CGI helps Telenor AB improve efficiency, reduce cost and recover significant unbilled revenue

“I could probably find the same level of competence with other firms as well, but not likely the same level of reliability, self-sufficiency and the emotional satisfaction that came from working with CGI.”

Krister Tånneryd, VP Operations & Delivery, Telenor AB

The Nordic group of countries – Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland – is arguably the most dynamic telecom market in Europe, home to giants Ericsson, Sony Ericsson and Nokia, and boasting a mobile penetration of 110% and a 50% penetration of broadband services to homes. With 22,000 employees and an annual revenue of $US 9 billion, Telenor is one of the biggest Nordic public companies and a leading telecom carrier, providing telephony, information, knowledge and entertainment services. Telenor’s $US 250 million Swedish subsidiary, Telenor AB, provides PSTN, VPN, broadband and telephony services to wholesale customers and companies of all sizes right across that country. In addition, the 370 Telenor AB employees in Telenor’s main locations in Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö support the second largest retail telecom customer base in Sweden.

The Challenge
In the telecom services sector, billing is among the most complex in the world; and accordingly, the business processes and IT systems that support that billing activity are also very complex. Telenor is no exception, and continues to face challenges with its billing environment, not the least of which came about when Telenor acquired Utfors in 2002 to increase Telenor’s broadband market potential. Utfors, another telecom company, specialized in building and operating fibre networks, with 6,000 km under management throughout Sweden.

The Utfors acquisition left Telenor AB with two billing systems, for example, and two different billing processes. The two systems needed to be consolidated into a single system, and a single, standard billing process adopted.

The acquisition also left Telenor AB (“Telenor”) with two mediation systems, which collect usage data from network switches and reformat it for use by the billing system – so that subscribers can be invoiced for the services they have used – and for use by the Interconnect System for inter-carrier invoicing. Mediation is one of the most critical components of Telenor’s operation. It is the link between the network and the systems that generate revenue, understand customers, and help Telenor run an efficient, competitive business. Furthermore, both mediation systems had become out of date, and vendor support for the systems was about to end. Senior Telenor management decided that both systems needed to be replaced by a single, new mediation system.

The Strategy
For a number of years, CGI has been helping Telenor with a variety of billing-related projects – including consolidation of Telenor’s two billing systems into one – all aimed at improving their processes, and increasing the efficiency and reducing the operational costs of the underlying billing systems.

Although both billing systems were based on the same platform, the integration challenge lay more on the business side since the systems were configured in different ways. They chose to standardize on the existing Telenor billing system because it was more mature and more development had been done on it; and CGI created a framework for a new process that handles data in a single, uniform way.

In addition to rewriting the billing process, which included restructuring Telenor’s wholesale invoicing process, CGI also undertook a dedicated clean-up effort to ensure that all Telenor services delivered were actually being invoiced. In what was a very rigorous assessment, CGI had to fully understand all the Telenor services and how they were priced, and to check if they had been billed properly.

To address their need for a new mediation system, Telenor conducted RFP processes to select the Sterling Mediation product from EDB Telesciences and select an implementation and integration partner.

“Although we spoke to several consulting firms, we chose to once again work with CGI for our mediation project, explains Krister Tånneryd, VP Operations & Delivery, Telenor AB. “ We chose them primarily because of their knowledge … knowledge of our installed base and about our billing and mediation processes based on the projects we’ve already done together.”

Commenting further on choosing CGI, Tånneryd went on to say that, “We also wanted a partner we could rely on to keep the project moving forward largely on their own, allowing us to stay focused on daily operations and service delivery to customers.”

Working closely with staff from both Telenor and EDB Telesciences (EDB), the CGI-led team implemented the new Sterling mediation product using a four-phase project methodology. One challenge that had to be overcome during the requirements gathering phase was that there was little or no existing documentation, requiring the CGI team to perform an in-depth analysis of the existing systems. Then, during the analysis and design phase, which ultimately yielded the system design, the capabilities of the Sterling product were compared against the requirements statement to identify several changes that EDB made to the software to meet Telenor’s needs.

Although much of the system’s basic functionality could be tested off line, finding a way to test the ‘collectors’ portion of the system with real Telenor production switches presented a significant logistical challenge during the configuration and testing phase, and had to be planned around off-peak times of the live production environment. To minimize impact on the production environment during the production setting or ‘go live’ phase, the CGI team spent two weeks creating and then four weeks executing a detailed switchover plan, which called for the Telenor switches to be changed over to the new Sterling collector system one at a time.

“The biggest issue during the implementation was to be able to maintain daily operations while trying to change systems in mid flight,” claims Tånneryd. “CGI was very good to work with. They solved problems in a professional, calm fashion, and they maintained a good, even dialogue even though they were extremely time pressured.”

The Technology

• Sterling Mediation software from EDB Telesciences
• EHPT Progressor
• Atos Origin FTAM module
• HPO-UX 11 UNIX servers
• Ericsson AXE and Nokia DX200 switches
• Oracle database

The Results
By developing a new billing process framework and merging two billing systems into one, CGI has helped Telenor consolidate its billing activities into a single department, while reducing operational costs and improving overall system efficiency. In addition to patching holes in the existing process, CGI’s ‘revenue assurance’ initiative has helped Telenor identify revenue leaks and recoverable monies.

“With CGI’s help, we were able to recover a significant amount of unbilled revenue that had a substantial impact on our bottom line,” says Tånneryd.

Together, the CGI, EDB and Telenor team completed the Sterling mediation system project on time and according to specification. Other than for a few small issues that were handled quickly, the impact on Telenor’s production environment was not significant. Although they weren’t trying to achieve any additional functionality – just swap their two old and unsupported systems for a single, new one – Telenor now has a new, modern mediation system based on new, modern processes.

“The implementation went very well – it’s one of the projects we’re really proud of due to its timely completion and because it stayed within the budget,” claims Tånneryd. “We continue to be very satisfied with CGI; they took care of all their responsibilities and the project was perfectly managed,” he adds.

As Telenor’s partner in the billing area – improving their billing practices and growing the underlying infrastructure – CGI’s role is continuing beyond these implementation projects to include partnering on development of a future vision and determine what direction they should take in the billing space. CGI is currently conducting a number of pre-studies to look at the next generation of billing solutions that will ultimately replace Telenor’s existing systems and continue to enhance Telenor’s operational competitiveness.