THE E-BUSINESS ON DEMAND SERVICE PROVIDER BUSINESS Introduction This section introduces the IBM e-business on demand/autonomic perspective from a service provider viewpoint. Service providers can be thought of both as business "enterprises," and, in many cases, telecommunications companies, due to the nature of advanced services that telecommunications firms provide. As stated by Alex Cabanes, the IBM Software Group's Industry Marketing Manager: "In today's rapidly changing marketplace, the ability of a service provider to sense and respond to ever-changing customer demands will determine who survives, and who does not. This requires a technology fabric that can adapt on demand to these ever changing requirements."[6] This section addresses service providers and this fabric. As we have discussed in this book, the IBM Corporation defines e-business on demand as "an enterprise whose business processes—integrated end-to-end across the company and with key partners, suppliers and customers—can respond with flexibility and speed to changing customer demands, market opportunity, or external threat." We have also explored several strategic perspectives of e-business on demand—autonomic computing and grid computing; however, it is key to understand one interesting example of an ecosystem that e-business on demand addresses, in a variety of ways. While the term e-business on demand originally was used in IBM to define activities in "sourcing" initiatives, today a much broader definition of the term is used to encompass what it takes to be an on demand business in an on demand world. For a business to be capable of providing on demand services, it must respond in real time to its markets and customers. An e-business on demand business must be variable in its ability to provide services, focused on its core differentiating capabilities, and resilient to both internal and external interruption. It is also important that the enterprise have an on demand operating environment, which, as we discussed in previous chapters, is an "open, standards-based, and heterogeneous world, integrated and freely enabled with self-managing capabilities." The term ecosystem will be used in this section to describe a three-part service-enabling environment. This ecosystem includes content providers, a center of the ecosystem where the service providers and carriers operate, which ultimately delivers services to the global consumers with a myriad of pervasive devices. The context of the term ecosystem includes a wide spectrum of types of end users and a variety of consumer telephonic and computing devices. It includes several complex strategies involving flexible hosting and delivery of e-business on demand autonomic processes and information anytime and anywhere, as well as advanced Web services. These e-business on demand ecosystem services deliver information to an environment where end user devices are not dependent on proprietary technologies, but rather receptive to many standards of technological integration techniques, devices, platforms, and business operations. The service provider e-business on demand ecosystem delivers a diverse set of business capabilities to virtually any market. This is achieved by an open standards (or open source) approach to fortifying and sustaining the on demand operating environment. The general plight of those delivering advanced Web services to this global ecosystem is consistent around the world. The overall objective is a twofold endeavor, enabling content creators to reach out to more consumers utilizing a myriad of methods to enable this on demand ecosystem. The first part is to enable service providers to provide autonomic solution capabilities to both private and public consumers. These consumers are business enterprise consumers (including government consumers) and private individuals. The second part is something of a byproduct of part one, in the sense that once the service provider or enterprise is capable of providing on demand solutions, they will also need to enable their partners to become on demand businesses, thus fortifying the overall ecosystem. This strategy is being realized by a pattern of trends that are prevalent across almost all industry sectors. Telecommunications service providers (Telcos), as noted through the book, are among the leaders in on demand information and services delivery. Telcos are often referred to as "service providers." This is in part due to the fact that the telecommunications industry does serve as the primary carrier(s) of network transport of data, thereby placing Telcos in the center of this vast ecosystem, touching the daily lives of almost every one of us. This, however, is changing as key industry "services" leaders are now in the midst of providing a multitude of competing enterprise services, while at the same time utilizing carrier transport media for transmissions of networked data. This is sometimes accomplished through the formation of key strategic "service" alliances between Telcos and businesses—they often work together to provide advanced services. In the next discussion, we will explore interesting strategy perspectives related to providing New Generation Operations Software and Systems (NGOSS). It is critical to understand these strategic perspectives in light of the critical junctions that service providers struggle to surmount while at the same time maintaining optimal costs and efficiencies. New Generation Operations Software and Systems The TeleManagement Forum[7] (TMF) is a nonprofit global organization that provides leadership, strategic guidance, and practical solutions to improve the management and operation of information and communications services. The open membership of over 340 companies includes incumbent and new-entrant service providers, computing and network equipment suppliers, software solution suppliers, and customers of communications services. The TMF has been contributing to the information and communications services (ICS) industry for over 15 years and is the prime manager of the NGOSS initiative. Before we drive to the detail, let's review some basic facts about NGOSS. What Is NGOSS? NGOSS is a business solution framework and architecture for creating the next generation OSS/BSS. The NGOSS program is delivering a framework for producing New Generation OSS/BSS solutions, and is a repository of documentation, models, and code to support these developments. The goal of NGOSS is to facilitate the rapid development of flexible, low-cost-of-ownership OSS/BSS solutions to meet the business needs of the Internet-enabled economy. What Are the Key Elements of the NGOSS Program? The NGOSS program is made up of a number of key elements: -
Definition of the next-generation business processes and process models for the information and communication services (ICS) industry -
Definition of the systems framework upon which these business solutions will be built -
Practical implementations and demonstrations of these solutions, through a series of multivendor collaborative projects -
Creation of a resource base of documentation, models, and code to support the TM Forum members in the development of their own new generation OSS/BSS -
Development of industry compliance program to certify solutions and products for compliance to the NGOSS specifications What Are the Major Business Drivers of Service Providers, Which Have Led to the Need for NGOSS? -
Rapid rollout of new services -
Much easier and more flexible business trading -
Lower total cost of ownership -
Lower cost of change -
Greater range of services -
Improved quality of service -
Improved process flow-through -
Greater process automation -
Greater customer access and control -
More flexible provision of services What Is the Impact of the Above Business Drivers on NGOSS Design? -
A more open industry-wide framework and architecture -
Choice of implementation technologies to fit the need -
Closer coupling between OSSs -
Management data more accessible/less fragmented -
Customers provided with appropriate views of data -
Automation of business processes -
Systems created with reuseable components—thus potentially lowering costs and providing faster time to market for services -
Increased use of commercial off-the-shelf technologies—which give greater choice, reduced costs, faster implementations, and more skilled developer resources -
Service providers able to co-operate according to individual business needs What Are the Main NGOSS Design Goals? -
Loosely coupled distributed systems -
Focusing of corporate data -
Reuse of application components -
Increased use of object-oriented design -
For components of OSS functionality as well as modeling managed devices -
Improved development time, costs, etc. -
Technology-neutral system framework with technology-specific implementations -
Multivendor supply and integration -
General purpose (cost effective) systems access -
Separation of control of business process flow from business component operation -
Workflow automation -
Legacy/heritage systems How Can I Go About Using NGOSS? -
Look at introducing the NGOSS frameworks into your development strategy. -
Service providers should use NGOSS frameworks in their procurement specifications. -
Look for reference implementations of NGOSS, which have been derived from the results of successful NGOSS Catalyst projects. NGOSS is very important in the service provider e-business on demand ecosystem, the worldwide telecommunications industry, and across many other areas of any vertical industry. The objectives of NGOSS include the simplification and transformation of many types of service providers (not simply Telcos) to establish a more automated, more cost-effective approach to integrating operational support systems. The TeleManagement Forum (TMF) is the founding organization of the innovative NGOSS approach. The TMF is providing hard-hitting leadership initiatives worldwide, while at the same time providing world-class expertise in the complicated area of NGOSS. This section discusses the many successful steps, concepts, and objectives the TMF has taken towards NGOSS initiatives, and some of the many worldwide partnerships they have established with respect to their many accomplishments. The TeleManagement Forum Is the Author of the NGOSS Strategy. The objectives of NGOSS, worldwide, include the simplification and transformation of many types of service providers OSS/BSS environments to establish a more automated, more cost-effective approach to integrating operational support systems. The IBM Corporation is in partnership with the TMF in support of the NGOSS mission, while leveraging specific deliverables from the TMF. This important work is fundamentally intended for simplification of e-business on demand solution integration elements related to OSS/BSS initiatives. |
The TMF is involved worldwide in many strategic and tactical corporate endeavors addressing the complexities of Operational Support Systems (OSS) integration. This complicated systems environment is absolutely key to the Services Provider ecosystem. For purposes of this discussion, it is important to understand that the TMF works diligently with many worldwide telecommunications firms and other service providers (including IBM) to create standardized processes and architectures, and a common language. These cross-industry integration and simplification initiatives then become key enablers in the reduction of costs targeting the integration of OSS/BSS systems. Members of the TMF include participants from many vertical industries, but there is a strong presence from many of the world's largest Telcos. It is in the interest of Telcos and cross-industry enterprises, as well as the consumer's interest, that industrial sectors work together to reduce today's excessive costs of integrating and managing complicated OSS solutions. This simplified approach is at the core of the NGOSS strategy. The NGOSS approach to systems development and deployment suggests a strong linkage into the e-business on demand ecosystem—that is, a quicker, more cost-effective, and automated means of systems integration. The NGOSS initiative (among many other benefits) includes a comprehensive, integrated reference framework for developing, procuring, and deploying operational and business support systems and software. Operational and business support software is a key dependency in the e-business on demand ecosystem for service providers. NGOSS is available today as a toolkit of industry agreed-upon specifications and guidelines that cover key business and technical areas. These key areas include: -
The Business Process Automation elements delivered in the enhanced Telecom Operations Map™ (eTOM) -
The common entities and their standard definitions and relationships delivered in the Shared Information and Data (SID) Model -
The Systems Analysis and Design delivered in the Contract Interface and Technology Neutral Architecture (TNA) -
The Solution Design and Integration delivered in the Components and Technology Specific Architecture (TSA) -
The Conformance Testing delivered in the NGOSS Compliance Tests -
The Procurement and Implementation guidelines delivered in the ROI Model, the RFI Template, and the Implementation Guide documents The NGOSS solution approach enables all players in the OSS/BSS supply chain to use the elements appropriate for their business, while maintaining the confidence that they will all fit together with a reduced level of skills required, and funding or "integration tax." The NGOSS-based solutions are strategic and, in several ways, compliment the e-business on demand strategies for service providers. This is based upon the fact that NGOSS utilizes mainstream IT concepts and technologies to deliver a more productive development environment, and thus, a more efficient management infrastructure. NGOSS is prescriptive for only those few "cardinal points" where interoperability is key, while enabling ease of customization across a wide range of functionality. This allows NGOSS-based systems to be tailored to provide a competitive advantage, while also working with an industry's traditional legacy systems. The value proposition towards e-business on demand here is that NGOSS delivers tangible values to the service provider supply chain by enabling business process automation and nimble operations, reducing costs, and improving customer service. In other words, streamlining of process and autonomic business functions are the key underpinnings. Major Telcos generally have thousands of discrete business processes they use to run and sustain their operations. To automate a subset of these processes, they have at a minimum many hundreds, and sometimes several thousand, discrete OSS/BSS software applications. Adding further complexity, most processes require integration of multiple applications to achieve end-to-end automation. As a result, the scope of the process automation problem gets large and expensive at a rapidly compounding rate. While service providers can identify the processes they have today and would like to have, they would like to automate the limiting factor in making these process changes. This limiting factor is the complexity of changing the software systems fast enough to meet evergreen production demands. And because of this multifaceted complexity, changes in the ecosystem are often not cost-effective enough to deliver an attractive return on the investment. As a result, the effort to continuously automate existing processes and to further simplify processes with additional automation is too costly and only occurs on a limited basis. Solving this problem is the foundation for NGOSS. Clearly service providers understand that if they automate processes, they can reduce operational costs and improve service to end customers, becoming "lean" operators. They know they can become nimble in meeting the needs of customers and deliver easily and affordably the plethora of new technology and service combinations that are becoming affordable to the mass markets. However, exactly how to get from today's status quo to tomorrow's well-integrated, easily changeable, and market-driven business and operations systems is the challenge most of the world's service providers face. The Problem NGOSS Addresses Is Both Complicated and Complex. NGOSS is an industrial effort to identify and automate existing core processes, predicated on the fact that to further simplify these core processes with additional automation is too costly and only occurs on a limited basis. Thus, solving this problem of vast complexity is the foundation for NGOSS, which is a primary mission of the TeleManagement Forum. The innovative solutions evolving from NGOSS involve industrywide participation from service providers and business enterprises throughout the world. |
To offer the industry a blueprint for a less expensive, more responsive, and significantly more flexible way of performing business, a group of operators, software suppliers, consultants, and systems integrators have been working on a common framework to deliver appreciably more efficient operations to service providers throughout the world. The work has been coordinated by the TMF and developed by TMF member companies working in multiple, collaborative teams. The NGOSS framework is the impressive result, the product of several hundred person-years of development work. Automating processes requires a multistep approach, from understanding existing processes to designing how systems will simply integrate. Typical activities include: -
Defining and engineering/re-engineering business processes -
Defining systems to implement processes -
Defining data in a common information model -
Defining integration interfaces -
Defining integration architecture The elements of NGOSS align directly with the steps in this process automation approach. As a result, NGOSS gives service providers the tools they need to undertake automation projects with confidence. Business Benefits As with autonomic computing, process transformation and automation is the cornerstone of NGOSS. Many of the business benefits revolve and intersect around the direct and indirect stages in automating telecommunications operations and other service provider operations. However, global service providers are not the only beneficiaries of the standard language and specifications that NGOSS defines. Large enterprises and other businesses realize this benefit delivered through the adoption of NGOSS approaches. NGOSS offers service providers tangible business benefits that positively impact the bottom line. These benefits include: -
Having a well-defined, long-term, strategic direction for integration of business processes and OSS/BSS implementation reduces investment risk. When new systems and services are purchased, if they fit in with a well-defined strategy and detailed set of requirements, their longevity is more assured than in an environment with ill-defined definitions. -
Being first to market is important in all competitive environments. Being first to market and not spending a lot of money to be there is a well-known recipe for success. Being nimble and exact is key to preparing for the combined broadband and wireless services onslaught that is approaching. -
Moving to an environment where process definitions, interfaces, and architecture are all standard allows for true competitive bidding environments. The NGOSS initiative delivers measurable improvements in development and software integration environments. These improvements include: -
The fact that with NGOSS, large portions of process language, requirements, data models, interfaces, and tests are already defined, significantly reducing development costs. -
The utilization of standard building blocks, software modules, and even stand-alone products, which can be built once and sold many times, increasing return on investment with every sale. -
The integration cycles for software with standard interfaces are significantly shorter, reducing costs of bringing a new software system into an existing environment. In addition, integration using NGOSS interfaces becomes a repeatable process, therefore saving time and money on each project while improving success rates. -
The clear definition of "use cases" and requirements becomes easier across service providers/supplier and supplier/supplier partnership relationships. This is by virtue of the fact that when a common language, as provided by the TMF eTOM and the SID, a new and simpler language has now been implemented. Utilizing NGOSS, ongoing savings are realized across the operational environments, specific to the daily churn of tasks to keep networks running and customers satisfied. These savings include: -
The realization of automation, which in turn enables lower operational expenditures. The NGOSS approach, tackling the tasks of introducing additional automation to operational environments, brings with it a clear blueprint to follow and guidelines to step through the changes. The task may still be large, but much of the work has already been accomplished within the NGOSS elements. -
The realization that once the NGOSS automated systems are in place, making changes in a well-designed, well-understood environment is straightforward. Therefore, reacting to a need to change a service offering, a billing option, or a quality of service requirement, for example, becomes an easy-to-follow process rather than a struggle with significant changes that require many resources and weeks of testing. NGOSS as a Framework The NGOSS framework is a sound technical solution developed by industry leaders with hundreds of combined years of Telco, OSS/BSS, and enterprise experience from some of the world's major service provider and vendor companies. Recognizing the need to create a common integration environment for software systems, the TMF member companies have contributed the time of their senior architectural and engineering resources to make NGOSS a success. Additional benefits noted by adherence to NGOSS principles are: -
The NGOSS is real, documented, and ready for consideration by any interested party. The NGOSS components all consist of detailed definitions and are ready for implementation. -
The NGOSS principles and many detailed NGOSS documents draw from existing industry standards and recommendations wherever possible. The NGOSS has engaged the best available resources to create the best possible solutions. -
The NGOSS is defined in such a way that it provides a coherent long-term direction and allows for specifications available to developers and implementers of complex (or straightforward) OSS/BSS systems. Whether a service provider targets strategies on long-term directions or a software supplier is establishing a product road map, the NGOSS provides structure and details to work with toward a common goal. Utilizing the predefined elements of NGOSS allows development efforts throughout the telecommunications supply chain, and among other enterprises, to focus on solving value-added problems, not defining processes, data models, and architectures. |
