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Revenue assurance specialist is highlighting the impact of LTE on mobile operator finances
The Pink Floyd track Money, with its clanking cash registers and vague sense of impending doom, could be viewed as the anthem of revenue assurance. If you use your imagination. How fitting, then, that these prog-rock dinosaurs are the minstrels of choice for WeDo Technologies CEO Rui Paiva.
For WeDo Technologies, founded in Portugal in 2001 by Paiva, is all about revenue assurance and fraud management, a niche Service Provider Information Technology (SPIT) sector that could gain greater notoriety as LTE becomes widespread. (See LTE Could Add to Leakage Woes.)
In fact, the company recently published a white paper focused on the impact that LTE will have on mobile operator revenue assurance challenges.
WeDo has taken the concept of revenue assurance beyond the telecom sector and into the retail, finance and energy spheres, and earlier this year it made a bit of history by announcing what it claims is the first patent in the revenue assurance and fraud management space by any of the major players.
WeDo has spread its SPIT tentacles far and wide, with numerous big-name operators signing up to the WeDo way of doing things (see table below). In 2011 alone the company won six new telecom accounts across Central Africa, the Middle East, Asia Pacific, the U.S. and Eastern Europe. (See WeDo Lands Vodafone Deal and Turkcell Picks WeDo.)
If you want to meet some WeDo folk in the flesh, and maybe exchange views with the CEO on which were the best bits of Monty Python's Life of Brian, May sees WeDo's annual Worldwide User Group Meeting in Óbidos, north of Lisbon.
Table 1: WeDo Technologies Cheat Sheet
Company name | WeDo Technologies |
Headquarters | Headquarters are in Portugal, though the company has an international presence in 14 other countries: Australia, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, France, Ireland, Malaysia, Mexico, Panama, Poland, Singapore, Spain, U.K. and the U.S. |
Founded | 2001 |
Key executives | Rui Paiva is WeDo Technologies CEO. Pink Floyd fanatic Paiva has led the company as CEO since the company's inception. Prior to 2001, Paiva served as professional services director at HP and held senior IT management roles in Optimus and Vodafone Portugal. He is also a board member of other European technology companies. |
Headcount | More than 400 (includes 18 nationalities across 15 countries) |
Company focus | Revenue assurance and fraud management, sometimes also called "profit protection" or "loss prevention" outside of telecom, are the domains where WeDo Technologies -- through its software and services -- has made its name. This space in broadening and including risk management, internal audit and security and the company has been calling it "business assurance" since 2009. |
Funding | WeDo Technologies is owned by Sonae Group, which has 61,000 employees in 18 countries. The group is active in retail, shopping centers and other business areas, mainly in Portugal. |
Revenues | For the financial year 2011, €46.2 million (US$64.3 million). |
Profitability (operating or net income) | EBITDA/operating Income: 4.3 percent growth to €5.6 million (US$7.8 million) and 12% EBITDA margin |
Headline customers/key accounts | Vodafone, Orange, Orascom, Etisalat, Telefónica, Turkcell, Oi Brazil, Vimipelcom |
Main competitors | Cvidya, Subex |
Company motto | "Assuring your business for the future" |
CEO's favorite movies | Excalibur, Once Upon a Time In America, Life of Brian |
-- Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading
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