Page 101 - Performance Leadership

90 • Part II Operational and Analytical Dimensions

between operations and the staffing plan needs to be minimized, allo-
cating scarce human resources as efficiently as possible.
With the single context of the truth, with all relevant definitions in
a single report, the problem of making it all add up is solved. But hor-
izontal alignment also achieved something even more important, there
is more insight in the operational efficiency.

Case Study 3: E-plus

In the previous two examples, the software industry and the railways
sector, the one version of the truth started to make sense when it was
sorted as a value chain. This is very typical for straight metrics such as
revenue and trains. However, if the performance indicator is a ratio and
a composite of nature, usually it makes more sense to shape the ver-
sions of the truth as a matrix.
Let’s look at another example, mobile telephony. One of the most
important performance indicators in the telecom world is ARPU,
which stands for average revenue per user. This is no different at E-
plus, which is the third-largest mobile telecom operator in Germany.
It has been in business since 1994, has close to 12 million customers,
and around three billion euros in revenue. The E-plus value proposi-
tion is to make mobile telephony uncomplicated, straightforward, and
easy to understand. E-plus’s ARPU per month is around 20 euros.
As with any business term highly connected with the core of the
business, there are many different definitions of ARPU around. E-plus
now distinguishes between AIPU (average invoice per user), business
ARPU, reported ARPU, and analytical ARPU. These definitions have
a clear relationship. The AIPU is part of the “business ARPU” and the
business ARPU in its turn is part of the “reported ARPU.” Then, lastly,
there is also the “analytical ARPU,” based on various corrections after
the reported ARPU. See Figure 6.1.
There are various revenue categories that contribute to the AIPU.
These are based on the type of contract. For subscription users these
are the basic subscription fee, the bundle fee, the fees for the various
special options, such as text messaging, the roaming fees (revenues gen-
erated by the subscribers on other networks), the realized revenue based
on the minutes spent calling, revenue coming from “value added