E-Billing for Multi National Customers (MNC)

Published 4th September 2008

Despite growing acceptance and the fact that e-bills are greener, confusion remains about how e-billing works. E-billing brings big savings to companies and effectiveness to the economy. The benefits of e-Billing have not been stressed enough.

The replacement of a traditional paper bill by some form of electronic bill delivered and processed via an online site or email, called electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP), compared to paper invoices, offers huge advantages for the competitiveness of the enterprise – e-bills are easier to process, reach the customer faster, and can be stored centrally at a very low cost. However, three main obstacles prevent the complete adoption of e-billing in the European Union:

• e-Billing standards in the EU and worldwide are fragmented
• Validity and acceptance of e-billing for legal, financial and administrative purposes still follow national rules, making cross-border transactions difficult
• Security, authenticity and integrity considerations lead to an operational risk and thus to a deficit of trust

The Challenge for Multi-National Companies
Getting a clear picture of what is happening across multiple countries, regions and divisions is a real challenge. While this situation affects many businesses and industries, it is especially true for multi-national customers of telecom operators, global delivery/express shipping services and even manufacturers with global agreements.
Multi-national customers today require more billing transparency and require multiple points of view (global, regional, country, division, and cost centres).

The primary difficulties encountered by HQ when managing multi-country environments:
• Different billing systems
• Inability to leverage international spending
• Complicated international purchasing decisions
• Difficulties in the consolidation of international activity and usage information

Their needs:
• Simplicity
• Ability to manage services internationally
• Power to integrate and leverage global spending for greater savings
• International management reporting
• Support in multiple geographic locations

As multi-national customers are present in multiple locations there is an inherent complexity for service providers when attempting to compile billing data from different billing platforms. Multiple currencies associated with the management of different languages in conjunction with a centralised e-billing hub operated in a consistent and secure manner are the base requirements of such a solution.

A multi-national central e-billing system must respond to the compliance needs of each and every corporate location. Also, the system must take into account the different tax requirements at the national, state or provincial level within the countries where they are located.

A multi-national e-billing solution should be dynamic and allow customers to access the individual level of an itemised invoice. Customers should also be able to arrange, sort, filter and search their bills. It is therefore typically much easier for customers to understand an electronic bill than a printed paper-based one. The main benefit of this approach is the added transparency online billing can provide as a key element in a cohesive web-based service strategy.

LogNet allows the service provider and the multi-national customer to choose how in-depth company reporting should be – an analysis of services provided with detailed costs or simply a high-level monitoring of overall spending. Regardless of the choice, clarity is just a few clicks away with LogNet.

By Gina Veridiano-Martouzet, Executive Vice-President
LogNet Systems
www.lognet-systems.net


About LogNet Systems

LogNet Systems provides next-generation e-billing and customer self-service comprehensive software solutions, enabling providers to offer their Multi-National, business and consumer customers a superior experience to manage their accounts, order products and services, review and analyze bills, execute payments as well as resolve disputes online from a single starting point within a company's web site.
Our dynamic versus static solution helps our clients to reduce operational costs, introduce new sales and service channels, while strengthening relationships with their consumer and business subscribers by improving customer care quality.
Billing systems agnostic, LogNet’s proven value-added solutions - together with the vast experience and know-how gained while servicing leading operators worldwide - provide clients with the assurance of a successful implementation of their web based self-service offering, thus ensuring that they remain leading providers.

Press contact:
Trista Schneberger
Open2Europe
Phone: +33 1 55 02 27 93
Email: t.schneberger@open2europe.com