on RAID to date
• False positives < 0.5%
Lessons
QueryDB (QDB) Project
• Detailed records parsed by RAID transferred to QDB
• Designed to ensure flexibility in queries while ensuring single
reference data maintenance, and no performance impact to core
RAID functionality
RAID Project Enhancements :: QueryDB
23/07/2015Zain Limited18
Fetch CDRs
Apply loading rules
Output CSV QDB
What’s next for RAID?
23/07/2015Zain Limited19
Expand Automated Coverage
• Payment channels reconciliation (Billing vs Oracle Financials)
• Inventory reconciliations for handsets, devices, and SIM cards
• Integration with Test Call Generators for automated testing and call
verification
• Integration with VAS Content Management System for VAS partner
reference data updates
Complete RAID 7 Project
• Implement and complete Rating
Validation Module
• Integration with Product Catalog
Solution
RA Analyst Developer Training
• Perform changes in-house with
WeDo Support validation
• Accelerate adaptation time to
technology changes