Comptel: Business assurance key for New Horizons

NASHVILLE--New Horizons Communications today said it has become a Vertek Financial Assurance customer, outsourcing its business assurance services to Vertek in order to better protect its bottom line.

The choice of Vertek is important to New Horizons as the company seeks to make profits on the tight margins of a competitive service provider business in which it is buying services from multiple wholesale providers under negotiated rates and selling highly customized multi-carrier services to its business customers.

“We have great relationships with our wholesale partners, but there are always billing problems, said Glen Nelson, vice president of marketing and business development for New Horizons, a CLEC operating in 22 states and based in Lexington, Mass. “It is important that we make sure that what we have been billed for is accurate and that we are billing for everything we should be.”

Each billing relationship is different, based on the negotiated rates, Nelson said. With the exception of Verizon, which provides bills electronically, other wholesale bills come in on paper. Making sure each bill is accurate is not a job that can easily be done, but failing to do it jeopardizes profits, Nelson said.

The Vertek Financial Assurance system enables New Horizons to outsource that process, and does so in a way that streamlines a once-cumbersome operation and enables the CLEC to bundle multi-carrier solutions for its business customers with confidence and at lower cost, Nelson said.

“They can identify any problems quickly and provide us with a detailed report for resolution of the problem quickly,” Nelson said.

One additional benefit of the VFA process is that it also enables New Horizons to negotiate better deals with its wholesale partners, he added.

“If I look at a margin analysis for a particular product, which they can provide me, I may see that I’m paying a certain price for Verizon UNEs [unbundled network elements] in a certain LATA. That can help me determine what margins I’m willing to pay for other services with other carriers. I can also look at the PRIs [primary rate interfaces] for example and see what the profitability rate is. That helps me negotiate with individual providers.”

New Horizons also can identify what Nelson calls “high maintenance customers” who have a large number of trouble calls or credits, and can see which of its sales people are selling most profitably.

“We basically shine a light on what might be gaps in the company’s understanding,” said Tom Nolting, senior director with Vertek. “Then they can choose how to act on that.”