Managing Processes Using eTOM 374919

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The University of Melbourne

Department of

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Subject Number and Name: 431-627 Signalling and Network Management

Assignment Title: Managing processes using eTOM

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Student Names and Numbers

Name

Mathew George 374919



Mathew George - 374919

Managing processes using eTOM

Service providers earlier used to be controlled by one entity from end to end. Now with increasing

globalization and competition, industries have to look for cut costs by outsourcing some of the

work. The outsourced work then has to be integrated into the service provider’s infrastructure.Nowadays service providers have to deal electronically with vendors, financial establishments and

other service providers. Hence the entire architecture must be flexible and easy to integrate.

Flexible network architecture and outsourcing is now imperative to reduce development and

operating costs. [5][3]

NGOSS (Next Generation Operating Systems and Software) was developed by the

Telemanagement Forum to provide a streamlined, centralized Operational Support System (OSS)

for the telecommunication service providers. NGOSS aims to optimize business processes and

drive down the operational costs. It encourages reuse of components reducing the complexity of

software development. The business processes are implemented across the IT architecture, with

the flow being controlled between various applications by using a workflow engine. NGOSS

stresses on loosely coupled applications where each application has a level of independence and

can be modified independently. The process flow can be changed by modifying the workflow

engine with minimum changes to the applications themselves. The time to market of new services

is reduced by means of optimized step by step processes. Standardization of interfaces and

communication infrastructure aims to simplify procurement. NGOSS encompasses a Shared

Information/Data Model (SID) which is a common information model which can be used to

exchange information between disparate applications. NGOSS also describes a communication

infrastructure which connects all the interfaces. This reduces the number of interface to interface

connections and provides a common channel for information flow. Thus NGOSS provides a long

term direction towards flexible, interoperable and cost effective service providing architecture.

[1][2][3]

Enterprises are today driving towards increased integration of systems. This provides the

enterprise with technology enabled business process which helps in changing rapidly and meeting

customer expectations. It ensures maximum productivity utilization and helps to provision services

which are more suited to the ever changing demands of the customer.eTOM (enhanced Telecom

Operations Map) is a business process framework describing the processes in service provider

industry. It lists all the processes required by service provider industry and provides high level

reference architecture to be used in communication, media and entertainment industries. It is

useful when multiple service providers have to interact with each other for mutual business

benefit. When interacting with vendors it provides the parameters that must be supported at both

sides. Hence it standardizes the processes and makes interworking easier between multiple

service providers and between service providers and vendors. [3][4][5]




The eTOM business framework has processes stacked as vertical groups and as horizontal groups.

Processes in vertical group are related to end to end activities while processes in the horizontal

group are related to the functional activities. eTOM has different hierarchical levels of detail

where the subsequent levels provide more depth and details to the processes. [5]

Figure 1: Level 0 eTOM

Source: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/technologies/collateral/tk869/tk769/white_paper_c11-541448.html

The Level 0 is the highest in the hierarchy and deals with 3 main process areas which are the

Strategy Infrastructure and Product, Operations and enterprise management. Operations area

involve the processes which interact with the customer while Strategy Infrastructure and Product

is more concerned with the enterprise infrastructure, configuration, planning and directing the

operations. Enterprise management encompasses the processes involved in managing anenterprise like its financial and human resource management. Within the main process areas

there are functional areas which appear as horizontal layers. The functional areas stress on

configuration, resource provisioning, product and marketing and supply chain management. The

functional areas are: [3] [4]

• Market Product and Customer

• Service

• Resource (Application, Computing and Network)

• Supplier/Partner




The other entities that interact with the enterprise are the Customers, Shareholders, Employees

and other stakeholders. eTOM thus provides for a standard interface for interacting with these

entities. This helps to create a flexible business environment. [4]

Level 1 provides a more detailed look into the processes. The Level 0 model is further divided to

seven vertical end to end processes and eight horizontal functional groups in four layers. The main

process areas are further divided into vertical groupings which have end to end relevance. The

horizontal layers are also more detailed and give the functional layers pertaining to the process

area. Enterprise management is divided to multiple management streams. [3][4]

Figure 2: level 1 eTOMSource: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/technologies/collateral/tk869/tk769/white_paper_c11-541448.html

The end to end processes in operations are divided as:

• Operations Support and Readiness

• Fulfilment

• Assurance

• Billing and Revenue Management




Here Operations involve the processes fulfilment, assurance and billing and revenue management

which interact directly with the customers. Fulfilment ensures the delivery of services in time.

Assurance is related to maintaining the services, monitoring and providing fault detection and

resolution. These processes enable customers to place complaints and receive updates. Billing is

involved in monitoring the usage, creating bills, collecting payments and processing payments. It

also involves responding to customer queries on the bills. Operation support enables the other

three processes through automation and technical support. Hence Operation support has less

interaction with customer but is important for the other three customer facing processes. [4]

Strategy, Infrastructure and Product has three vertical groupings [4]:

• Strategy and Commit

• Infrastructure and Lifecycle Management

• Product Lifecycle Management

Strategy and Commit processes are for developing long term direction for the enterprise and to

form the business relationships to achieve such goals. Infrastructure lifecycle management are a

set of processes that make sure that the infrastructure is capable of delivering the service. Product

Lifecycle management manages the product offerings of the enterprise. It groups and offers new

products, regroups existing ones and manages quality commitments. [4]

Enterprise Management consists of processes which help with managing the enterprise. They set

the policy for the enterprise, assess threats, manage efficiency of processes, manage financial

targets and manage human resources. [4]

Level 2 of eTOM is much more detailed. Each intersection of horizontal and vertical groupings

produces a core process. Some processes are spread across the horizontal layer through multiple

vertical layers. Each process now address specific issues like selling services, order handling, SLA

management, fault handling etc. Level 3 and beyond are highly specific processes like allocate

resource, test resource, configure and activate resource etc. Geographical information and

product details are captured in levels below level 3. [6][3]

eTOM Applications

Service providers are facing increasing competition and customer churn in the telecommunication

industry. The way to retain customers is to provide bundled services. Television over IP (IPTV) is

one such service which can improve the revenue of service providers. Next generation services like

IPTV still being in a nascent stage attracts huge growth in subscriber base. This brings in the

complexity of managing data, dealing with content providers and entirely new billing and

accounting processes. To leverage the opportunity provided by such services, enterprises have to

act quickly to create and execute a marketing plan. They have to upgrade service management




plan to suit the needs of the new service. The solution is to integrate the disparate applications

and migrate to an eTOM based business model. [7][8][4]

Service providers wishing to offer new services like 3G in developing markets would need to re-

engineer their whole system to achieve operational efficiency. The system must be made flexible

to business requirements based on customer demands. The processes have to be evaluated to find

reusable components thus minimizing the investment needed to launch new services. The

resulting model would see a reduction in operating costs and errors, faster time to market for new

services and extensive scalability of the system due to adopting an open architecture. [9]

Conclusion

Enterprise architectures have multiple applications and systems working in different functional

domains. There would be a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system to handle

customer relationships, another system to manage accounting and billing and systems to manage

the configuration and provisioning. Now to streamline the processes from end to end, the

functional domains have to be integrated. This is done by the eTOM framework. Hence eTOM

provides us with an integrated architecture which can be adapted as per the business

requirements. [4][6]

Level 0, 1 and 2 of the eTOM model can be used as reference model and the higher levels can be

modified to suit the enterprise requirements. The detailed processes in higher levels enable the

enterprise to communicate with other vendors, service providers and customers. eTOM model

drive business automation which in turn speeds up the adoption of latest technology with minimal

customization. eTOM model also facilitates the consolidation happening in the industry. New

systems from some other service provider can be easily integrated into the enterprise. It provides

a way to analyze the existing system and realize the deficiencies in the architecture. eTOM is

widely being accepted in the industry which makes the interworking even easier. Hence eTOM

analyses and streamlines the processes reducing the operating costs, maximizing value and

providing a flexible next generation network. [4][6]




References

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGOSS

2. http://www.tmforum.org/SolutionFrameworks/8428/home.html

3. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/technologies/collateral/tk869/tk769/white_paper_c11-

541448.html

4. http://www.rosettanet.org/DocumentLibrary/tabid/2979/DMXModule/624/Command/Core_Dow

nload/Method/attachment/Default.aspx?EntryId=1027

5. http://www.tmforum.org/BestPracticesStandards/BusinessProcessFramework/6637/Home.html

6. http://dpnm.postech.ac.kr/papers/TMW/TMW2004-

LongBeach/Intro%20to%20eTOM/introeTOM.pdf

7. http://www.tmforum.org/dgdf/BritishTelecomVision/41158/article.html

8. http://dpnm.postech.ac.kr/papers/TMW/TMW2004-LongBeach/TMW3053%20HOTOP7.pdf

9. http://www.tmforum.org/dgdf/NTSIndonesiaOptimization/41662/article.html

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Managing Processes Using eTOM 374919