Most telecom companies, cable companies and utilities already purchase billing software or outsource their billing to billing companies. For some companies, it is an issue of focus and core competency. But some companies have built their billing systems in-house and used it as a source of competitive advantage.

MCI - When MCI came out with their Friends & Family program many years ago, it took two years for AT&T and Sprint to match it because their billing systems could not support that type of pricing.

Sprint PCS - More recently, in 2003, Sprint PCS rebuilt their billing system in-house because it could not handle the various pricing packages they wanted to offer. For instance, Sprint offers PCS-to-PCS calling for free, but their billing system could not support the concept. Before their new billing system w the concept. Before their new billing system went live in 2004, at the end of each billing period, they ran a batch script to correctly classify the PCS-to-PCS minutes. Their billing system could already distinguish peak from non-peak minutes. But PCS-to-PCS minutes were simply listed in the peak or non-peak categories until they were re-classified after the billing period had ended.

WebEx - In an web-related example, WebEx, the leading provider online-conferencing services, rebuilt their billing module in-house because their original billing module would not support the custom pricing packages the salesforce wanted to offer to customers. At the time, they chose to build it in-house only because no billing products existed that met their needs.

At Averum, we are committed to providing you with the competitive advantages of a sophisticated, full-featured billing system without the expense and hassle of building (and maintaining) it in-house. Our system can handle a wide array of complex pricing scenarios.

If you find that you need a pricing capability or other feature that our system does not offer -- either as a software or hosted customer -- just let us know. Billing is our primary focus and our core competency. So we are always delighted to get customer suggestions for new features. Our development schedule is heavily influenced by customer requests.

>> Continue to Why the CFO should care about the billing system.