Catchment Assurance and The Bollocks Index

A few days ago, a colleague of mine attended a conference where he was introduced to a ground-breaking, revolutionary, earth-shattering and profoundly insightful concept that surpasses revenue assurance not by an incremental step but by leaps and bounds – catchment assurance. He could not wait to get back to the office and share this gem with us. Over several cups of coffee, he took us through it in detail as we sat and marveled at the genius of Homo sapiens. Well, it goes something like this: Revenue Assurance, as we know it, comes too far down the line. It assumes that there is some revenue to be assured. Catchment Assurance comes before this, up the stream if you like. It starts to look at the sources of revenue even before they generate revenue. Yes, I meant that. It is not a typo.

A few questions:

What is a revenue catchment? Is it in terms of new subscribers, existing subscribers who are not giving the CSP as much revenue as they should/could (and who is to say), the subscribers who are with your competitor(s)? Is it products which are yet to be rolled out or existing products which are yet to be enhanced? Does it pertain to subscribers who have unresolved complaints and who are at risk of reducing their ARPU as a result of dissatisfaction? Is it areas where a CSP does not have network coverage or has poor coverage leading to poor call completion rate? Is it a restatement of churn monitoring? If you are in a market where Mobile Number Portability service is active, what is the size of your catchment? How do we measure how well catchment assurance is being done?

Do I smell a whiff of cow-dung here? When he first told me about it, I could not help but giggle, but then I decided to take it through what I call the “Bollocks test”.

The Bollocks Test (BT) was not invented by BT although some of BT’s ideas have been taken through the Bollocks Test and found to be wanting (but that is a post for another day). For the benefit of those who are not familiar with Bollocks Test, it was actually invented by none other than yours truly and is reputed to be one of mankind’s greatest inventions. It has been nominated several times for a Nobel but those morons experts at the awards committee cannot stand the truth especially when it comes from somebody younger than them, hence they have studiously ignored it for the last 35 years. The motivation for inventing BT was as a result of sitting through conferences and meetings where people would come up with the “Next Big Idea” and invariably it would be something that is not practical/not cost-effective/very fuzzy/a restatement of something that has been done before.
BT enables the listener of a new big idea to pluck real ideas from the bollocks galore clothed in snazzy presentations.

BT has been applied to all manner of situations and has worked in all instances. It says, given a new concept apply several questions on it:

• STEP 1: Start with a default Bollocks value of 100%. Everything is bollocks until proven otherwise.

• STEP 2: Is it practical? Note, practical does not necessarily mean it has been done before. It may be a new concept that is practical. The fact that we did not know how to do something does not mean it cannot be done or it is not practical. Is it realistic? If something passes this test, new bollocks value is default bollocks value (100%) minus 25%. Else retain bollocks value of STEP 1.

• STEP 3: If it is practical, is it cost-effective? The fact that it has been done before or can be done does not mean it should be done. Cost here does not relate to money alone. It is really a basic question of: is it worth it? If it passes this step, subtract 25% from the final bollocks value in STEP2. Else retain bollocks value of STEP2.

• STEP 4: Are the parameters and scope clearly defined or is it open to any individual’s interpretation and lends itself to a style of changes on the fly? Think of it this way, would you be willing to purchase a cup of coffee from a restaurant that is known to make it sometimes using fresh water, sometimes using salty-water, sometimes using coca cola? If it passes this step, subtract 25% from the final bollocks value in STEP3. Else retain bollocks value of STEP 3

• STEP 5: Is it a new concept or a re-statement of something that is already happening? If it passes this step, subtract 25% from the final bollocks value in STEP3. Else retain bollocks value of STEP 4.

Homework for the reader:

Apply the bollocks test to the concept of catchment assurance. This assignment contributes 0% to your RA career and will not be graded.