Product Design & Development Process

IIR’s 4th Annual

African Telecom Billing & Revenue
Management Forum

Incorporating RA Functions Into The Product Design & Development Process

Presented By Syed Thameem

3rd – 7th Sep 2007
Cape Town International Convention Centre

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 Product Design & Development Process

Agenda:-

¾ Risk Assessment for Products & Services

¾ How RA is going to assist identify any potential areas of revenue loss

¾ Examining all Payment options for current & future products

¾ Why the products are failing?

¾ Challenges in the third party and billing

¾ How can we make successful product launch and maximising revenue

revenue

¾ End of the presentation

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 Product Design & Development Process

Risk Assessment for Products & Services

ƒ Telco’s are losing millions of $ lost in the launching of new products and services due to
inadequate risk assessment.
ƒ Most of Telco’s give importance to the risk assessment done by RA

ƒ RA is playing pivotal role in the risk assessment for new services and products

ƒ There’s no industry best practices available. Risk assessment methodology differs from
product to product and operations also.
ƒ There are 4 phases in the Product/services launch process.

ƒ RA should be in a position to advice different departments about the risks involved in the new
product/service in advance

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 Product Design & Development Process

Market dynamics key

You need a deep understanding of how the

market works if you want to stand out from
the crowd

The markets
The regions
The consumers
The enterprises
The offers
The functionalities
The future

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 Product Design & Development Process

Product/market Matrix

Product
Present
Market New

Market Product
Present
Penetration Development

Market
New Diversification
Development

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 Product Design & Development Process

Opportunity Assessment
Concept Phase Opportunities – a sample screening

matrix
Fi Tec
A typical phase-gate process for new product t Reve
Valu
hno Ti
e Size
development can be used to evaluate and filter ideas. Opp wi Marke nue
Prop of
log me
ortu th t Size Pote y to
Num ositi Invest
nity St > ntial Ava Re
This approach has been shown to improve the ber
Nam ra $xxx >
on ment
ilabl ve
Ident Need
probability of achieving marketplace success with a e te M $xxx
ified ed
e? nu
gy M Y or e
product or service. ?
?
N
2007-
The Process flow (next slide) shows the flow of ideas Sep-a
into the first phase called the 2007-
Sep-b
Concept phase. During this phase, the idea is surfaced 2007-
and rapidly evaluated based on some of some Sep-c
specified criteria. These criteria can include: 2007-
Sep-d

1) Fit with corporate strategy 2007-

Sep-e
2) Market size
3) Revenue potential
4) Fulfilled customer needs
5) Technical or operational capability

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 Product Design & Development Process

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 Product Design & Development Process

Identifying areas for Risks

• Is the idea suggested/drawn by Marketing is workable?
• Is the event billable by existing billing system?
• Are do we require more investment needed to bill?
• Is the pricing included the taxes, interconnect cost and etc?
• Is the cost benefit analysis done? Whether we make profit or loss?
• Is all the resources available?
• Is the product/service properly configured in the billing system?
• Is the Universal Acceptance Test done? For different service/packages?
• Is the soft launch successful?
• Are the monitoring tools/reports are available?
• Is the End to End process document agreed and signed off?
• Have we communicated to the stake holders about the launch?
• Product launch kit

RA has to conduct independent testing of the new service/product end to end. And certify to the
Management that there’s no leakage for revenue.

Then finally Marketing should take off!

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 Product Design & Development Process

Customer segmentation is a fundamental part of the Marketing Strategy

Overall company strategy and objectives

Customers MARKETING STRATEGY Matching

target
customers
SEGMENTATION

IMPLEMENTATION
Competitors Example:
Segment Example:
• Demographics Target • Youngsters
analysis • Geographic
• Behaviour
selection • Achievers
• SME +
with
Suppliers attractive
MARKETING MIX service
Example: Example: offering
Services • Voice Pricing • Per session
• Messaging • Per transaction
Technology • Mobile Internet • Buckets

Example: Example:
Sales & • Own shops Marcom • Direct mail
Macro- • On-line sales • Newspaper
economics Distribution • Retailers • TV
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 Product Design & Development Process

The mobile operator business-model

Traffic,
Traffic, Activation,
Activation, Monthly
Monthly
Revenues
Revenues Application
Application Services
Services

Other
Other
Interconnection
Interconnection Costs
Costs
EBITDA
EBITDA Line
Line Rents
Rents && Site
Site Rents
Rents

Fuel/Maintenance
Fuel/Maintenance

Management
Management Fees
Fees
Operating
Operating
Expenses
Expenses (OPEX)
(OPEX) Marketing
Marketing

Billing
Billing
EBITA
EBITA
Distribution
Distribution commission
commission

Eng.
Eng. && Operation
Operation

Admin
Admin && Salary
Salary
Net
Net
Income
Income General
General Expenses
Expenses

Depreciation
Depreciation

Financials
Financials && Amortization
Amortization
Income
Income Tax
Tax 10
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 Product Design & Development Process

3 Year Technology Roadmap

Tools

Product 2 Product 4
Products Product 1
Product 3

Platform Release 1 Release 2 Release 3

2007 2008 2009

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 Product Design & Development Process

PRODUCT LAUNCH TOOL KIT

1. Product launch plan

2. Competitive product comparison
3. Product Naming guidelines
4. Product over review
5. Marketing Budget
6. Collateral & Sales Tool kit
7. SWOT analysis
8. Product features and benefits
9. ROI
10. Press release
11. Customer presentation

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 Product Design & Development Process

RA Assisting in identifying and arresting revenue leakages

Revenue Assurance can assist in identifying and arresting revenue leakages in different ways

– To attend the product development team for discussion, design, pricing and implementation
– Product/ service mechanics are fine and should be easily understandable by the layman
– Accessing the Proposal to find any loopholes for revenue leakages
– Access the marketing strategy regarding the launch of new service/product
– Information cascade to down level
– Testing the service before launching whether we are billing correctly or not
– Helping the management by continuous monitoring and reporting
– All complaints logs received immediately escalated for further improvement
– Feedback received from the market should be discussed
– Continuous testing of the product/service
– Continuous improvement of the product/service to maximise revenue
– Road map for the Product/service offered

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 Product Design & Development Process

Why Products are failing?

Companies invest millions of $ each year developing new products and trying to increase
their revenues and profitability. Some of these are good and some aren’t. Nonetheless,
they all have 1 thing in common: without appropriate marketing activities they will most
likely to FAIL.

75% of new product development programs fail commercially.

Below are Top 10 reasons for failure

1. Not planning early enough

2. No sustaining marketing plan
3. Poor quality or design of the product
4. Inadequate funding
5. Overestimating results
6. Driving customers to buy your competition
7. Announcing too early
8. No dedicated review program
9. Not communicating early enough
10. Spending lot of time in the product design / launch
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 Product Design & Development Process

Examples: If you don’t configure properly, you will loose revenue!

45,000 60,000

40,000
50,000
35,000

30,000 40,000

25,000
30,000
20,000

15,000 20,000

10,000 333 count

10,000
5,000
TOPUP COUNT

0 0

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 Product Design & Development Process

Challenges in the 3rd Party Billing

If we go for the 3rd Party billing and we will face the following challenges;

☻ Billing not properly - leads to revenue loss

☻ Improper configuration, what to bill and how to bill
☻ Source code/design defects
☻ Lack of monitoring tools
☻ No Customer care and support
☻ No agreed process for sending and receiving data
☻ No backup procedures
☻ No disaster recovery and BCP

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 Product Design & Development Process

Challenges in the 3rd Party Billing

In order to over come challenges in the 3rd Party billing we need to have the below things:-

√ Proper singed agreement by both parties

√ Service level agreement and responsibilities and rights level
√ Process flow and procedures (End to End)
√ Proper configuration of the systems
√ UAT
√ Agreed Disaster and BCP
√ Pre launch sign off
√ Continuous monitoring and testing the services
√ Reconciliation of the services
√ Month end settlement

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 Product Design & Development Process

How can we make successful launch & maximise revenue

First and foremost thing is Planning Planning Planning

Planning is very important thing for any successful launch of product and service.

If we don’t plan proper either we kill the product or even the whole company’s brand. We need
to Plan early enough & involving different departments. Project plan and leader has to be…

If the product is not satisfying the market, we loose the confidence and loose the market share.
We need to launch the product which will sustain and customers has to satisfy it.

Projections should be accurate, if don’t we can blow up in big. The projections are very
important either under/over project, that will affect seriously. We need analyse the past data and consider.

Creating excitement in the market, before launch of the product. Never do this, we need to sure and product
has to be certified by the Assurance department. When everything is fine, Launch it. If you are ill prepared
it will back fire!

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 Product Design & Development Process

Each year, millions of dollars are wasted when products enter the market ill prepared to
meet customer expectations and requirements. Insufficient customer feedback and lack of
customer involvement during the development process are the key reasons for
unsuccessful launches.

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 Product Design & Development Process

Thank you for your attention

Contact Details
Syed Thameem
sthameem@ug.celtel.com
thamins@yahoo.com

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