Billing: modernise now or wait 2 years

When the fork appears

The current biller is 15+ years old. The vendor supports it “through gritted teeth”. Every new product — 6 months of approvals and custom code. The CFO asks for modernisation, the CIO fears a 36-month project with the risk of disrupting billing operations. The vendor offers an upgrade at a “migration price”.

The decision is postponed every year. Five years later the situation is worse, the choice is the same.

Ageing signals

Time to launch a new tariff >90 days. Usually <30 in a modern biller.

Vendor support loses key specialists, support tickets queue up for 2 weeks.

Integration with any new system requires a custom adapter (the biller does not support event-driven architectures).

Reconciliation deviations (revenue assurance flags) grow — the biller does not keep up with product complexity.

Operational downtime — biller down >2x per month with MTTR >2 hours.

Compliance requirements (new tax, new regulation) trigger major change requests.

If 3-4 signs are present — the biller is at a critical ageing stage.

Replacement strategies

Big bang. Full switchover in one weekend. High risk, minimal parallel running.

Greenfield + migration. New biller in parallel, migration of segments / products in phases. 18-30 months. Most popular approach but requires double operations.

Strangle pattern. The new biller captures new accounts, the old one continues with legacy. Gradual decommission. 24-48 months.

Modular replacement. Replacing biller components (rating, charging, invoicing) one by one. Low risk, but the longest path — often 36-60 months.

When to modernise now

Critical sign(s) present (down >2x/month, vendor leaving, compliance gap).

Strategic horizon 5+ years — there is a business case for investment payback.

Operations leadership stable — no risk of losing key people during a 24-month project.

CFO commitment on CapEx ($30-100M typical) and double run cost during migration.

Parallel initiatives (CRM, CDP, network upgrade) planned around the biller, to avoid triple-modernisation.

When to wait

The current biller functionally works, business velocity is not blocked.

Another major migration is in flight (e.g. network 5G), team capacity exhausted.

The regulator is preparing significant changes in the next 12 months — better to wait so the new biller takes them straight away.

Vendor consolidation is underway in the industry — a year later the vendor choice may be different.

Financial situation does not allow double cost during migration.

What to discuss at the committee

What exactly blocks us in the current biller (specific use cases, not “general pain”).

Alternative strategies: can we build “wrapping” around the old biller (event layer, modern API) that removes 70% of the pain without replacing the core?

5-year TCO of replacement vs 5-year cost of status quo (including business opportunity loss).

Risk assessment: what happens if migration breaks at month 18.

Vendor longlist + shortlist with reference checks from other telecom operators of similar size.

How SamaraliSoft helps

Billing Modernisation Decision Framework — 4-6 weeks. Diagnostic of the current biller, gap analysis vs business needs, modernisation strategy options, vendor evaluation framework, risk assessment, timing recommendation.

Related

• /en/insights/telecom-billing-modernization/ — billing modernisation
• /en/architecture/telecom-around-core-architecture/ — wrapping around the core
• /en/decisions/telecom-build-vs-buy-cdp/ — CDP decision
• /en/insights/telecom-platform-tco/ — TCO