Zain Kuwait & RAID. Assurance In The Time of Transformation. Zaid K. Alothman. WeDo Worldwide User Group, 10 th Edition May 2015

Transcription

1 Zain Kuwait & RAID Assurance In The Time of Transformation Zaid K. Alothman WeDo Worldwide User Group, 10 th Edition May 2015

2 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 2

3 Overview of Zain

4 Zain Group Overview Operating in 8 MENA countries Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and South Sudan Workforce of over 7,000 employees 4 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 12 th May 2015, Revenues As of Dec 31 st, 2014)

5 Zain Kuwait Overview Group s flagship operation, established in 1983 Customer base exceeding 2.9m with 6% growth in the last 12 months, generating ARPUs of $36 USD Efficient operation with EBITDA margin of 50% Leading customer market share of 35% The first operator in the region to launch nationwide: 2G GSM in G UMTS in G LTE in G LTE-A in

6 Kuwait Mobile Telecom Environment 3 Mobile Operators $2.6bn Service Revenues (2014) 221% Penetration Rate 2013 Mobile Number Portability Launched 2014 Independent TRA Established LTE-A New standard access technology 80% Of Broadband is Mobile 500 GB Data Package Offerings 35% Of Revenue is Data (Zain KW, Q1 2015) 6

7 The Transformation Challenge

8 Revenue Assurance Before RAID Limited Coverage and automation ETL of basic network subsystems No prepaid charging or VAS coverage Ad-hoc, no automated validations 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 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 8

9 The Challenges Prepaid Charging System Replacement RA Rating Validation Tool RA Usage Assurance Tool Billing System Replacement 100+ New Consumer Products No Customer Impact International Voice Gateway Migration Provisioning System Replacement Mediation System Replacement Introduction of VoLTE Packet Core Migrations CRM System Replacement Dunning System Replacement GMSC Migrations Network/VAS Subsystems Upgrades No Revenue Loss Order Management System Replacement Corporate/B2B Product Launches RA Subscription Assurance Tool

10 Expectations of new solution Expanded controls and coverage for all revenue streams Automation of routine checks requiring no/little intelligence Find issues within hours, not days/weeks Reduce steps of finding anomalies to a minimum Traceability of issues and reporting of findings and process errors Move Revenue Assurance from reactive to proactive 10

11 WeDo RAID Implementation

12 Implementation Plan of WeDo RAID 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 Q

13 RAID in the Technology Transformation 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 13

14 RAID as a Revenue Assurance Tool 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 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 14

15 RAID as a Revenue Assurance Tool Interconnect & Roaming Products VAS Infrastructure ~$7.6m USD (2014 RA exposures) Profile Integrity Rating/Billing Revenue Reporting 15

16 What s Next?

17 Challenges and Lessons during Transformation Challenges The Frequency of Change Overlap, Overlap, Overlap SME availability Reference Data Accuracy RAID for Ad-hoc usage queries Lessons Agility is Paramount Get Enterprise-level Support Repeat Fine-tuning process till perfect 234 changes on RAID to date False positives < 0.5% 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 17

18 RAID Project Enhancements :: QueryDB Fetch CDRs Apply loading rules Output CSV QDB 18

19 What s next for RAID? 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 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 19

20 Any Questions? Zaid K. Alothman