As an industry analyst who has written a few market studies on the telecom revenue assurance and analytics market, I was keen on reading this book, so I had the publisher send me a copy.
I wasn't disappointed. The book reveals hundreds of insights and secrets from the authors' professional careers.
Sadly, most telecom books I've read are fairly tedious because the authors don't guide the reader along. This book is different. While the content is often dense, you don't mind because it's professionally written and sprinkled with helpful analogies, great examples, philosophical musings, and keen advice.
The authors are a group of RA experts, mostly from Europe, the Middle East and South Africa. And the book is really the next logical evolution of the website they all contribute to -- talkRA -- where opinions on the revenue assurance practice are shared.
The late Alfred Hitchcock used to publish anthologies of mystery short stories. The book's structure is like that. It's broken up into many short chapters and one-page snippets, and in that way encourages you to jump around in the book.
In the introduction, we're told, "Don't expect a manual..." While the book does contain many blog articles like you'd see on the website, there are also several sections of the book that dive deep into topics. One particularly good one is a 17-page sub-chapter on "Maturity in the Performance of Revenue Assurance." I'll put it this way: the book is a judicious mix of manual- and blog-like contributions.
With 323 pages of small print type, it took quite some time to write this tome. I did a rough word count and calculated the book contains 40% more words than Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4). In any case, it will take you a few weeks of bedtime reading to get through it.
That's not to say that you can't have fun with the book. In fact, there are several places where the authors lighten up and reward you for reading the chapter on "Understanding Controls". Co-author, David Leshem, wrote some short ones that evoked some chuckles. And Eric Priezkalns' "Which One are You?" piece classifies RA personalities into Hamster, Pioneer, Dead Man Walking and another 6 categories. It's priceless.
This is a great book to explore on your next plane trip, but be sure to bring with you plenty of post-it notes and a small notepad to jot things down in. Enjoyed with a mini-bottle of Burgundy wine, your bliss is assured at 35,000 feet :- )
The book will be useful to RA novices as well as seasoned RA pros looking to hear the opinions of their peers. And this is definitely must reading for software and services vendors in revenue assurance, particularly the salespeople who need anecdotes and an understanding of an RA manager's points of pain. It's all here.
