Chorus Collaborates with Leading SAP Partner, Zag, to Transform its Billing - CASE STUDY - Zag Team
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CASE STUDY Chorus Collaborates with Leading SAP Partner, Zag, to Transform its Billing
Chorus partners with Zag to deliver a fit-for-
purpose billing system, independent from
Spark, that transforms the billing process for
business users and wholesale customers.
When it comes to billing your customers, having a reliable yet flexible system
is crucial. When it’s your revenue on the line, there’s no room for second-best
solutions or providers.
Chorus was ready to progress from its 20-year old legacy billing system
shared with Spark, to achieve greater flexibility, independence and speed to
market for its customers and business users.
Who is Chorus?
Chorus NZ Limited (Chorus) builds Company snapshot:
and manages New Zealand’s largest · 1.1+ Million broadband connections
telecommunications infrastructure · 1.4+ Million fixed-line connections
network so Kiwis can connect to and · 11,000 Cabinets & 280,000 poles
enjoy greater broadband. · 100+ Wholesale customers
· $1 Billion annual turnover
Labelled one of the world’s best, · 900 Staff headcount
Chorus provides open access
internet networks and rolls out ultra-
fast, congestion-free broadband via
Fibre and Copper to urban and rural
areas of New Zealand. The country’s
phone and broadband providers, like
Spark, Vodafone and 2Degrees,
access Chorus’ network to offer
innovative products and services to
their end customers.
CHORUS
02 | BILLING SOLUTION
Seeking independence and flexibility
“Chorus had been using a legacy billing system that was over 20 years old. It
was inflexible, out of date and didn’t meet our needs,” explains CTO Finance
Manager Paul Kerr.
Whilst Chorus separated from Spark in 2011, its billing runs were still being
performed on Spark’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system until just
recently. The key reasons for developing a new solution were remediation of
the billing process from Spark as part of the formal Chorus/ Spark split, to give
Chorus control of billing its wholesale customers from its own SAP ERP and to
provide Chorus with flexibility and agility around billing.
“We really wanted a modern billing system that fitted our wholesale business
and provided a lot of flexibility. Something that we didn’t have to customise a
lot but was configurable to our needs,” says Kerr. “A solution that was easy to
useand integrated well with our existing systems,” adds Program Manager
Adrian Blair.
“Chorus wanted to transform customer
experience - provide customers with a better
bill - and transform the business process at
the same time.”
- Adrian Blair, Program Manager
CHORUS
03 | BILLING SOLUTION
The winning proof of concept
Chorus brought Zag in to discuss “There was a real
potential solutions for its billing
commitment and focus on
requirements. Zag delivered a quick
and effective Proof of Concept wanting to get an outcome
(POC) by extending Chorus’ existing through this process and it
SAP platform functionality to bill its gave me a lot of confidence
customers through Zag development
and configuration services.
going through to our
Executives to get the
This option averted the need for business case sign-off, just
Chorus to purchase new software
to see that Zag could make
(only additional user licenses) which
made the solution very cost-
this happen for us.”
effective.
- Paul Kerr, CTO Finance
“Our engagement with Zag
Manager
throughout the POC was really good,
the technical guys from Chorus really
appreciated the work that they did,”
says Kerr.
CHORUS
04 | BILLING SOLUTION
Why did Chorus engage Zag?
“We’d previously worked with Zag on "There is nothing like a proven track
the implementation of our financial record of getting things done.”
systems, including the development
and enhancements therein. Zag had Zag was appointed to deliver the
supported us in this area and has billing solution and provided services
been supporting our systems, so it for project management, solution
made sense to engage with Zag on architecture, technical architecture,
this project,” explains Kerr. development, Basis, testing and
security. Chorus engaged Zag on
“If we were looking for a supplier in test support right through to
SAP, Zag would certainly be the first production implementation and
partner we would go to," says Blair. production support.
CHORUS
05 | BILLING SOLUTION
Working together to achieve the best outcome
To deliver a project of this size and The regularity and quality of the
complexity in only a year, with quite a engagement meant that Chorus had
tight budget, it had to be a full trust in Zag to guide them
collaborative effort with Chorus and through the implementation. “Zag’s
its vendors working together on an people are professional,
outcome. knowledgeable and were always
willing to help,” says Hunter.
“We started off working around a
whiteboard in the Zag offices Blair adds “A key part of that trust
discussing and drawing components was due to our active risk
of the design. Quite often we would management on the project. Zag
address the same thing a couple of fully participated in that and
times and challenge each other's understood how important it was to
thinking but, at the end of the day, mitigate risk throughout the
we respected each other's opinions process.”
because it was clear we had the
same goal in mind - a great outcome “Zag is a really easy supplier
for Chorus and its customers,” says
to work with, we didn’t
Principal Solution Architect Dafydd
Hunter. sweat the small stuff and
everything went well. When
Over the project, Chorus’ trust in we had things to change it
Zag’s recommendations grew,
including the suggestion to follow a
was easy. Having them
phased implementation approach. onsite, co-locating and
The project team did a number of working as one team with
sprints, showing demonstrations and
Chorus and our other
playbacks every month to give
Chorus confidence that things were
suppliers was awesome.”
happening. - Adrian Blair, Program Manager
CHORUS
06 | BILLING SOLUTION
The new bill and its benefits
The project delivered a working SAP billing solution that Kerr describes as a
“fit for purpose modern system that works for us.”
“It’s a simpler solution, a lot less manual - the processes in the background run
a lot smoother. It really helps that we were able to integrate the billing system
with our SAP finance system as well as the portal our customers use.”
As part of this project, Zag supplied Chorus with a Disputes Portal, where
service providers can collaborate with Chorus around invoicing issues. This
facilitates quick invoice dispute resolution.
The benefits and advantages of the new billing solution are:
A simpler, more accurate and robust billing process without reliance on
Spark.
Mitigates risk to Chorus’ revenue collection.
Full control over the end-to-end billing process.
Ability to alter pricing easily to adapt quickly to market conditions.
Increased agility meaning new products and services can be
brought to market faster.
More efficient reconciliation with better visibility over the
entire billing process and easier invoice tracking.
Simplified month and year-end processes.
Increased employee productivity due to process
efficiency.
New insights from information handling for better
reporting and analytics.
Ability to easily enhance, build and develop
on the new billing platform.
CHORUS
07 | BILLING SOLUTIONAn outcome only teamwork can achieve
“Overall the project was viewed as very successful at Chorus, it
came in on time, under budget and covered all of the functionality
required. All of our revenue was captured, we’ve had no cases of
any revenue leakages since go-live which is awesome given all of
our revenue was at stake.”
- Adrian Blair, Program Manager
Kerr says “We have reduced our "This project has been a success and
costs and saved a substantial amount one of the key reasons for that has
of money by decommissioning our been that we’ve worked so closely
costly legacy system and billing from and well with Zag. I always felt
our new SAP platform.” throughout the project that Zag
wasn’t just interested in fulfilling its
Importantly, “Customer satisfaction contract but was dedicated to
has improved and we’ve received a delivering and driving through a
lot of positive feedback,” adds Blair. successful project, which they did
“It’s a simpler solution that's easier through collaborating with Chorus,”
for our customers to understand as it concludes Kerr. “I can’t thank them
provides more information about enough, Zag was fantastic.”
what they’re being billed for - which
is great,” says Hunter.
For more information visit:
W // zag.team
To get in contact email:
E // info@zag.team
CHORUS
03 ||
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