OK finance teams, time to come out of the shadows. \u00a0At most operators with whom I have worked, the focus of enterprise data quality efforts has been on optimizing network operations.\u00a0 Misalignment between the network and data in systems that support planning, provisioning, activation and service assurance adds friction and cost to essential telco processes.\u00a0 No new insight here.<\/p>\n
Lately I’ve been spending more time with the finance guys. \u00a0\u00a0Despite stereotypes to the contrary, they’re not just number crunchers. \u00a0They care about what’s in the network- where it is, how old it is, the condition it’s in, where it’s been, where it’s going and what happens at end of life. \u00a0Complicating their lives, the financial database of record for network assets, the Fixed Asset Register (FAR), typically suffers from the same data issues confounding the Ops teams\u2014if not worse.<\/p>\n
Sounds bad, but Finance doesn’t have to worry about delivering or supporting new services. \u00a0So what’s the harm? \u00a0\u00a0Based on the earful I’ve received from finance organizations, including a Tier 1 CFO\u2014plenty. \u00a0This diagram provides a sampling of corporate functions dependent upon accurate asset records in the FAR:<\/p>\n
Mission Critical Role of the FAR<\/strong><\/p>\n Among the potential costs of inaccurate fixed asset records are:<\/p>\n Such issues get corporate board-level attention.\u00a0 I am aware of several recent cases of poor FAR audit results prompting an operator to launch a FAR cleanup effort or even a full asset management program.<\/p>\n To their credit, financial reporting analysts I have spoken with are not blind to their data woes\u2014just typically dependent upon compromises and work-arounds. \u00a0They often manage as best they can by mining numerous B\/OSS\u2019s to cobble together a view of assets across all network layers and asset classes. \u00a0Gaps and inaccuracies in this view abound.<\/p>\n Among the most common methods finance organizations employ to address the situation are manual audits performed on sample sites once or twice a year. \u00a0\u00a0This mostly provides insights on how far off the FAR is from reality. \u00a0Generally, such spot audits are too limited and expensive to support systemic and continuous correction of the errant data.<\/p>\n So how do we achieve a reliable FAR (before the Board takes it up as a crusade)?<\/p>\n It starts with determining the impact of inaccurate asset records on financial reporting and planning, corporate governance, taxation and regulatory compliance.\u00a0 Is the exposure minimal and bounded, or are the risks unacceptable?\u00a0 Assuming the latter, a FAR get-well plan should include:<\/p>\n\n
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