From the bill run to the committee paper

Mandate

Replace the in-house billing system, decide where systems should run under the new owner's cost plan and reduce the personal data the company holds.

Outcomes

• Cut over 255,000 accounts to a convergent billing platform in February 2024, with 69,300 card arrangements transferred between processors
• Moved billing, customer management and the portal to a public-cloud region while keeping authentication on two owned sites; RM 2.5 million saved in 2025
• Reduced scanned identity documents held from 412,000 to 8,900
• Introduced an annual supplier-dependence register reviewed by the audit and risk committee

Decisions in context

As chief information officer I answer for every system between our fibre network and the subscriber's account: billing and payments, operations support, the self-service app, infrastructure, security and data protection. Network engineering standards sit with our chief technology officer, and the hosting split was agreed with him. The owner's plan required three large changes in five years. I sequenced them so that one household moment stayed stable while another moved: billing first, in February 2024; hosting through 2024, with authentication kept on our own sites; and data reduction in 2025. I manage 126 colleagues through five managers and about 60 contractor staff. My quarterly committee papers state the cost of each choice alongside its benefit, and the committee now receives the supplier-dependence register every year. I attend board discussions as an executive presenter and do not hold a directorship.

Reason for the move

Current role; I would add one external board seat only with my chief executive's consent.

Mandate

Stabilise an in-house billing system with little documentation and move installation orders off spreadsheets.

Outcomes

• Documented the monthly bill run and trained two analysts alongside its last original developer
• Introduced scan-to-activate provisioning, cutting order-to-activation time from 6.2 days to 2.9
• Absorbed nearly double the usual order volume after March 2020 without extending activation times

Decisions in context

I joined Kemaruna Fibre to run a billing system I had not built and an installation process that lived on spreadsheets. The billing code had one remaining original developer, so my first step was to pair two analysts with him and write down the monthly bill run, step by step. Then I turned to activation: orders passed from sales to planners to fourteen contractor firms, and a household could wait days for its fibre terminal to be switched on. We added a scan-to-activate step in the installers' app, linked to network inventory, which brought order-to-activation time down from 6.2 days to 2.9. It mattered most in 2020, when orders nearly doubled within six weeks of the movement control order. I reported to the chief operating officer and learnt how to argue for systems spending in an owner-managed company.

Reason for the move

Appointed the company's first chief information officer when Corvanthe Equity invested in 2021.

Mandate

Deliver releases, capacity and incident response across a shared platform used by six client brands.

Outcomes

• Led the review of a 2014 charging-cluster failure and separated the reload service from the main cluster
• Gave each client a written statement of which platform components it shared with others
• Reported platform incidents to the company's board risk committee from 2015

Decisions in context

Solvantri hosted the systems behind six mobile virtual operators: rating and charging, SIM provisioning, number-portability messages and customer-care screens. I led platform delivery, which meant releases, capacity and incident response for all six clients at once. The commercial model encouraged one shared configuration, while each client wanted its own exceptions, and I learnt to say which exceptions the platform could carry safely. In 2014 a charging-cluster failure stopped reload sales for ninety minutes across every client brand. I led the review, and we separated the reload service from the main cluster. We also gave each client a written account of what it shared with the others, which some found uncomfortable to read. From 2015 I reported incidents to the company's board risk committee. I left because I wanted to answer to subscribers myself rather than through a contract.

Reason for the move

Wanted to be accountable to subscribers directly, inside an operator, rather than through a client contract.

Mandate

Run the bill run, usage rating and credit control, and stop revenue leaking between network activation and billing.

Outcomes

• Made a first charge a condition for closing any circuit order
• Introduced a monthly exceptions report with a named owner for each mismatch
• Reduced leakage found in that report from S$1.9 million in 2008 to S$0.2 million in 2011

Decisions in context

After the unbilled-circuit review, Halvecrest asked me to run billing operations: the monthly bill run, usage rating for internet-transit customers, credit notes and the reconciliation between network inventory and billing. I reported to the finance director and led twelve people. I introduced a rule that a circuit order could not close until its first charge existed, and a monthly report listing every live circuit without a charge, every charge without a live circuit and the person responsible for each exception. Engineering managers disliked the rule because it delayed some handovers, so we agreed a fast track for urgent orders with a seven-day reconciliation. Leakage identified in the report fell from S$1.9 million in 2008 to S$0.2 million in 2011. The role taught me that a control works when somebody owns each exception, not when a report exists.

Reason for the move

Returned to Malaysia for family reasons and to work on mobile platforms.

Mandate

Maintain billing, order-management and portal interfaces for business customers.

Outcomes

• Traced a fourteen-month unbilled leased line to a silent activation failure
• Matched every live circuit to a billing record and found forty-one more unbilled circuits worth S$1.3 million a year
• Added an acknowledgement message for every activation sent to billing

Decisions in context

I joined Halvecrest's applications team as one of nine analysts supporting billing, order management and the customer portal for business clients. My work was rating rules, interfaces and fixes to the bill run. The defining episode came in 2006, when a customer asked why its Kuala Lumpur leased line had never been invoiced. I traced the order and found that the activation message had failed silently between the provisioning tool and billing. With the network inventory team, I spent three weeks matching every live circuit to its billing record and found forty-one more unbilled circuits worth S$1.3 million a year. The remedy was partly technical, an acknowledgement for every activation, and partly about ownership, since someone had to be named for each mismatch. That piece of work led directly to my promotion into billing operations in 2008.

Reason for the move

Promoted to billing operations manager after the circuit review.

Mandate

Build and then specify changes to the account and usage-rating modules for client companies.

Outcomes

• Specified tariff changes for three water utilities and two paging operators
• Rebuilt the usage-rating module for clients moving to flat monthly internet plans
• Supported client bill runs on site and fed operating problems back into design

Decisions in context

Desaramu Systems wrote billing and customer-account software for water utilities, paging operators and dial-up internet providers. I started as a programmer on the account module and became a systems analyst in 2002, specifying changes that clients requested. A tariff rule built for one water utility would be stretched to fit the next, and I learnt to ask what the original rule had assumed before altering it. I also spent nights at client sites during bill runs, which showed me how billing staff worked around the limits of our software. When two dial-up clients introduced flat monthly plans, our usage-rating module had nothing to rate, and we rebuilt it rather than add another patch. I left in 2004 because I wanted to work inside an operator, where the bill and the network belong to one company and nobody can blame the vendor.

Reason for the move

Wanted to work inside an operator, where the network and the bill belong to the same company.