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CSPs to benchmark and share business assurance best practices

A new business assurance survey will help TM Forum’s members track the evolution of revenue and business assurance and future-proof their businesses within a connected digital economy.

Gadi SolotorevskyGadi Solotorevsky
17 Jun 2021
CSPs to benchmark and share business assurance best practices

CSPs to benchmark and share business assurance best practices

TM Forum is launching a new business assurance survey to help communication service providers (CSPs) understand and benchmark best practices as they undertake digital transformation and adapt to fast-evolving customer requirements.

The Business Assurance survey builds on and broadens the scope of TM Forum’s Revenue Assurance survey, which has been running with extensive CSP participation since 2009. Its timing will allow CSPs to evaluate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, during which the telecoms industry rapidly adapted to supporting moves to online work, education and healthcare.

It will include questions from the Revenue Assurance survey, enabling TM Forum’s members to track the evolution of revenue and business assurance. Importantly, it will also ask new questions that help CSPs assure and future-proof their businesses as they evolve to meet the demands of a connected digital economy.
“Business assurance plays an active role in [digital] transformation and it needs to be established or transformed along with the business,” says Gjurgjica Gina Pesheva, Customer Finance Senior Innovation Manager, Deutsche Telekom.

The survey encourages participants to explore and reflect on areas that might not yet be part of their day-to-day activities, but which will become more important in a future that is arriving much faster than anticipated.
“This is the first Business Assurance survey that will help operators to acknowledge the status of their transformation, benchmark with the industry and define measures for their development. The right questions to ask are in the BA survey!” says Deutsche Telekom’s Pesheva.

The Business Assurance survey will cover not only revenue assurance, but also fraud management, and margin assurance, as well as new areas such as transformation assurance, customer experience assurance and digital ecosystem assurance.

As ecosystem-based business becomes the norm, it will help CSPS address the multitude of opportunities for revenue to seep through the cracks, whether through fraud or leakage. A customer experience dimension will help CSPs prevent risks. The survey will also highlight the levels of adoption of new technologies.
“The TM Forum Survey Report provides insights into where the Revenue Assurance industry is evolving, like Business Assurance, along with specific areas of focus. This tells you where companies think there is revenue leakage opportunity you can leverage”. Matt Reader, Senior Manager, Business Assurance, T-Mobile

Did you know?

  • In 2009 the average reported revenue leakage was 1.19% of the total CSPs’ revenue, and only 21% of them were recovered.

  • In 2018 the reported revenue leakage was on average 0.9% and the recovery rate was 51%.


By taking part in the survey CSPs are able to understand business and revenue assurance against the backdrop of existing and fast moving industry trends.
“Orange is very interested in the valuable new perspectives that the 2021 Business Assurance survey will provide, following on from the 2019/2020 Revenue Assurance Survey,” says Sophie Nachman, Standards project director, Orange.

“One area of interest is how the industry is progressing on business assurance as digital transformation and customer experience evolve. The addition of a customer experience dimension will help CSPs prevent the risk and maintain revenues. And as digital transformation adds new technologies like AI/ML, this survey will highlight the degree of its adoption and identify application areas,” explains Nachman. “By providing your input you can both identify new trends and align the relevant parameters for Business Assurance teams and the wider industry with your own needs.”

Take part in the TM Forum’s Business Assurance survey and benefit from the process of questioning your current practices and comparing them with those of your industry peers worldwide.