The Value Proposition For User-Centric vs. Audit-Based Data Reconciliation

After my last post, I was asked to put the concept of user-centric data reconciliation into a real context that would better indicate its benefits. This post should enforce the following value proposition.

User-centric data reconciliation solutions…

• Can be implemented in a fraction of the time and cost of audit-based solutions
• Do not require the formation of a separate team of people to build or work through data discrepancy issues
• Can be more easily tailored to user needs
• Should be greater in the value delivered than that of audit-based solutions

Below are two different scenarios using as an example, the identification of revenue assurance issues related to customers being under-billed for their telecommunication services.

Scenario 1: Audit-based Data Reconciliation

• Analyze how customer, service and billing data are structured in switches and billing systems
• Capture business rules for what constitutes under-billing situations
• Define transformation rules for consolidating the different data into a single database
• Write code to automate the comparison of switch and bill data to identify the discrepancies and present them to the client
• The client allocates a team of people to research each “switch-to-bill” discrepancy

Depending on how many discrepancies are identified (often in the thousands), the entire process could take six months or more

Scenario 2: User-centric Data Reconciliation

• Analyze only the metadata behind the same data sources
• Instead of explicitly defining business and data transformation rules, an information access product such as Endeca can be used to discover the relationships automatically through embedded natural language processing, semantic analysis and statistical inference
• The data is automatically indexed and presented to users in real-time
• Guided navigation through entities, terms and clusters can be used to identify the same “switch-to-bill” discrepancies
• The results are iteratively tuned by user-provided feedback
  

This second scenario takes the effort away from auditors and code developers and puts it in the hands of those best qualified to fix the billing discrepancies as part of their normal job responsibilities.