Measuring the ROI of your interconnect voice OSS & BSS platform: The loaded question management loves to ask

So, we’ve all been there. Right? You do your analysis, and you are ready to make your recommendation about the platform to choose, and then all of a sudden, you get that question from your finance team or your executive team. What’s the ROI? And then you realize, you are being asked a loaded question. You will be held accountable to the number. Report the number the vendor told you and you will be escorted out of the building. Report the number you are comfortable projecting, and your bosses will look at you inquisitively and ask, “If it’s that small, why are you recommending we do this”? It’s a no-win situation.   

Well, we understand your dilemma.  

We are a vendor and even we sometimes are reluctant to provide the ROI numbers we see our customers realize. Not because they are small, quite the contrary, because the ROI is so big it is ridiculous. Years ago, one of our sales guys would let it slip that we had customers who were telling us that they were experiencing north of 30% in buy/sell margin benefit. T-H-I-R-T-Y P-E-R-C-E-N-T.

It is such a ridiculous number, that our management team made him stop telling people that. Not because it wasn’t true. It was, in fact, true. But because it was so impressive we never thought it could be duplicated. We didn’t want to sound ridiculous and lose any credibility.

But it was true. In fact, we have one large carrier (who shall remain nameless) who invested over 600k in our solution and had hoped for a 12 month break-even point. You know when they broke even? They broke even in 3 months. T-H-R-E-E  M-O-N-T-H-S!!!!! That’s just insane. And that’s just on buy/sell margin improvement.

Where is the ROI benefit coming from?   

Well, from a lot of places. Remember, interconnect voice is pretty darn complex. Lots and lots of tasks, reams of data, and lots of volatility. The more the complexity, the more there are areas to benefit from. Let that sink in. The more complexity, the more areas for improvement.

So, yes, ROI numbers of interconnect voice can be stratospheric.

Here’s why:

1. Least Cost Routing is enhanced, magnified and optimized. This improves termination costs

2. Call Quality is improved through better distribution of routing, faster response to network issues, and less overhead spent managing quality

3. Real-Time enforcement of business rules regarding traffic, credit, and routing

4. More accurate rating and invoicing means fewer disputes

5. Automation…Automation…Automation.

See, the interconnect voice OSS & BSS management platform of today is an enterprise solution that integrates all the functions from sales, to product, to finance, to network management, to management, all in one comprehensive tool set. It automates most, if not all, of the day-to-day tasks that carriers perform relating to interconnect voice. That’s why the ROI can be so impactful.

It helps carriers make voice profitable by optimizing buy/sell margin, improving quality, and delivering unprecedented automation while providing the necessary insights to help carriers proactively interact with the market.   

When we engage with our prospective customers and we discuss ROI we tend to focus on:

1. Buy/Sell margin

2. Workforce automation

3. Trouble ticket reduction

4. CDR disputes/Invoice disputes

5. Billing/Invoice errors

6. System downtime

We tell carriers that we see our customers minimally realize a 5% buy/sell margin improvement, a 10% workforce improvement, and a 10% improvement in disputes/billing issues.

On a $600k investment that yields a 150k benefit within 3 months and full payback in 12 months. But, the reality is that almost every single one of our customers earned full payback in less than 6 months!

So, when it comes to interconnect voice OSS & BSS management platforms, when execs or finance ask, “What is the ROI?”, tell them, “A LOT”!!