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Business Tools Blog

Monthly Archives: April 2008

Trevor’s Excel Formatting Questions

I received these questions from Trevor yesterday … and thought that others might benefit from the answers:
 
Trevor writes:
 

I’m doing a project for Accounting and I’m having some problems with excel, so I thought I’d say hi and ask for help since I haven’t heard from you in a while =)
 
Question 1:

I have a spreadsheet and […]

How do we measure MRR Churn?

Let’s start with who measures churn?  Answer: The stakeholders:

CRM,  Sales and Marketing
Service Delivery
 Billing/Revenue Assurance

Zayo uses a methodology that I describe as Balancing the Checkbook to measure net installs (net installs = gross installs less churn).
Step 1 –
The CRM, Sales and Marketing organizations gather information from customers about potential churn before orders come in.  They share […]

Keeping Score on Disconnects … one of my favorite Bear posts

If you read the Bear’s Disconnect Inferno blogs, you read how important it is to “Keep Score.”  Caruso writes:
This sugarcoat tendency happens in various areas of business reporting–but it is likely more prevalent in the area of disconnects than in most other areas. Why? First, ascertaining disconnects and validating reporting is tedious. Second, it is highly unlikely the auditors, […]

Telecom Recurring Revenue Forecasting … what is the rule of 78’s?

The rule of 78’s is a simple math for those who need to estimate recurring revenue or recurring expense over the next 12 months.   For example, Jim Crowe, Level 3 CEO,  used the rule of 78’s to explain Level 3’s revenue on the Q1 2008 Earnings Call.
 
Formula –
 
(Current run rate) + (average monthly net […]

Shortcuts for Excel, Word & Powerpoint

Before toolbars, we used shortcut keys to navigate thru Microsoft applications.  While the toolbars are nice to have, they take more time than using a shortcut key.
 
Rather than list all the shortcut keys (you can find a complete list here), I will list the shortcuts that I use.  Add a few of these to your repertoire […]

Financial Definitions — a Good Place to Start

Where to start?
 
I thought I’d start with first page ever posted on Zayo’s Intranet.  We have Lexicon built around financial definitions.  We want everyone to have a reference to key business terms. 

Billable Run Rate: The value of one full month’s billing for all active MRR service orders. 
Gross Sales:  An order that has been signed […]

Why blog?

I am hoping that this blog serves as a conduit for organizational dialogue. The aspiration is that this blog will share tribal knowledge … not just at Zayo, but across the Telecom industry.
Abraham Maslow said, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” […]