Billing May Be A Ticket to Efficiency

“Efficiency is doing better what is already being done,” according to Peter F. Drucker, a noted economist, author, and pioneer in management theory. Unfortunately, when it comes to billing, increased technological complexity has led many telecommunications companies down the road of inefficiency – and they may be doing their business harm.

Many telecommunications companies today lack a clear and consistent vision for their billing approach and strategy. Instead, they resort to piecemeal investments, duplicated effort, and inefficiencies across the organization. In fact, some companies currently use over 50 disparate billing systems they either designed for new services or inherited through acquisition, which often cripples their ability to bill bundled products and services efficiently.

This growing problem may hamper a company’s ability to quickly introduce new products and services to the marketplace. This situation may impact telcos’ costs and the ability to serve customers.

One solution to transforming ineffective billing practices into a competitive asset is outsourcing the routine day-to-day operations to a company with core competencies in this area. That can help companies develop the capabilities they need to achieve high efficiency and a higher level of performance. However, to achieve success, companies would be wise to bypass single capacity outsourcing in favor of a comprehensive solution that encompasses the entirety of their billing capacity – from strategy, business processes and technology, to systems operations, human resources, and economic structures.

It’s not just cheaper

There’s no denying that outsourcing billing capabilities to more cost-effective locations around the world saves money. As the quality of these services has improved significantly, outsourcing has also become a much more efficient way of conducting business. When combined with a newer platform, retired legacy systems, streamlined processes, and focused workforce skills, outsourcing can potentially reduce billing operations costs by 15 to 40 percent. And these savings are predictable, enabling telcos to align their cost structures with competitors’ positions to more consistently meet investors’ – and customers’ -- expectations.