wedo technologies blog book 2015

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BLOG. wedO tech-nOLO-Gies.cOm

AF_Miolo_LivroBlog2015.indd 2 03/02/16 16:23

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“BLOG.wedotechnologies.com is the official blog of the WeDo Technologies team, sharing expert opinions on the important role that Enterprise Business Assurance plays in the digital transformation of business on several industries.

The blog posts represent the writers’ opinion. The articles are mainly created by our own experts but it also includes the voice of some special guests on the matters which they can had value to the community or in those topics they would like to be further discussed. Thus, we try to answer common questions that our community has by consistently creating content that’s helpful for you.

The BLOG.wedotechnologies.com is also a space that offers the chance to share our values, communicate our corporate culture and of strengthening ties with the farthest reader.

This is the 2nd Edition of the BLOG.wedotechnologies.com book and it is once again fascinating to look back and see what readers have enjoyed most. From the 33 blog articles published from 22 unique authors, the most-shared and most-viewed articles represent this selection of the best blog articles of 2015.

A total of 13 blog posts make up this book, addressing topics such as Fraud Management, Revenue Assurance, Credit Scoring, Customer Value Management and more within the different industries: Telecom, Utilities, Retail, Insurance and Healthcare.

Thank you to all our writers that have contributed to the BLOG.wedotechnologies.com last year and also, of course to you, our valued readers.

We hope you will continue to appreciate BLOG.wedotechnologies.com in 2016.

Enjoy it!

Visit and subscribe BLOG.wedotechnologies.com

Marketing, Alliances and Community Development Team

BLOG.wedotechnologies.com

BLOG. wedO tech-nOLO-Gies.cOm


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“Many CEOs Opt fOr thE triEd an tEstEd way Of rEduCing COsts and satisfying stakEhOldErs quiCkly by rEduCing hEad COunt, but in rEtail that usually rEsults in lOwEr lEvEls Of CustOMEr sErviCE.”


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CEOs have been getting a lot of press recently. It’s not surprising really as they are the ones ultimately responsible for a company’s performance and are accountable to both stakeholders and staff alike. Forbes launched the opening salvo against wanton CEOs by saying, “across the board, the more CEOs get paid, the worse their companies do over the next three years, according to extensive new research. This is true whether they’re CEOs at the highest end of the pay spectrum or the lowest.”

The article and the report itself lambasted high-earning, poor-performing CEOs by linking that the more they were paid, the worse their companies did. In fact, this negative effect was most pronounced in the 150 firms with the highest-paid CEOs.

For the 5 percent of CEOs who were the highest paid, it was found that their companies did 15 percent worse, on average, than their peers. The paper also found that the longer CEOs were at the helm, the more pronounced was their firms’ poor performance.

ceOs seeinG Red

Written by

RuiPaiva

Chief exeCutive OffiCer at WeDO teChnOlOgies

27/01/2015


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The conclusion the report came to was that overconfidence was the main contributing factor and that CEOs who are paid huge amounts tend to think less critically about their decisions.

At this time of the year when most news reports are on the highlights of the last year, the BBC went out of its own conservative comfort zone to name the year’s five worst CEOs.

Writer, Sydney Finklestein, held back no punches in stating that, “in virtually each instance, the seeds of failure were sown in earlier success. These five chief executives were celebrated for their genius at one time, but all have fallen, sometimes in spectacular ways.”

The five, in ascending order of failure were Twitter’s Dick Costolo; Sears Holding’s Eddie Lampert; Tesco’s Philip Clarke; American Apparel’s Dov Charney and Banco Espirito Santo’s Ricardo Espirito Santo Silva Salgado.

Salgado is the family head and kingpin of an interlocking and complex set of entities that controlled the second-biggest bank in Portugal — and brought it to bankruptcy.

Of greater interest is that three of the five are involved primarily in retailing, a sector that is being rattled by the digital revolution and changes in the way people are buying goods.

Whilst it is evident that more people are buying online, CEOs of some ‘bricks and mortar’ retailing chains have been able to adapt more readily than others to heightened competition from cheaper stores that are operating more efficiently at lower cost levels.

Many CEOs opt for the tried an tested way of reducing costs and satisfying stakeholders quickly by reducing head count, but in retail that usually results in lower levels of customer service. Retailing is still heavily dependent on staff to stock shelves and serve customers.


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Automation has helped bringing more efficiencies at managing stock levels and speeding checkouts but cannot yet replace the human element and ‘retail therapy’ that shoppers go to stores to seek out.

Price competition, high stock levels, rents, seasonal cash flows, theft and low ‘stock turns’ all contribute to the woes of retailers, but there is a trend towards monitoring and managing all aspects of the business using sophisticated software not unlike that used by telecoms operators.

Automation is providing continuous monitoring and detecting exceptions before they cause significant impact on retail business right from supply chain controls to continuously auditing pricing plans to assure yielding enough revenues.

7-Eleven México, with more than 1,700 stores across the country, recently announced that it was implementing enterprise business software to deliver end-to-end visibility and control of its retail processes, analyzing and identifying risks and monitoring and controlling deviations.

The trend now is to have a full picture of the retail operation and be able to act quickly in addressing any anomalies that may occur in real-time.

When enterprise business assurance becomes the norm we should see no retailers in that top five lousy CEO list, just as we don’t see any telco bosses there now. That should also remove the need for boards to make the single biggest cost reduction of all – firing the CEO!

This article was first published in TelcoProfessionals.com. You can find the original version here.


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Any product is only as good as the ideas behind it. Unfortunately, generating good ideas is never easy! As Seth Godin puts it “You can’t have good ideas unless you’re willing to generate a lot of bad ones.” This may present terrifying vision that demotivates us from even trying, but in reality it is just a natural part of the innovation process. The more ideas that are generated, the more chances of generating really good ones.

The flip side of this is the difficulty of managing a huge number of inputs. To get the most out of a variety of knowledge, experiences and backgrounds, one must collect and consider a large number of inputs from a variety of sources. These inputs must then be clarified, enriched, classified, and eventually, in some cases, rejected or grouped with other similar ones.

“at wEdO tEChnOlOgiEs wE EMplOy an OpEn prOCEss fOr COllECtiOn Of idEas”

the ViRtUOUs cYcLe FROm ideA tO mARKet

Written by

MÓNiCa vaLE

PrODuCt Manager at WeDO teChnOlOgies

06/04/2015


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Deciding which ideas to pick for promotion to market from an extended backlog is an even tougher task. A successful prioritization process will account for a lot of different factors, including customer requests, market trends, strategic directions, long-term roadmaps and, of course, available resources. While there are many approaches, no single best solution emerges. Therefore, it is essential to constantly implement, assess, and improve a prioritization process that best fits needs and reality.

After that, all the selected ideas will be further detailed from a more technical perspective for transformation by development teams into the features that the market will see. This phase frequently requires compromises, but often the final features will be far more complex and comprehensive than the original ideas since the development process factors in multiple aspects and visions.

When products finally hit the market, it marks the transformation of great ideas into real features that customers will love, which will eventually generate new ideas. The cycle is complete, but the work is not over because it is time to go through all of the ideas, both new and old, and start the process all over again.

If you have seen the expanse of WeDo Technologies products, then you will know that we are not running short on great ideas. At WeDo Technologies we employ an open process for collection of ideas: we invite everyone to contribute. We receive inputs from a lot of different sources and markets, including telecom, retail, energy, healthcare and finance, and from a variety of user profiles and backgrounds from both internal, such as product architects and developers, integrators, marketing, support and sales team members, and external contributors from C-level to analysts.

Our customer contributions are key in the process because of their willingness to cooperate and provide constructive criticism or complex needs that challenges us to go one step further. And their willingness to embark on a WeDo Labs project and work from concept through to the testing of an idea helps us shape and produce viable products for the market.

Not all of the ideas that we receive will pass the initial scrutiny, and others will fail to provide enough business value. But a great number of them will eventually make


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it to the development stage or maybe generate other great ideas. Our Product Management and Marketing teams’ joint efforts offer a democratic approach for high-level prioritization that involves the Development, Delivery, Sales, and Professional Services teams, and ultimately the Executive Committee, in the decision-making process that brings all stakeholder views to the table.

Next the Product Architects and Development Teams take the high-level ideas and transform them into great product features. And it is up to the Product Management and Marketing teams to leverage all the contributions and feed the product roadmaps with the long-term vision for product evolution.

The final result is certainly not perfect, but it gives everyone a chance to contribute. In the end we can be confident that all these contributions will provide us with the best forward path that, both in the short and the long term, will bring to the market the features that are most relevant to our customers.


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“thE bEst way tO safEguard against fraud is tO havE a sECurity and fraud ManagEMEnt tEaMs wOrking tOgEthEr”


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dOUBLe Bind in FRAUd wOn't Be An issUe FOR mUch LOnGeRDid anyone ever tell you to be creative about something? When this situation happens, I use to close my eyes and start repeating this mantra to myself: “Let’s go creative! And by the way, if you can do it right now… it will be perfect!”This situation is what is referred to as a “double bind” - a tricky way to communicate two discordant instructions given simultaneously. Another example of a double bind is telling to people to be spontaneous. If they begin to act spontaneously, they are not truly acting spontaneously; they are simply following instructions. In the end, it is a no-win situation.

From psychology to global level, the double bind constantly occurs. For example, a double bind is encountered in economy when countries face the challenge of growing economically without disrupting the environment.

Written by

CLauDiaCaLaDO

aDvanCeD analytiCs PrOjeCt Manager

at WeDO teChnOlOgies12/08/2015


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In Telco, a variety of double bind situations can also be presented. One type that is particularly worrisome to operators is the double bind faced in fraud management. In fraud situations, operators set the necessary fraud rules to prevent future fraud cases of the same type. Instead of controlling fraud activity, this actually results in the growth of a constantly adaptive capacity of fraudsters to escape from the fraud management system based on traditional fraud rule mechanisms. But, on the other hand, doing nothing is not an option. This is another no-win situation. As traditional fraud rules increase in number; the more complex and tricky schemes to perpetrate fraud become, thus making it more difficult for operators to reach the level of sophistication that fraudsters are achieving.

Fortunately, advanced analytics are now able to confront the fraud challenge. The capacity to analyse data on a multiple dimension reality, combined with the performance of Big Data processing, makes use of detection and prediction models on large volumes of data more realistic now than it was a decade ago.

Detection models, also called unsupervised models, are mainly used to identify groups or clusters from a customer base so that the behaviour of entities within each group are more alike than the ones belonging to other groups.

When applied in the context of fraud, detection models can be used to do the following:

• Detect suspicious behaviours• Identify new fraud types• Enrich case management with cluster information• Reduce false positives

On the other hand, prediction models analyse past behaviour to obtain the propensity value of a particular event to occur.


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Prediction models can be used to prevent the occurrence of fraud. These models take into account the behaviour generated by entities upon their traffic data and evaluate their propensity to commit fraud. The prediction models can be used to do the following:

• Prevent the occurrence of fraud, scoring all customer base and identifying the entities having a behaviour more likely to commit a fraud

• Enrich case management with additional information to better evaluate false positive

• Prioritize the cases in Case Management with additional propensity values information

Advanced analytics are leading to new weapons in the fight against fraud ecosystems that are continuously growing in complexity.

The added value of such techniques is their capacity to rapidly adapt to new realities that are increasingly more difficult to achieve with the setting of traditional fraud rules.

Another trend that we assist is the constant concern of providers in delivering user-friendly advanced analytics tools, solutions, and products that are capable of guiding a fraud analyst through their investigation, from selecting the customer base for analysis to reaching actionable results.

Despite the double bind suffered from traditional fraud rule mechanisms, the use of advanced analytics tools can produce the optimum combination, leading an operator to the next step of a Fraud Management System, introducing more advanced and complex rules within a large volume of data.

With advanced analytics tools, double bind in fraud management won’t be an issue for much longer.


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with raid tElECOM (...) wE dECidEd tO dEsign

fOur ‘ExpEriEnCEs’, hElping tO EnsurE all rOlEs arE

OptiMizEd.


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RAid teLecOm: cReAtinG A stAte OF the ARt UseR eXPeRienceIn this interview, Carlos Martins, Chief User Experience Architect at WeDo Technologies, shares why he is so passionate about creating the best User Experience possible for RAID Telecom, and why WeDo has invested so heavily in this area.

by QuEXOR GROuP an intervieW With

CaRLOs MaRtiNs

Chief ux arChiteCt at WeDO teChnOlOgies

17/07/2015


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As the User Experience Architect for WeDo Technologies, what vision did you have for RAID TELECOM and were you able to achieve it?

As a UX architect, I wanted to deliver a state of the art look and feel for RAID TELECOM that followed the best practices for UI design to ensure optimum usability for our customers. It needed to be a progression from our latest version – with a modern look, but one that still relates to our core product.

Many of today’s best design and usability practices can be traced back to industry innovator Don Norman, who, in 1988 was one of the first to publish his principles on the art of human machine interaction. This involves the study, planning, design and uses of the interfaces between people and computers. For RAID TELECOM we worked to provide a modern look and feel without sacrificing usability.

In 2013 we invested heavily in significant usability improvements with the launch of Raid 7.0 and did extensive testing with real end-users. This resulted in some early failures, and we learned a lot from this experience. Going forward, we only deploy new functionality when we have at least 90% testing success. Intuitiveness is one of our biggest design challenges today- we wanted our users to ‘recognize’ rather than ‘recall’. This is an area we worked on extensively for the launch of RAID TELECOM.

Another major improvement with RAID TELECOM is the ability to anticipate a user’s actions through something we call ‘Smart Highlights’. This is a tool we designed for presenting the end user with what is relevant based on their profile. This improves the user experience and speeds up the results, providing options via the user interface that will lead to the most critical actions. It’s a more personalized approach that is based on user-centered design rules. When the user first logs on to our software, they will find it very intuitive and easy to understand.

What key areas do you take into account when designing a user interface?

Our software is based on a user’s ‘web experience’. There are two different philosophies when designing a Web user interface - Fast Web and Slow Web. Most UI applications have one strategy, fast or slow. Our software uses both because our customers use our solution in ways that require different speeds. There are scenarios that are time sensitive


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or where users only require a high level view (fast web), and then there are those times where lengthy analysis of detailed data might be required (slow web).

We needed a design approach that could respond to both fast and slow web styles. We use big graphics and bright colors for fast web, but for slow web styles we use a special font that is more easily readable and we add features that are specifically designed with a strong focus on analyzing data. For example, we reduced the use of colors but optimized contrast so we could guarantee users can focus on detailed data. Slow web use can cause users to tire quickly, but we implemented features to lessen the impact of eyestrain and mental fatigue.

With RAID TELECOM we decided we couldn’t create a single one-size-fits-all user experience that would fit with every role, so we decided to design four ‘experiences’, helping to ensure all roles are optimized. This led to our Smart Highlights feature.

Why is the User Interface so critical for a solution like RAID? And how is RAID’s user interface different from other solutions on the market?

Businesses around the world are evolving fast and people need fast answers. Software needs to adapt to users’ needs and UI is a critical piece of this puzzle. RAID is one of the major tools for providing critical answers for our customers. If the UI is intuitive our customers will achieve better, faster results. They will have the answers they need and to allow the corporation to understand their business and to understand where problems exist and to resolve them more quickly. The UI must be very intuitive, fast and directed to handle day to day changes in the business.

With RAID 7 we took a different approach, focusing more on user empowerment. This allows users to create their own dashboards and change them as the business evolves. As a UI designer, this creates a lot of challenges, but users should be able to redefine a screen or create a new screen from scratch if the business demands it. We improved on this with Enterprise Business Assurance, giving users the even more agility to create their own screens and dashboards as their business evolves. We know business changes rapidly, and if customers have to wait for their vendors to make upgrades or update functionality – they won’t be able to keep up and remain competitive. Customers can now manage these changes themselves.


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RAID TELECOM allows users to create their own analysis through our ‘Investigation Workbench’ tool. This allows users to create ‘self-service’ analysis that can preserve data snapshots and allow data comparisons over time. In addition, this analysis can be attached to specific Case Management cases, which provides an added level of information for other users. RAID TELECOM also provides the freedom to create ad-hoc tasks with SLAs that can change or be redefined as needed. No other tool in the market is providing all of this today; the best user experience and a powerful set of tools that don’t otherwise exist in the market.

What new features of RAID TELECOM are your customers most excited about?

One of the things our customers have been asking for is to have Help features bundled in with the product, making it easier to access. In the past, we provided user guides as PDF files, but now it has been built into the product, making it more contextual and easier to access.

‘Smart Highlights’ is another popular feature. As I mentioned earlier, this feature gives RAID a dynamic ability to create a world that highlights what is critical and relevant for that specific user.

‘Investigation Workbench’ for ad-hoc analysis has been extremely well received, along with the ability to support Pivot Tables.

‘Adaptive Case Management’ gives users the power to create ad-hoc tasks and human readable flows based on the new BPMN2.0 standard, allowing end users to design workflows in Visio and import these into our solution.

‘Smart Data Stream’ is also a new feature. This is a new ETL engine that is lightning fast.

And last but not least is our new ‘EBA Cockpit’, which provides executive-level answers quickly, with just a glance.

When it comes to giving our customers the best product possible, I think that we nailed it. RAID TELECOM is state of the art in terms of user experience.


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“raid tElECOM is statE Of thE art in tErMs Of usEr ExpEriEnCE.”


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“all this nEw data and nEw tOOls arE

invading insuranCE COMpaniEs businEss

arEas dOwn tO its prOCEssEs, systEMs

and huMan rEsOurCEs”


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Three Insurance salesman were sitting in a restaurant boasting about each company’s service.

The first one said, “When one of our insureds died suddenly on Monday, we got the news that evening and were able to process the claim for the wife and had mailed a check on Wednesday evening.”The second one said, “When one of our insured died without warning on Monday, we learned of it in 2 hours and were able to hand-deliver a check the same evening.”

3 STORIES THAT'LL MAKE YOU RE-THINK THE FUTURE OF INSURANCE

Written by

GUILHERME FARIA

business Development manager - insurance

anD banking03/07/2015

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The last salesman said, “That’s nothing. Our office is on the 20th floor of a tall building. One of our insured who was washing a window on the 85th floor, slipped and fell. We handed him his check as passed our floor.”

This very plausible story shows how insurers nowadays are concerned about providing a great service and excelling in customer relationship, but it unveils the urge to keep up with the latest technological trends. Social Networks, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud (the so-called SMAC) as well as Big Data and the Internet of Things or, more appropriately, Internet of insurable Things, are pushing Insurance Companies to a very uncomfortable ground.

The reality is that the Insurance Industry is considered to be “digitally conservative”. The EY Global Insurance Digital Survey 2013 finds insurers limited in their digital capabilities: fewer than half were able to digitally provide information about products and services or provide a quote, a mere 23% could digitally process insurance claims, and just 35% could process a transaction/ sale digitally (see chart below).

Now, imagine the following stories:

1) “My new car: a BM… black mouth, not Bavarian Motors”

I have just bought a car that, besides being loaded of sensors, is able to whisper my driving habits directly to the ears of my insurer - distance travelled, time spent

Digital Functionality in the Insurance Sector(% of insurers with digital funcionality)

Provide Information about products/company

Provider Quote

Customer Self-Service Facilities

Transact/Purchase

Process Claims

23

35

40

43

47


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driving, accelerations, brakes and turns. But, at the end of the day I like it, because as an impeccable driver, my personalized insurance premium is much cheaper than my crazy driving neighbor.

2) “My skinflint spirit is telling me: don’t eat that chocolate and go to the gym!”

I am all fit with fancy wearable devices that know all the time my heart rate, calorie calculations, exercise habits, sleep patterns, GPS location data,… and the truth is, before I look at my health statistics my buddy insurer is already computing all this data to duly adjusting my life and health insurance premiums… I am going to the Gym!

3) “My house is calling the insurance plumber to stop a water leakage”

I was working when I received an SMS from the insurance company telling me that there was a leaking water tap at my house. They wanted to schedule a visit from a plumber to fix the problem and prevent any type of property damage.

These 3 stories are not far away from today, in spite of all regulatory and privacy concerns, similar situations will occur in the near future. And again, how tough will be for these “digitally conservative” companies to cope with large inflows of new data, with new customer relationships and the need of higher than ever reaction speed?

And how about the integration of the new and essential data analytics tools with existing legacy systems, ensuring the smooth and safe transfer of data between previously siloed departments and business systems?

All this new data and new tools are invading Insurance Companies business areas down to its processes, systems and human resources: from Risk Assessment and Underwriting, Policy and Premium Calculation to Claim processing and Fraud detection.

Now, the $1M question is: How are we going to continuously control these newly shaped processes, systems and human resources, avoiding financial losses coming either from revenue leakages or undue costs?


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“nO lOngEr will thE rEvEnuE disCussiOn bE COnfinEd tO a purEly finanCE funCtiOn”


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whO's AFRAid OF the iOt? nOt i - And YOU shOULdn't Be, eitheR!Next month I have the opportunity to speak at WeDo’s inaugural North American Enterprise Business Assurance Conference, WDC@WDC. While pondering the key issues facing the Revenue Assurance and Fraud Management community and planning my subject matter during a long drive to Las Vegas for CTIA, I happened upon a radio feature on connected devices – already quoted as standing at 10 billion. This got me thinking. The fact is that this number is going to multiply tenfold in the next two to three years, begging the question for any company whose revenue could be in some way related to the new connected world we’re entering into: “Are we really ready?”

Written by

ROBERtstRiCKLaND

CO-fOunDer Of Digital nexus 17/09/2015


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Now that connectivity is introducing new elements of commerce to everyday objects, from cars to energy meters, the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) is slowly but surely becoming the norm rather than a nascent technology that we’ve long dreamed about. Indeed, the connected world is going to be here a lot sooner than we realise – and, although it’s something that the tech / mobile industry and consumers have been eagerly anticipating for some time, the reality of whether we’re ready to embrace and make the most of it from a revenue perspective is probably quite different. It’s something that offers immense opportunity, but is simultaneously quite a frightening prospect.

Driving different behaviours and dynamics across business, the IoT will bring with it a whole new set of challenges and disruption, especially when considering the backdrop of protecting customers, assets and revenues. No longer will the revenue discussion be confined to a purely finance function; there will be implications for IT spend as we know it and company culture as a whole. This will be a board level conversation.

When it comes to the associated software and services for the new connected world, companies are going to need to be at least on the curve – if not ahead of it. Trailing behind will certainly not be a good place to be. This is where WeDo’s event will be invaluable. Having attended and spoken at their events in the past, I know from experience that they have the knack of getting people together to really define a category, in turn listening and driving solutions to meet the demand of what their customers want and need - ahead of the curve. That is their secret sauce.

What is needed to face the new challenges of the IoT is thought leadership, innovation and technology, and that is what WeDo deliver in spades. Their Enterprise Business Assurance approach allows businesses to face innovation such as the introduction of a new range of connected devices head on, capitalising on the opportunity for growth while maintaining tight control over business processes, the customer experience and revenue.

While it’s unusual to see this kind of innovative approach coming from Portugal rather than the usual suspects of Silicon Valley, Israel or Germany, the fact that WeDo are providing a glimmer of hope on how to come to terms with this new reality is something that should be embraced. Their worldwide footprint and impressive list of clients mean that their insights are better and different from others offering similar services. I’m looking forward to seeing how the first event specifically for the North American market unfolds!


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“...thE iOt will bring with it a whOlE nEw sEt Of ChallEngEs and disruptiOn...”


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“OnE thing is fOr surE, war is an inEvitablE part Of EvEry fraudstEr’s gaME, EvEn if yOu try tO avOid it.”


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Explaining the fraud market maturity by analogy with Computer Game ‘Civilization’.

Ah, the 90s. They were wonderful, weren’t they? Nirvana released ‘Nevermind’, people started to go online and everyone was sure the Y2K bug was going to bring about the end of the world. You want to know what else was great? Computer games. The 90s produced some of the most inspiring, innovative computer games the world has ever seen. You may have played ‘Age of Empires’, which was a very influential game for its time, related to real-time strategy, but we cannot ignore the fact Sid Meier’s ‘Civilization’ came first, in 1991, with just one objective: build an empire that can last.

Written by

CaRLOsMaRQuEs

PrODuCt Marketing Manager at

WeDO teChnOlOgies 05/08/2015

is the FRAUd mAnAGement mARKet 'mAtURe'?


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In this game, the player takes on the role of the leader of a civilization, starting with one settler unit, and attempts to build an empire in competition with other civilizations. Along with the larger tasks of exploration, warfare and diplomacy, the player has to make decisions about where to build new cities, which improvements or units to build in each city, which advances in knowledge should be pursued, and how to transform the land surrounding the cities for maximum profit.

From time to time the player’s towns are attacked by barbarians with no specific nationality and no named leader. These threats only come from unclaimed terrain (land or sea), and over time there are fewer and fewer places from which barbarians would arise.

As time advances, new technologies can be developed and these technologies are the primary way in which the game changes and grows. These stages of ‘scientific advancement’, just as in real life, are directly linked with military strength. In ‘Civilization’ the war starts with a strong infantry unit, catapults and knights can be finished with riflemen, cannons and cavalry. He who has more cutting-edge units usually wins the war.


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Like with modern fraud prevention and detection techniques, success in defeating the “barbarians” in Sid Meier’s ‘Civilization’ is determined by the capability to reduce uncertainty from emerging fraud threats. However, ‘unclaimed terrains’ can blind you from spotting these emerging threats, and that is why we rely on technological advances to manage fraud threats when fraudsters emerge.

Similar to the game, most of today’s CSPs already have a weapon, or in this case a fraud management tool, that is being used to stop the barbarians, or fraudsters. At first glance, we may mistakenly believe that this is a mature market.

The question now becomes, “If you have a tool but it faces technological disadvantages against the fraudster’s tools, are you really equipped to battle fraud?” Certainly not.

At this point, the service provider has 2 options:

• Weapons are upgraded to a more updated version, (i.e. – The CSP begins with arches and evolves to a crossbow)

• A completely disruptive technology is introduced, (i.e.- where you go for gunpowder or even nuclear weapons to exterminate your enemies)

Either way, until you have the right weapon to defeat your potential enemy, the problem isn’t solved.

One thing is for sure, war is an inevitable part of every fraudster’s game, even if you try to avoid it.

CSPs can gain a large advantage if their fraud departments are the first to achieve a particular technological advantage (the secrets of Artificial Intelligence, for example) and put it to use in a “military” context. The whole system of advancements, from beginning to end, is a full speed technology ride. So is the market mature? Not if it is always open and rejuvenating. In other words, I would say that it ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit!’


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“with this latEst vErsiOn Of raid tElECOM, wE havE alsO COMplEtEly rEdEsignEd thE usEr intErfaCE.


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Raul Azevedo is Head of Product Development at WeDo Technologies. In this interview, Raul shares his insights into the market drivers behind RAID Telecom, and how his team has worked to redesign the way Telcos think about and manage their business.

by QuEXOR GROuP an intervieW With

RauL aZEvEDO

heaD Of PrODuCt DevelOPMent

at WeDO teChnOlOgies18/06/2015

enteRPRise BUsiness AssURAnce And RAid teLecOm: deVeLOPinG the tOOLs tO BUiLd A BetteR BUsiness


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What was your role in creating RAID Telecom?

I joined WeDo Technologies eleven years ago, beginning in Product Delivery. Now my role is Head of Product Development, which is responsible for Engineering, Technical Architecture and Quality Assurance. I oversee the entire product development lifecycle, which includes requirements identification, analysis, design and engineering, as well as test and delivery. I also oversee our activities with the TM Forum as head of their Fraud Management Group.

What are latest product features of RAID Telecom? What will customers find most useful?

As always, our focus when developing products is to remain true to our Enterprise Business Assurance (EBA) vision. One way we’ve accomplished this was through the creation of Fast Processes - which address the broader business assurance needs within a CSP; going well beyond traditional Revenue Assurance and Fraud Management. For example, with Fast Processes we have taken industry best practices for controls, alarms, case management flows, and supplier and partner incentives management and then packaged them and made them available right out of the box.

Although Fast Processes are prepackaged, RAID still maintains its flexibility with Flex Processes. With Flex Processes you can expand your audits and configure them to fit any need that you have, including certain modeling requirements that are out of scope within Fast Processes.

We also have a lot of new and exciting product features within this release. Firstly- our new Adaptive Case Management tool allows users to change or react to events like emails, tweets or external alarms. It is fully event-driven and very easy to configure, allowing the end-user to maintain the case management flow and monitor performance. Another feature is the new Data Discovery toolset. Investigation Workbench is one of these tools and was designed specifically for ad-hoc investigation. We have done significant market testing with this feature to maximize usability and productivity. Secondly, we have introduced Smart Data


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Blueprints, which allows end-users who are not familiar with SQL or other query languages to produce complex queries simply by creating them in a data flow. This provides a simple, interactive way of building complex queries that can easily be reused.

We also have fully redesigned our information layer with our Smart Data Stream tool. Our biggest focus for this release was the ability to react, analyze and detect in real-time, and with Smart Data Stream, the system is able to react to events and also receive and process streams of data in real-time.

Lastly, a trend we are seeing from our customers is the need to maximize the value of big data sources; namely those supported by Adaptive Solutions. We now support data stored in Hadoop and are even able to perform validations with mixed data sources. For example, if some data resides in Hadoop and the rest is in a transactional database like Oracle, users can still validate all the data regardless of where it is stored, and still identify problems without the need to extract all the data out to a separate database. This saves both time and money.

With this latest version of RAID Telecom, we have also completely redesigned the user interface. It is now sleeker, with a new color scheme, and it is more user-friendly, following industry best practices for usability.

When moving to a real-time architecture, we needed to optimize the processing time, but still keep the legacy features intact to ensure we could access backup data. Technically this was quite a challenge, but we’ve had great results. All configurations are in the same web-based user interface, so that any user can see how the flow is organized. The benefit of having a fully integrated web-based architecture is that it allows both design and analysis within the same interface.


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Were there any hurdles that were difficult to overcome?

One of the most challenging issues when addressing real-time processing is that sometimes there are instances real-time processing isn’t required or isn’t supported. What we’ve been able to do is achieve a compromise, where we maximize speed and reach without losing the consistency of our processes, namely in the areas of transforming and processing data. The other issue is that when we tried to maximize the value of various big data sources, we quickly learned that we were dealing with different realities than those we encounter in a relational database. It was a bit of a challenge to prepare data properly so that we could maximize performance within Hadoop, and of course our goal is to make all of this technical stuff really easy for our end users.

We performed exhaustive user testing until we achieved a solution that met our requirements. The end result is a product that utilizes the same base language throughout and doesn’t require customization. We worked extensively on these issues to ensure we could deliver the best user experience possible; not just in how it looks, but in how it functions.

What are the benefits to our Customers? To the business managers/business users and to the organization as a whole?

Revenue Assurance used to be focused solely on the revenue stream, but with our new EBA Fast Processes, we’ve been able to increase coverage across the entire organization, with real-time monitoring and continuous auditing of key processes across the company. Auditing tools that were previously only available to revenue assurance teams are now packaged and available to other groups- including partners and incentives management, sales, HR, etc.

Additionally, our solution is constantly adapting to changing business needs. Imagine that you have a case management tool to address a specific situation; in 2 months, the details of that situation will be outdated. We give users the ability to manage changes on their own, without complex coding. There will still be the ‘power users’ who want more granular access, but now a new level of control is


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given to every end-user to ensure that the tool keeps up with changing needs and remains relevant to the current business processes. We also ensure that the right alarms and controls are being monitored. We don’t believe in systems that rely on monthly control points, but in a system that is continuously looking at the business in a focused way, only creating alarms if there are critical issues that need to be addressed. We provide our customers with the comfort that their business is constantly being monitored, and that they will receive ample warning if anything goes wrong. We tackle the problem from end-to-end in an integrated environment that can be accessed over any device, including smartphone or tablet. It adapts to whatever device you are using, prioritizing the interface and making it easy to see at a glance. You can constantly keep in touch and see how things are going, no matter where you are.

What are the advantages and best practices taken from these new technologies?

Big Data and Hadoop: At WeDo Technologies, we are leveraging the power of big data within our product roadmap because that is the future. The CSP market has been a bit slow to embrace the concept of open source, but supporting Hadoop can expand a CSP’s ability to process huge amounts of data. It’s not just a data source; it’s a tool that, if leveraged correctly, provides incredible processing power, which is what we have leveraged with our Smart Data Stream.

Analytics: The issue of embedding analytics into the product is an area that we are currently investing in. Machine learning and data mining algorithms for fraud detection are what we are working on now; in other words, preparing the architecture for a real-time world. The needs of our customers are evolving and our solution is changing to fit those needs. When CSPs monitor critical processes, it’s important to quickly identify problems that are leading to losses.

Virtualization: With our architecture redesign we have been working to scale our system in a cloud environment and continue to do extensive testing in this area.

LTE/M2M: With regards to LTE and M2M, there is the need to address huge amounts of data in real-time. We have the ability to standardize data by putting


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it into a common data format that can easily feed our solutions and processes, identifying if the data is VoLTE or Wi-fi or 3G. Our product is able to read and process all kinds of data, and we are constantly improving, so when there is a new format we can quickly adapt.

Do you expect to reach new audiences/stakeholders within the organization?

Yes definitely. With our new ‘Fast Processes’ we are extending the benefits of our product to other stakeholders within the organization. More than serving different users, our product allows different teams to work more closely together, collaborating and sharing the same case management tools and features, allowing teams to work with a common platform in a more integrated way. Also, in terms of the user interface, we segment data visualization components for different audiences. C-level data visualization components are very different from those that are used by a data scientist or analyst. We have ways to address different needs by different users/roles within the company. For example, within ‘Fast Processes’ we provide a CXO Cockpit that has been designed to provide a summarized view of all the processes and it delivers the results in a very intuitive way. From there, he or she can drill down to gain further details.


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“...Our fOCus whEn dEvElOping prOduCts is tO rEMain truE tO Our EntErprisE businEss assuranCE (Eba) visiOn.”

Created by arte

m D • noun Project


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“EngagE with Our CustOMErs sO thEy Can hElp us tO hElp thEM!”


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While preparing for the 10th WeDo Technologies’ Worldwide User Group, I remembered Maria João Gomes (Head of People & Culture)’ blog entry on the intensity and uniqueness of the WeDo Technologies corporate culture and values.

In fact, this uniqueness comes also with such a rich and diverse group of costumers around the world.

Together with our customers, we have built an amazing User Group, a community of Telecom experts that get together to share experiences, and discuss challenges and solutions, all while having pleasure and fun!

Written by

JOãOREsENDE

viCe-PresiDent fOr PrODuCt

DevelOPMent at WeDO teChnOlOgies

15/06/2015

VALUes-BAsed PROdUct stRAteGY?


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To achieve this, the first two values come into play: Diversity and Companionship provide the ideas, creativity and collaborative empowerment that leverage the individual capabilities of both WeDo and our customers to do more and better, together.

But they also require an open and frank engagement with our customers to understand their issues and their challenges, identify the areas and features to improve, as well as, the key streams for research and development. Here, the message must be clear and transparent: engage with our customers so they can help us to help them!

This cannot be accomplished without a commitment that enables trust. Our customers entrusted us, relying on our products and our ability to support their work and help their organizations. So naturally, they challenge us, always demanding more, better – and cheaper!

We need to honor that trust, working for the long run, thinking of the long term and committing to sustained product investment, with an ambitious yet solid roadmap – always, striving to do more with less, being frugal with our own and our customers’ resources.

So, three other critical values are Commitment, Transparency and Frugality. They give us the drive, the openness and the hands-on pragmatic approach that allow us to continually improve our products and their effectiveness for our customers.

A Product Strategy must certainly be described by the context of the market being addressed, the value the product is supposed to bring, the product key features to achieve a compelling value proposition and a corresponding strategic plan.

But in a world where all seems to revolve around “what and how much value”, it is refreshing to also examine the role that Values may have on our Product Strategy.


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And this User Group showed so clearly the unique role of our customers in that!

Thank you.

PROdUct stRAteGY

cUstOmeRs

PROdUcts

Commitment

Transparency

Frugality

Companionship

Diversity


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“fraud and rEvEnuE risks assOCiatEd with iOt May MEan diffErEnt things tO diffErEnt pEOplE, dEpEnding On whErE thEy rEsidE within thE prOduCt and sErviCE dElivEry Chain.”


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Today’s increasingly connected world is introducing many new elements of commerce into everyday objects, from cars to energy meters. However, the reality of whether we’re ready to embrace the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) and make the most of it from a revenue perspective is quite different.The IoT is progressively driving different behaviours and dynamics across business, bringing with it a whole new set of challenges and disruption – especially when considering the backdrop of protecting customers, assets and revenues. As a result, revenue discussion will no longer be confined to a purely finance function; there will be implications for IT spend as we know it and company culture as a whole.

Written by

LuísBRás

PrOfessiOnal serviCes Manager - frauD

at WeDO teChnOlOgies 13/11/2015

identiFYinG iOt FRAUd RisKs: the chALLenGes FOR OPeRAtORs


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The progression to the IoT will introduce new device manufacturers and application providers that the telecoms industry has previously not worked with, and who don’t understand the risks. This will result in additional security and fraud risk, as these ‘trusted’ parties will need to be audited to ensure the expectations of the CSPs are being met, says Luís Brás, head of professional services, Fraud Management Area, WeDo Technologies.

Considerations for a Successful Risk Management Strategy

Fraud and revenue risks associated with IoT may mean different things to different people, depending on where they reside within the product and service delivery chain. In order to stay ahead of the curve, organisations will therefore need to consider and evaluate from as risk perspective what elements of their existing fraud type exposure will increase (or decrease) as a result of launching the new devices or services, and understand the full risks that can be posed by the IoT; both what can result from failures with the technology and what fraudsters stand to gain from attacking the service. As part of the product and service lifecycle, the fraud and security functions will need to be directly involved in performing ‘product and services risk assessments’ that are ultimately linked to defining the required strategies. By making a thorough risk assessment, businesses can ensure they are adopting a balanced approach, with technology, people and processes working together to create an effective strategy.

What defences can be defined?

As CSPs are already aware, they have a responsibility for storing and managing highly sensitive and confidential data associated with their customers and business partners. Consideration will need to be given as to how these new connected devices with the IoT will be secured to maintain the integrity of the information held or exchanged with their partners. Data and privacy protection risks will include the potential for eavesdropping on other users, a device’s data being transmitted over the network by the criminal masquerading as the customer’s device, or network ID and information being subsequently provided illegally to third parties.


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As evidenced by recent high profile fraud and security incidents and breaches, the criminal fraternity are becoming more innovative, deploying new and more focused techniques for obtaining exactly what they want from the services and products they target. The IoT will be no exception. CSPs must never become complacent or forget that these highly organised fraudsters operate their own businesses and need to “service” their own customers. Their business model for committing fraud spans all types of technology and crosses international boundaries, and has traditionally relied heavily on the CSP’s inability to respond and recover in a timely manner. It is this aspect that they will again look to prey upon. One of the essential business requirements for CSPs will be to continually consider the risk, and implement clearly defined fraud, security and risk protection models for the IoT.

The demand and requirements for this progression will lead to more exciting results in the formation of strategic partnerships. CSPs must however, consider the implications and requirements to enable them to minimise exposure to fraud risks associated with mobile devices, applications, processes and different business models. At WeDo, we believe that an Enterprise Business Assurance (EBA) approach allows businesses to face innovation such as the introduction of a new range of connected devices as part of the IoT, head on, capitalising on the opportunity for growth while maintaining tight control over business processes, the customer experience and revenue.


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“fOr CurrEnt CustOMErs, thE EvaluatiOn tO pErfOrM is a bEhaviOr sCOring.”


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cRedit scORinG As A cOntinUOUs PROcessIn some businesses involving credit concession, it’s common to find Credit Scoring processes and tools. Most of the time these are incomplete, treating Credit Risk processes in a disaggregated way.Credit Scoring may involve multiple types of evaluations: Acquisition or Application Scoring, Behavior Scoring, a mix of both, or even manual handling. These can have different timings and cycles of execution and use multiple internal or external sources of information. It becomes a challenge to achieve a complete view through a single and integrated solution.

Regardless of Credit Scoring tools and processes sophistication, an accurate and up-to-date Credit Score Value is crucial in avoiding erroneous credit concession or

Written by

Rui NELsONFERNaNDEs

sOlutiOn arChiteCt at WeDO teChnOlOgies

04/11/2015


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recovery decisions with negative impacts on revenues. When the decision is too permissive, turning risk exposure higher than the defined policy, the probability of default and bad credit increases. If the decision is too restrictive, turning risk exposure lower than the accepted one, it will block the maximization of the evaluated entities’ business potential.

Credit Risk is not static, and to know at each moment the real risk in conceiving credit, it’s critical to closely follow each entity and act upon new and relevant information or credit related events. This continuous monitoring with credit risk re-evaluations keeps Credit Score Values updated with the most recent known information and behaviors. This assures the quality of data used to decide credit concession conditions (e.g., credit limits or deposits) or best scenarios and actions for credit recovery.

Within the life cycle of a customer, there are different events that will demand different Credit Scoring evaluations. When an entity becomes a customer with initial credit, an Acquisition Scoring (also known as Application) type of evaluation is used to decide the conditions for a possible credit concession. For current customers, the evaluation to perform is a Behavior Scoring. Acquisition scoring provides a snapshot of the entity Credit Risk at a given moment, whereas Behavior Scoring gives a continuous up-to-date Credit Risk Value.

Keep in mind that, during the entity life cycle, available information differs in type and weight. For Credit Scoring it is critical to use existent knowledge in an intelligent way, according to its actuality and reliability. When facing a new customer request, little or no direct information is available, and scoring must rely on demographic and indirect data supplied by third parties. However, when an entity is already a customer, direct and highly reliable behavior information is available, and Credit Scoring should use this knowledge to adjust an entity’s Credit Risk Value.


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A complete and effective Credit Scoring solution, is the one capable of handling smoothly and consistently the different events and available data during customers’ life cycle. All Credit Scoring evaluations and manual risk handling operations, must be combined to give an accurate and up-to-date risk value and, at the same time, to tell one common and consistent story. This approach allows, not only, to know at each moment the present Credit Risk associated to each customer, but also to have access to the full story and evolution of each entity regarding Credit Scoring.

NewCustomer

1st Credit Decision

indiRect KnOwLedGe

GROwinG diRect KnOwLedGe

AlreadyCustomer

Credit Risk Revision

Already Customer

Additional Credit

Decision


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“it is hard tO gEt billing

MilliOns Of CustOMErs tO bE flawlEss.“


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Customers are now able to switch more easily to a new supplier then a couple of years ago. Due to the regulated split-up of the value chain, more players entered the market and there is more choice for the consumer. So, retaining a customer and the “hunt” for the new customer became a priority. The cost of maintaining a (good) customer is less than the cost of the acquisition of a new one thus Utilities need to concentrate efforts on keeping the customer happy.

hOw tO AssURe hAPPY cUstOmeRs And Get AheAd OF cOmPetitiOn

Written by

PiEtERiJZERMaN business DevelOPMent

Manager at WeDO teChnOlOgies

27/10/2015


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Besides that the customer expects a service level of a 100%, Utilities need to manage other expectations, which result, eventually, in customer experience. Using my personal experience, I will mention some expectations a customer has of an electricity distribution company and then line them up with the Business Assurance practice. The Business Assurance practice that helps customers to be happy.

I expect my bill to be addressed to me and not to me with a slightly different name. I expect the tariff applied to be the one the supplier promised me. I also expect the bill to reflect the estimated power consumption minus the real one (measured once every 6 months) and that the balance to pay / to be credited for, to be correct. I like to see my flat rate to be adjusted to my profile of consumption so I don’t have unpleasant surprises at the end of the contract period. I would say that these are expectations that are more susceptible to stronger emotional reactions, when reality is different from the expected values.

So, not that hard to get these right, right? Wrong. It IS hard to get billing millions of customers to be flawless. Generally speaking, dozens of systems and processes create and support the data and the flow that eventually leads to that bill I receive. An example of systems and processes involved in a meter to bill process:

• A meter from which data is read (either automatically or manually)• An interface that transforms and transfers that data to a meter reading

management system• An interface that transfers relevant data to a billing software• A Customer Relation Management system that holds my contract information and

delivers it to the billing system• The billing system holding the correct tariff information and applicable taxes and

produces the bill• The finishing system that, with all collected relevant information, prints my invoice

With all this complexity there is a chance I may receive an erroneous bill. And when I find out about it, I will be disappointed and call up the company. In the UK, two third of complaints to suppliers registered by customer support professionals continue to be about billing errors (Source: Citizens Advice).


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Now, as a reasonable person and with some experience in the ICT sector and large scale implementations of systems that support complex business processes, I can understand that these things happen. And I have hope because there are solutions that can prevent this all. In the (complexity comparable) telecommunication industry similar issues occurred. The Business Assurance practice was adopted and the sector has a yearly healthy return on investment and happier customers and shareholders.

One of the practices that will detect erroneous billing, before the customer does, is Enterprise Business Assurance. As controls on the accuracy of individual systems does not avoid errors on a process or integration level, one needs a systems’ agnostic solution that loads data from all systems involved, applies the correct business rules and validations and verifies if all is good. These permanent audits will allow detection of possible errors that can lead to my dissatisfaction. Better, it will allow to detect anomalies in values billed to me (i.e. Bill Shock, I typically spend 300 USD per month and suddenly a 300.000 USD bill occurs…) and the subsequent potential press that will reduce confidence even further.

The Business Assurance practice only works a 100% if it is continuous and involves all customers, relevant processes and systems. Utilities thus need a solution that can handle the big data involved and has the intelligence to detect issues and to present them in a way we humans can analyse. Also, they will have to involve others in the organization to solve the cases found and consequently it needs an integrated collaborative workflow solution.

Earlier this year, it became public that a UK electricity supplier had received a 7 million pounds fine due to incorrect billing. More recently, we read another release about that same company billing a customer millions whilst he normally spends just 300 pounds per month. These are expensive examples of the 80% of complaints registered at customer support centres of utilities. Underlying systems and processes cause these issues that can be prevented by adopting a Business Assurance practice and control systems and processes on a permanent basis. The company that does will surely have an easier job in maintaining clients happy and will become more competitive.


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notes
