CABLE & WIRELESS OPTUS TO OFFER WEB-BASED BILLING FOR OUTSOURCED CUSTOMERS

The Cable & Wireless Optus Outsourcing Group has developed an Internet-based solution for the delivery of telecommunications billing information to its outsourced customers .

Anticipated to be available from August 1999, the web-based billing system has been specifically designed to allow organisations with complex telecommunications environments to have a comprehensive and detailed view of expenditure across many different suppliers including charges from carriers Telstra, Vodafone, AAPT and others.

John Filmer, Director of the Enterprise Division, Cable & Wireless Optus said the service reflects the highly competitive market for telecommunications services for large corporate and government customers and the expanding range of niche telecommunication services.

"Large organisations typically use a number of suppliers - for example mobile network providers, equipment and maintenance suppliers, data services, paging services and traditional dial-tone-at-the-desk services - to ensure their communication services are cost-effective, and precisely meet business needs," said Mr Filmer.

"This newly developed system provides large organisations with visibility of all their bills from their suppliers allocated according to a customised cost model."

The system will provide telecommunications managers, financial staff and cost centre managers with summary and detailed reporting on levels and type of expenditure, extensive drill-down and sort capabilities; exception reports to highlight any bill anomalies; as well as on-line inventory browsing and job reporting from the Cable & Wireless Optus Outsourcing help-desk system.

The new web-based billing system consolidates information from all of the customer's telecommunications suppliers, to provide a single source of information on expenditure and usage patterns. Customers are able to view data over a 15-month period.

"The new web-based billing system allows a sophisticated level of management reporting and analysis," said Mr Filmer.

"We believe this system sets the benchmark for reporting in the telecoms outsourcing market. It has been a multi-million dollar investment on our part and we have worked closely with existing customers throughout the process to ensure the system delivers against requirements. We are already planning a series of upgrades to further enhance the system's functionality, including additional capabilities for service level reporting, initiating fault rectification and network management work requests."

Overall, the new system provides customers with speedier access to bill data and other management information.

All reports are designed so the user can "drill-down" to greater levels of detail and can sort and view reports in a variety of ways. For example, user-defined variances in charges and usage over a selected period can be highlighted for investigation. The system also allows authorised personnel to make changes in the organisation's cost centre hierarchy and to view the status of faults or network Moves, Adds or Changes (MACs) being managed by the Optus Help Desk team.

Cable & Wireless Optus Outsourcing expects the web-based system will eventually replace the standard CD-based billing process.

John Filmer concludes: "We have invested heavily over the past year in the people, processes and technology that allow us to deliver robust "systems based" outsourcing and managed services, in contrast to the more manual solutions used by some of our competitors in this area."

About Cable & Wireless Optus Outsourcing

Cable & Wireless Optus is one of the largest specialist outsourcers in Australia.

The company offers a range of tailored telecommunication services including the management of third party service providers, spanning the provision of a total telecommunications environment, PABX based networks, stand alone mobile fleets and data services.

From a state-of-the-art facility in Brisbane, incorporating a specialist call centre, Optus provides outsourcing services to State and Federal Government departments, as well as a number of large corporations operating in industries as diverse as Information Technology and Minerals and Energy.

For more information:
Melissa Favero
Cable & Wireless Optus
Phone: 02 9342 5030
Mobile: 0412 001 487
Email: melissa.favero@cwo.com.au