The 1st RAID User Group meeting took place, 10th to 12th of May, in Lisbon, Portugal.

Taking the advantage of the wonderful weather in the Portuguese capital, the User Group gathered about 60 delegates among the community of RAID - Revenue Assurance Solution - users, mainly from telecommunications service providers (mobile, fixed and internet) from Europe, Latin America and Asia.

According to Rui Paiva, WeDo CEO, "We would like to contribute positively towards the telecom industry's success and even more towards our clients. The User Group is the perfect opportunity to discuss the trends of Revenue Assurance, learn from the other Operator's experience and to find out more about the future of RAID, WeDo's Revenue Assurance Solution", says Rui Paiva.

The User Group's goal was to be a place to exchange revenue assurance experience and knowledge. The programme of the event focused on the day-to-day RAID (Revenue Assurance Solution) users' experience and on the latest product developments.

WeDo Soft has become a reference with a worldwide scope, in a market on which we would like to see pass the 500 million dollar mark, by 2008. The excellent development of WeDo in this segment is shown by the vast customer base among Tier-1 operators, in countries like the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Poland, Brazil, Spain, Thailand, among others.

From the 2 days and half of the event, we leave a few highlights about some of the issues discussed:

Revenue Assurance has an important role within the telecommunications industry. This role will grow as the risk of leakage increases due to the move into data and multimedia services. Proven results are being achieved and the return over investment of implementing RAID can be obtained in less than one year after implementation. Among the operators present at the User Group, there were very large implementations where RAID succeeded to process over 1 Billion CDRs. There is clear need for telecommunications operators to have Events Control module, since it empowers the RA team. Events Control module facilitates the gathering of detailed information related to the leakage detected. User interface features, such as the Case Management, are also critical since they help the RA team, most of the times under dimensioned, to resolve each leakage situation. Today we see a trend towards mobile, fixed and internet convergence. This presents several new challenges to the RA team since there is a move to consolidate the organizations into shared services approach. We saw how some of the operators are already doing this, namely extending RAID. Other RA areas are emerging in the operators as a priority, namely Risk Management, Wholesale Fraud, Credit and Collections. These should also be addressed by the Telecom Operators.

Besides the conference program the User Group participants had also the opportunity to enjoy a wonderful atmosphere in Lisbon where they had the opportunity to meet some of the local traditions and history. WeDo wishes you a wonderful year and sincerely hopes that next year this conference delegates meet again, with new RAID customers, to continue discussing about revenue assurance trends and the future of RAID - Revenue Assurance Solution.