Technology Review

Comarch Technology Review is a publication created by Comarch experts and specialists. It aims at assisting our customers and partners in obtaining in-depth information about market trends and developments, and the technological possibilities of addressing the most important issues.

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In Focus:Customer Relationship Management

Customer Loyalty Management and the Billing Process

Modern Trends in Financial Institution Customer Service

The Automated Mortgage Loan Process

IMS Billing Open for the Future

Business Process Management – Adopting a Modern Design for Your Company

IP Multimedia Subsystem – A Standardized Next-Gen Networking Architecture

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Solutions for Finance and Banking:

• Internet Retail Banking• Internet Corporate Banking• Internet Investments• Insurance Customer Care

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Table of Contents

In Focus

4. Customer Loyalty Management and the Billing Process More and more telco operators are discovering the advantages of customer loyalty programs. Besides help-ing to win new customers and retain existing ones, flex-ible loyalty programs with rich functionality are powerful tools which can increase revenue and forge closer, long-lasting relations with customers.

6. Modern Trends in Financial Institution Customer ServiceThe task of carrying out a simple transaction in a financial institution conjures up images of long queues and unnec-essary paperwork. Fortunately, there are signs that this scenario is gradually changing. Companies are adopting innovative IT solutions to make banking easier for their patient customers and establishing a better market posi-tion for themselves.

Solutions

8. The Automated Mortgage Loan Process Growing numbers of households and private investors are helping sustain the current real estate boom by tak-ing our mortgage loans. Modern financial institutions are applying novel IT solutions which optimize and automate the complex mortgage loan process to attract these new customers and capture a larger market share.

10. IMS Billing Open for the FutureBased on the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Next Generation Networking architecture, Comarch offers its fully configurable Real-Time Billing System which enables rating, authentication and authorization of users for tele-communications operators wanting to provide users with mobile and fixed multimedia services

Trends & Strategies

14. Business Process Management – Adopting a Modern Design for Your Company The term Business Process Management (or BPM) refers to a set of activities which organizations can perform to either optimize their business processes or adapt them to new organizational needs. As these activities are usually aided by software tools, the term BPM is synonymously used to refer to the software tools themselves.

16. IP Multimedia Subsystem – A Standardized Next-Gen Networking Architecture IMS is one of the current buzzwords in the telecommu-nications industry. But beyond the word, what does IMS really mean for BSS and OSS vendors? This article will dis-cuss the drivers for adopting IMS and how it represents a changing practice in the telecommunications industry. We will also outline the principles of IMS deployment and try to foresee its future role.

4 Technology Review

I N F O C U S : C U S T O M E R R E L AT I O N S H I P M A N A G E M E N T

CustomerLoyalty Management and the Billing Process

The ability to retain clients is of para-mount importance in a marketplace which is characterized by increasing competition among businesses offer-ing a wide range of products and serv-ices. Loyalty programs shouldn’t be used exclusively as the only method of glamorizing offers to win new cus-tomers, but such programs do give businesses the means to manage cus-tomers and reduce the costs involved in retaining them. A loyal customer base allows firms to establish long-term strategies which can facilitate stable business development. The short-term advantages of launching a loyalty program are equally important, and include increased profits and a decrease in the cost of acquiring new customers.

Wooing new customers Besides an increase in sales and the generation of additional income, the trademark of launching a loyalty cam-paign, from a marketing perspective, is perceived as particularly appealing

to customers. Loyalty programs give businesses the opportunity to gather information about their customers’ behavior, preferences and needs. It also ensures enhanced customer rela-tions. Without manipulating custom-ers, loyalty programs should entice them to participate by offering useful benefits. Customers who are invited to take part in a loyalty care program should feel valued and inclined to take advantage of the special offers avail-able to loyalty program members, including easier access to, ordering and usage of telecommunication services.

Achieving

program objectives The main task of a loyalty program is to gain new clients and ensure the retention of existing ones by providing rewards for participants who use serv-ices, which results in increased profits and the creation of strong and lasting relationships with customers.

The above aims can be achieved by rewarding clients, using new offerings or adding additional loyalty points. Collected points can be redeemed for gifts corresponding to the number of points assigned to each product or service. Clients have the opportunity to exchange loyalty points for gifts, dis-counts for services or free services (that can have imposed time limits). Loyalty points can be accumulated over a long period of time and their total quantity will reflect the level of customer loy-alty and client segment to which the customer belongs in the loyalty point system.

Loyalty Plans and Tariffs Specific plans and loyalty tariffs are used as a useful tool to define the quantity of points. Plans enable cli-ents from certain groups, for example, individual and corporate clients, to be rewarded. By using tariffs, it is pos-sible to define algorithms to calculate points for specific events. Events can be grouped as follows:

Building close relationships with clients is an important aspect in the marketing and economic areas of the telecommunications industry. Company loyalty care programs conducted with the customer’s consent offer significant benefits for both parties.

loyalty card

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• Initial events (e.g. joining the program, duration of participation)

• Receipt events (e.g. the total number of invoices, pay-ments made on time)

• Service events (e.g. purchase of additional services, exceeding the defined quantity of impulses within one service, tariff change)

• Time events (e.g. anniversary of program registration enrollment)

• Client-specific data events (e.g. birthday, name’s day)• Marketing events (e.g. additional marketing campaigns,

surveys)

Aligning loyalty programs

to suit business objectives In accordance with a company’s marketing strategy, an operator should be able to flexibly define tariffs and spe-cific rewards of the loyalty care program. Tariff definition is performed within the context of dedicated applications and modification does not involve the intervention of com-puter programmers. At the same time, the construction of complicated tariffs may require the diversification of tariff definitions within the billing and loyalty systems. While such a scenario can optimize the billing of tariffs and mini-mize the data sent through the internet, it requires the inte-gration of both systems.

Loyalty Tariff Simulation Loyalty care points are allocated based on specific loyalty tariffs. Therefore, it is important that every process be pre-ceded by a simulation prior to the implementation of new tariffs. The program simulates the accumulation of points according to specific tariffs at certain time periods. This par-ticular process is based on the value of gifts offered in the redemption scheme. Gifts are assigned a point value and grouped in a catalogue and defined in the system. Using the simulation it is possible to determine the exact cost of launching new tariffs in certain time periods. The above process is based on data related to the gift’s value and redemption process. Gifts (products and services assigned point values) are defined in the system as a catalogue. Besides defining particular gifts, any operation in the exter-nal system connected with the choice of gift should also be defined (e.g. a free service gift should be enabled in the billing system). By using the system, it is possible to control and maintain clients’ orders and available stock, thereby improving the delivery of the clients’ gifts.

Comarch’s Loyalty Management System Comarch Loyalty Management enables full integration with external services (using the integration module), how-ever in this case, the creation of an appropriate interface in the external service is necessary. The system also ena-bles advanced reporting through reports available within the central application (QuickReports or Jasper Reports) – Business Object tools are an option. By utilizing this, it is possible to generate simple reports and/or a multidimen-sional analysis.

Comarch Loyalty Care system can easily be developed. Growth can be achieved either through offers of com-pany services or in cooperation with external partners. The system enables the defining of tariffs connected with individual clients, redemption within the system and the possibility of financial clearing between partners. The sys-tem can be based on the technical capabilities of magnetic or microprocessor cards to connect to a central unit to fulfill the needs of client transactions. Additionally, it is possible to use the back-office option, loyalty terminal and debit/credit card terminal.

Comarch Loyalty Management delivers the functional-ity required to launch an effective loyalty system for mod-ern telecommunications companies. Comarch Loyalty Management makes it possible to flexibly maintain loyalty operations by incorporating a wide range of tariff mecha-nisms and other loyalty system elements to enable multidi-mensional analysis and the generation of reports crucial to the assessment of the effectiveness of a loyalty program’s outcome in light of customer behavior.

Marcin Kościak Business Solution Manager

Aurum Loyalty Care

loyalty card

6 Technology Review

Limitations

of an Antiquated Model As recently as a few years ago, the customer service provided in bank branches was associated with long queues as well as bank employees with various levels of competence having to use a multitude of computer tools and applications or worse yet, several computers. Even to perform the simplest of operations, customers had to spend a great amount of time in a bank branch. The situation was made worse by inefficient procedures and a vast amount of paperwork con-sisting of the same data processed several times, which forced customers to fill out an array of forms providing the same information.

Such an operational model didn’t allow financial institutions to realize

basic business objectives such as effi-cient and effective sale of services or build long-term relations with high-income customers. Consequently, financial institutions with the ambition of becoming market leaders started progressively restructuring the tradi-tional-model branches.

The Gradual Process

of Modernization The first stage of changes concerned introduction of service zones. Self-service zones were created near branch entrances equipped in mod-ern tools like cash machines, mul-timedia terminals, multi-functional printers. The idea behind the creation of self-service zones was to enable customers to perform simple transac-tions and financial operations on their

own without the assistance of bank emloyees.

The next stage in the moderniza-tion of bank branches is installation of a standard, integrated front-end appli-cation for bank employees to aid use of multiple systems.

Solutions of this nature are based on the latest IT technologies enabling:• user interface personalization

adjusted to specific bank employee profiles,

• Quick customer identification and work in the customer context,

• Processing of transaction in real-time,

• Direct modification of sale proc-esses by specified bank employees

• Integration with other distribution channels,

• Guarantee of high security level.

Modern Trends in Financial Insitution Customer Service

Business operations of financial institutions are increasingly related to technological changes, expanding globalization and integration of individual markets. Banks and insurance companies, which recognize in these changes the possibility of development and creation of a strong market position, ever more take advantage of innovative IT tools in the customer service process, particularly in areas of direct customer contact, eg.: bank departments, branches, agencies and call centers.

I N F O C U S : C U S T O M E R R E L AT I O N S H I P M A N A G E M E N T

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Bank employees using front-end applications have access to full information about a given customer. After proper customer identification, all details necessary for the sale of a service or product appear on the screen of bank employ-ees, including: • Customer profile – basic, aggregated information, eg.

contact details, income, list of products used, etc.,• Contact list – list of contacts made with customer:

planned, current and past,• Product list – a detailed one-page list of all products

used by customer,• Operations list – presentation of all operations per-

formed on customer accounts.

The front-end class application supplies full information about customer needs on the basis of collected past data and marketing analyses. Thanks to this, bank advisers have complete information about a given customer in one appli-cation. At any time they can check the contact list, account balance or sent applications.

Moreover, the system automatically analyzes customer situations and sends bank advisers information about serv-

ices or products, which customers might be interested in. In the case when customer decided on the product, the system starts the procedure of service based on a defined sales process. During the sales process the system automat-ically communicates with the database and fulfills particular applications and thereby reducing the amount of customer service time. As a result, the front-end system provides sig-nificant benefits for customers and financial institutions.

Benefits For The Customer• smaller queues,• quick service time,• transaction in one office during one visit in the bank,• competent advisory of bank employee,• higher quality of services by phone.

Benefits For Financial Institutions• service of higher amount of customers,• reduction of operational costs,• effective planning and controling of sales and contracts,• campaign to gain profitable customers,• creation of effective retention programs.

Comarch CRM Sales ManagementBased on years of experience in cooperation with financial institutions, Comarch created its own innovative front-end solution - Comarch CRM Sales Management. Innovation on the Polish market is highly appreciated by customers. The system boasts rich functionality in the areas of cus-tomer relationship management, departments and contact centers. Moreover, Comarch CRM Sales Management has expanded transaction functionality, containing full cash service and expanded sections for sales networks and sales plan management. Importantly, the system enables the automatic monitoring of salespeople and the efficiency of their activities. A lack of control can lead to problems in building efficient motivational programs and in the decision making process for salespeople and managers responsible for sales management. The implementation of Comarch CRM Sales Management solves the problems con-nected with standardization of sales networks. Moreover, it guarantees a high level of customer service and provides bank employees with previously unavailable insights into net activity.

Paweł BojarBusiness Solution Manager

Consulting Center for Financial Sector

S O L U T I O N S

8 Technology Review

The Automated Mortgage Loan Process

The projected development of the real estate market, improved financial situation of many households and more favourable conditions to obtain mortgage loans have all led to a significant increase in demand for mortgage loans. Achieving and maintaining a competitive market position may require innovative solutions to support the automation of mortgage loan sales and services.

A Growing Market

The loan market is constantly growing – in developed countries mortgage loans accounted for 50% of the GDP in 2004. Increasingly more people are searching for a way to finance their investments, with banks beating at their doors with attractive mortgage loan offers. Lower interest rates, lower commissions and margins, smaller mortgage borrower deposits as well as more lenient eligibility criteria all present mortgage borrowers with a real dilemma as to which bank to choose. Additionally, the situation on the loan market is made more difficult by the increasing number of loan bro-kers, enabling comparison of different bank loan offers.

Therefore, apart from the loan cost, customers are interested in only one essential aspect – time. After receiv-

ing their credit rating, customers want to know how fast they can get their money and how many visits they have to pay the bank. Optimization and automation of the complex loan process effects faster loan grants and access to a wider customer base. At the same time, it is conducive to lower loan processing costs and allows banks to maintain their position and expand their activities on the ever more competitive loan market.

Mortgage –

a complex credit processComplexity of the mortgage loan process results from a lot of factors. Most important is the high value of mortgage loans and the associated risk, which force banks to implement security provisions against potential customer insolvency. Implementation

of such provisions requires procure-ment of many documents from cus-tomers before a loan decision can be made. Another aspect complicating the loan process is the way of pay-ment. In contrast to smaller-amount loans, which are mostly paid in one lump-sum, mortgage loans are paid out in consecutive instalments dependent on the property purchase agreement signed by the customer or the progress of building an own house.

Furthermore, the long period of mortgage loan repayment requires banks to take preventative steps to secure mortgage loan repayment in case of work loss by mortgage bor-rower, his death or other accidents. There are different kinds of preventa-tive steps, which require periodic updating. This situation presents banks with a dilemma: how to opti-

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mize the mortgage loan process and minimize bank activities in a way which allows quick loan grants and low risk for banks.

Process automationFierce market competition has forced banks to implement innovative IT solutions, which automate the entire mortgage loan process, or parts of it. The introduction of a comprehensive system for managing the mortgage loan process enables quick decision making and minimizes customer involvement. Moreover, banks are assured that all the important ele-ments of the credit process have been taken into consideration.

The automation process can be executed on a few levels. Firstly, by introducing an electronic mortgage loan application system. Instead of the traditional way of sending paper documents between people involved in the mortgage loan process, data from a given application together with all the necessary documents are reg-istered in an IT system. The traditional stack of paper documents is replaced by a computer and a system which enables authorized users to access all the documents immediately following their entrance into the system from any bank location. Mortgage loan decisions are made on the basis of e-documents, which are verified with the originals in the final stages of the mortgage loan process, before loan payment.

What are the benefits of automating this aspect of the mortgage loan proc-ess? The main benefit is the reduced time it takes for mortgage loan deci-sions to be made. This is particularly significant in situations when mort-gage loan decisions are made in differ-ent places (another city, another bank branch) to where mortgage loan appli-cations were initially lodged. The solu-tion is especially relevant when banks grant mortgage loans through finan-cial brokers, who initiate the mortgage loan process and are the main source of contact with customers.

The next benefit is the availability of mortgage loan application forms on

the Internet, which allows customers to fill out their applications online, sav-ing them trips to the bank until after the initial acceptance of their mort-gage loan application.

From the perspective of a mort-gage loan lender, the greatest benefit lies in the automation of the decision making process. To this end, advanced scoring systems are used, which ena-ble banks to establish customer credit rating in a matter of few minutes. The decision is made automatically, in accordance with bank policy and on the basis of mortgage loan application data, external databases, internal bank databases (i.e.: “black lists”, customer databases), customer history and other sources.

Other undoubted advantages of scoring systems, besides reducing the length of the mortgage loan decision process, include rendering risk man-agement processes more efficient and standardizing procedures in this area.

Using the above-described tools at different stages of the process is a necessity for innovative banks. However, one other level of process automation exists – that of compre-hensive IT solutions which support the mortgage loan process from the moment that an application is lodged until loan payment and monitoring of loan instalment repayment. Such solutions enable precise planning and optimization of the whole process, planning of roles of people involved in the mortgage loan process and their authorization and access to docu-ments. Of vital significance is the pos-sibility to model the mortgage loan process continuously, according to changing market trends.

In the case of mortgage loan sales, implementation of an IT system that supports core mortgage loan proc-esses solves two basic problems. Firstly, system support in the area of registration and service of security devices facilitate their management and monitoring at later stages; some-thing that without system support is very difficult, time-consuming and susceptible to mistakes. The second important benefit is service support

of many documents (application forms, contracts, transfer of insurance policy rights, land registry entries). The possibility to generate in the sys-tem different printouts on the basis of initially introduced data shortens the process and saves customers and bank employees time. Additionally, IT systems facilitate the whole mortgage loan process by selling mortgage loans with the aid of e-documents, which eliminates sending paper docu-ments between bank branches and the credit analysis center. This compre-hensive system minimizes the risk of mistakes and thanks to control tools, enables diffusion of blockages that delay the process.

Introduction of a comprehensive system of mortgage loan process management promotes quick deci-sion making and minimizes customer involvement.

Comarch Credit

Process ManagementSuch a comprehensive IT solution for mortgage loan process manage-ment has already been implemented by Bank BPH using Comarch’s Credit Process Management system. Bank BPH is one of the biggest banks in Poland in the area of mortgage loan services, with a 20% share of the Polish market. Currently, all elements of the bank’s mortgage loan sale process are carried out with the use of Comarch’s Credit Process Management system. This significantly shortens the time of processing mortgage application forms (from 2 weeks to 1 day), renders the process more efficient, lowers the credit risk and cuts operational costs. In consequence, Bank BPH is expertly prepared to answer the continuously increasing demand for mortgage loans and maintain high standards of customer service as well as strict bank policies.

Katarzyna SiwarskaBusiness Solution Manager

Consulting Center for Financial Sector

S O L U T I O N S

10 Technology Review

S O L U T I O N S

In response to these trends, Comarch is offering its Comarch Real-Time Billing System (RTBS) which enables real time rating, authentication and authorization for users of today’s services. The system also prepares companies for the implementation of new products and to tap new revenue streams from next generation services, well before their introduction to the market.

Trends in the

telco industryThere is a growing trend in the tel-ecommunications industry towards consumers demanding increasingly faster, more seamless multimedia communications, including voice, data and video. Over the last few years more and more customers have been

looking for convergent wireline and wireless services that are easily acces-sible. Users want to be able to execute all kinds of services, regardless of whether they are roaming or access-ing services from their home network. For operators, the diversity of services, networks and protocols, creates an infrastructure that is exceptionally complex, especially in the areas of bill-ing and network management.

IP Multimedia

Subsystem (IMS) To reuse components and facilitate service creation, the standardization organization 3GPP has developed IP Multimedia Sub-system (IMS). It allows the introduction of standardized inter-faces between applications, network layers and back office systems. IMS

provides service deployment architec-ture which will eventually work with any fixed, mobile or wireless network, including GPRS, UMTS, WiMAX, WLAN, DSL, among others. At the same time, IMS will support existing phone sys-tems. IMS is capable of seamlessly “handing over” calls between fixed-line and mobile networks. IMS allows operators to use, combine and inte-grate services developed by third par-ties with existing services to provide users with an innovative final product.

Challenges for carriersThe recent deployment of 3G teleph-ony introduced additional challenges in the areas of service provisioning and charging. IMS supports both on-line and off-line pricing. Besides simple charging for data and voice transmission, the operator has to take

IMS Billing Open for the Future

Several carriers already support or are planning to use IP Multimedia Sub-system (IMS) technology to deliver seamless multimedia communication to their users. IMS provides service deployment architecture for 2G and 3G services and defines open interfaces for session management, access, service control and billing.

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into account the content of the pro-visioned service. For example, users are charged at completely different rates for downloading a 5 MB e-book and an mp3 of the same size. For some services, such as videoconferencing, the charge may be increased owing to superior QoS. With VoIP, the operator offers practically no guarantee of the connection bandwidth users access or any delay which may result. IMS is used in the UMTS network and allows quality parameters related to the bill-ing process to be specified.

The aforementioned issue of net-work interaction especially concerns pre-paid services, which are based on real-time mediation and charging for service usage. Unfortunately, almost every pre-paid service has its own spe-cific demands, which make it harder for operators to offer a fully conver-

gent range of services. A typical envi-ronment might require information to be collected from several different devices and charged via diverse meth-ods, such as FTP, CSV, flat text files, JMS, Diameter, and RADIUS. Thanks to the IMS standard, billing and OSS ven-dors can simplify the required inter-action between network elements. However, enabling real-time charging for the scenario described above with a disparate group of interfaces is not an easy task.

Another challenge for operators is to provide systems with sufficient performance and scalability to ensure proper service authorization and rat-ing – even simple GPRS transmission produces 20 times more information than a single GSM call. The operation becomes even more intricate as IMS encourages carriers to link up with

other partners to offer, for example, voice, data and video contracts. This scenario gives rise to additional issues: Who will authenticate the traffic? Taking into consideration all the inter-connect settlements, who will charge for it?

Comarch’s answerIn response to these pressing issues, Comarch is offering its Comarch Real-Time Billing System (RTBS). It enables real-time rating authentication and authorization of users for 2G, 3G and IP-based services. It also allows opera-tors to introduce new kinds of serv-ices that require user authentication, authorization of services provided and the real-time rating of service usage. The system is Parlay/OSA compliant, therefore it operates irrespective of the type of network used. However,

IMS service delivery architecture

S O L U T I O N S

IMS Platform

WLAN3 G2.5 GSGN

Gateway

Comarch Billing System

Parlay Application Server

Session Manager Other Apps

Parlay Resource Gateway

SIP

Parlay API

Parlay API

Parla

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web

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Value AddedService Provider


S O L U T I O N S

it contains a Service Control Point for cooperation with SS7 enabled net-works and RADIUS and DIAMETER servers for IP-based networks. The system includes strong support for Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) which allows independent software devel-opers to leverage a broad range of 3rd party application servers, media serv-ers and SIP-enabled end-user devices to create next generation services.

IMS service delivery architecture is based on SIP and Parlay and provides secure, mediated access to network resources, and conceals the complexi-ties of the underlying SS7 signaling network to allow new services to be deployed faster.

Session controlThanks to the Session Manager (SM) deployed on the Parlay Application Server, Comarch RTBS maintains com-plete control of users who are trying to use the operator’s network. SM is able to determine session specific parameters and track session progress. Whenever a session needs to be ter-minated it can send a termination signal (in case of SCP) or pre-calculate maximum session time (often used in RADIUS-based IP services). Each session creates a single event in the billing system with detailed informa-tion about the volume used. Events are based on incoming data from the Parley Resource Gateway. Additionally, SM adds information about the user, services, pre-rated call cost, etc. The event can even be generated without complete information from the net-work device. When records are lost, for example in the case of STOP, the event is generated based on the last common network event (INTERIM record). Session Manager allows mul-tiple, open sessions for single users, depending on the specific user and definition of services. Typical examples of such functionality include UMTS and GSM/WLAN services. Session Manager, which is similar to Account

Information, also stores data about available services and user subscrip-tions. Depending on the service, authentication can be based on, among others, SIM, username, pass-word, PIN, phone number, IP address and EAP-based schemes.

Session AuthorizationSession Manager also controls the services accessed by users. During the authorization process, the system always checks users are subscribed to the services they are trying to access. The system determines the volume of a particular service available to users, for example, maximum service dura-tion or maximum data transfer. This action is performed when a session begins and is based on additional information, such as account balance.

Convergent systemThanks to the Session Manager and Real-Time Rating capabilities of Comarch RTBS, the solution can serve as a convergent system for the opera-tor’s billing and pre-paid platform. Service control also provides impor-tant fraud protection features that control services in appropriate ways, in accordance with their design.

One of the key elements of the Comarch platform in the context of IMS pre-paid services is the Parlay Resource Gateway module. Based on network events, Parlay Gateway gen-erates correlated network events for Session Manager. RTM also receives answers from Session Manager. It is this feedback which determines the behavior of each service for users, allows users to access services and limits volume usage of each particular service.

eWalletSession Manager stores informa-tion about “virtual” money which is assigned to each particular user account or set of accounts. eWallet can be shared and used simultane-

ously by several user sessions or “child” accounts. eWallet is especially useful for pre-paid services and post-paid limited.

eWallet supports reservations, rollover, automatic recharges, and minimum service threshold. It can be recharged by incoming events from Billing Systems, IVR and eCare systems.

Account StorageIn order to efficiently process ses-sions, Session Manager caches users’ Account Information from the Billing System. Accounts are stored in read-optimized databases, such as Memory Database. Information in the database is refreshed when the system starts up and whenever it is necessary to modify information (push model). Session Manager doesn’t permit data modification. The only way to change account information is to alter it in the master Billing System. In this way, the system maintains data consist-ency and it prevents the possibility of accepting traffic from accounts which are not registered in the Billing System.

Fast implementation

of new servicesThe module and object-oriented construction of the Comarch RTBS Platform allows fast and easy imple-mentation of new services offered by carriers in harmony with their devel-opment. This is especially important when a wide range of services are offered in the context of IMS technol-ogy. These changes do not require modification of the application code. Event–driven 3G billing with flexible event format definitions for IP, VoIP, GPRS and UMTS, including numerous tariffs and discounting schemes, are open for future (3–4G) services. With Comarch, carriers can offer the latest services at any time without having to update the system.

S O L U T I O N S

Comarch Billing System

The Comarch Billing System (BS) is the fully configurable product at the heart of the RTBS platform. During its construction, great emphasis was placed on creating a flexible and easy system to ensure that changes could be introduced without modify-ing the system code. The efficiency of the solution has been proven in implementation projects with numer-ous operators featuring highly varied modes of operation. Thanks to its flexibility, the system can operate in a variety of configurations with different operators. “Ready-To-New” technol-ogy also makes it possible to develop new business rules on-the-fly. The sys-tem enables operators to deploy new

services without changing the exist-ing application code. Moreover, Billing System facilitates customer account management, including the defining of products and rating plans, manage-ment of invoices and dunning proc-esses, and of course interfacing to 3rd party systems, such as General Ledger systems.

Data Processing Server“Ready-To-New” postulate can be ful-filled because of the heart of billing – Data Processing Server (DPS). DPS is a rule-based rating engine that pre-rates events in real-time, and performs full rating at the end of each user ses-sion. The rules in the DPS ensure the maximum flexibility of rate plan defi-nitions and allow the creation of very

sophisticated rating and discounting procedures.

Open for the futureOne of the key needs for an IMS car-rier is the capability to efficiently and accurately bill customers for services. Comarch BS System allows IMS pro-viders to account for a full range of services. Comarch BS prepares carriers for next generation telecommunica-tions products (i.e. 3G and 4G), ensur-ing that companies are ready and able to implement and gain revenue from new products, well before their intro-duction to the market.

Tomasz PrzybylikBSS Consultant

:: Answers to questions concerning technologies, software solutions and market trends

:: First hand information based on cutting-edge OSS/BSS experience in more than 15 countries

:: Programme backed by yearly R&D investments reaching 6 million Euro

Comarch Technology BriefingAnalyze your future

Learn more at http://technologybriefing.comarch.com

As the definition states – BPM tries to answer one of the most important questions for business organiza-tions – how to create an operational backbone for a company which is strong (yet flexible) while improving information flow within an organiza-tion rather than overloading it with unnecessary procedures and decision making delays. Usually a company’s business processes are adapted to the best methods delivered by external consulting groups or based on the experience on staff members. As the company grows, their business proc-esses also evolve while unfortunately becoming more complex. Such com-plications can be avoided by redesign-ing the processes periodically or when a major change arises in a company’s

operations. Arguably, one of the most common catalysts for a process rede-sign occurs during the implementa-tion phase to help manage design, execution, monitoring and reporting processes.

The Advantages There are several benefits to the intro-duction of a new IT system support-ing BPM. The primary one is of course the reduction of time necessary to complete complex tasks through optimizing the task route by assigning available personnel with the best skills for the particular task. Examples of such time reduction are numerous. A major financial services company cut down the steps necessary to service a customer by 50% and reduced the

staff required to perform such serv-ices by 30% while at the same time reducing the processing time 5 times and increasing customer satisfaction by over 30%. Such a success was of course achieved by combining sev-eral factors – of which the introduc-tion of BPM was the driving force. An automated process flowing through the entire enterprise enables users to focus on their specific area of expertise without worrying about the complete process – thus increasing productivity of the staff. Additional benefits can be realized through the monitoring and control of these processes. Most of the available systems on the market have built in automatic alerting and escala-tion mechanisms ensuring the atten-tion of group managers is raised if the

Business Process Management


T R E N D S & S T R AT E G I E S

The term Business Process Management (or BPM) refers to a set of activities which organizations can perform to either optimize their business processes or adapt them to new organizational needs. As these activities are usually aided by software tools, the term BPM is synonymously used to refer to the software tools themselves.

Adopting a Modern Design for Your Company

execution of certain tasks within the process is not meeting the SLA condi-tions – e.g. when a VIP customer waits for a claim solution for more than 72 hrs. The reporting capabilities of the IT system represent a very significant opportunity. Based on the information from the system, managers can verify process optimization and if necessary redesign it. Such functionality also comes in handy whenever there’s a need to observe a certain trend in the company – e.g. a rapidly increasing number of claims from a certain cus-tomer or a variation from the standard reaction of CSR’s and customers due to a changing environment (prices, quality etc.). Without monitoring and reporting capabilities, such observa-tions would be very difficult and often appear too late for an appropriate reaction.

BPM StandardsBusiness Process Management sys-tems are based on a number of stand-ards adopted by major BPM system vendors. Lately one of the most refer-enced is BPEL4WS which provides a language for the formal specification of business processes and business interaction protocols. In doing so, the Web Services interaction model is extended while enabling it to sup-port business transactions. BPEL4WS defines an interoperable integration model that should facilitate the expan-sion of automated process integra-tion in both the intra-corporate and the business-to-business spaces. Also worth mentioning is Wf-XML which supports run-time interoperability between different business process management systems as well as XPDL, a standard for exchanging process design between process modeling tools.

BPM versus EAIAs for IT systems, very often the name Business Process Management is used in place of the name Workflow – how-ever there is a difference – workflow usually refers to a part of the busi-ness process performed on the single system whereas BPM relates to all

operations joining multiple systems together. Usually BPM systems are sup-ported by a middleware – Enterprise Application Integration components which organize and standardize the data flow between systems joined in a common process. Very often such systems are also referred to as the Business Integration Layer (BIL). Depending on the software vendor’s approach, this can be built into the BPM system or offered as a separate solution together with the adapters for particular technologies or directly for most known systems in the mar-ket (such as SAP or Oracle). Recently the term SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) is often mentioned in relation to integration technologies. The beauty and simplicity of SOA lies in the concept of loosely coupling the systems that provide services rather than depending on a heavy integra-tion bus managing all communica-tions.

Comarch’s Business

Process Management Following the trends in the tel-ecommunication market, Comarch has created the Business Process Management system helping the operator design and manage their business processes. Comarch Business Process Management was built according to the standards and recommendations defined by the Workflow Management Coalition, an international organization focused on standardization of Workflow and BPM systems. The system is dedicated to all companies within high levels of man-agement regardless of its field, size, traffic, services or ambitions: for small start-up operators to mature compa-nies. It is dedicated to all companies which must lead teams and would like to enhance their internal communica-tions. It enables easy communication and optimization benefits.

The key features of Comarch Business Process Management System include:

• Task routing can be based on department, security group, task or ad-hoc.

• Alarms and Milestones can be set to alert the user that a deadline is approaching. The timer parameters are configurable by days or hours.

• A complete audit trail and docu-ment history is provided.

• System administration tools allow queue reassignment, queue and table maintenance, data modifica-tion and exception handling.

• Reports management allows monitoring of productivity and anticipation of resource issues. For instance, business managers can dynamically substitute absent users with available ones. These manag-ers are also able to quickly allocate required rights for particular users or user groups.

• Forms and correspondence can be integrated through the most popular word processors.

• Built in integration layer – with capabilities of integration using Web Services, JMS, RMI and XML files.

• Graphical process design tool – used to design and manage proc-esses.

Comarch Business Management is built using state-of-the-art J2EE com-pliant technologies. It runs on both Oracle and Microsoft databases. With a web-based end user interface and a rich windows client for administration, it creates an easy to manage and oper-ational tool for helping a company run their processes. Comarch Business Process Management has received the highest opinion from a number of customers in the US, Latin America and European markets – including telecommunication operators, MSOs, MVNOs and many other businesses where flexibility, adaptability and work optimization are key factors for suc-cess.

Andrzej PrzewiezlikowskiHead of Strategic Research Center

15www.comarch.com


A standardized next generation networking architecture for telco operators

IP Multimedia Subsystem

IMS is one of the current buzzwords in the telecommunications industry. But beyond the word, what does IMS really mean for BSS and OSS vendors? This article will discuss the drivers for adopting IMS and how it represents a changing practice in the telecommunications industry. We will also outline the principles of IMS deployment and try to foresee its future role.

Telecommunications is a well estab-lished industry with its own rules, practices and culture. During most of its lifetime, it was largely protected by governments and bound by state control. Only recently, when competi-tion between private telecommunica-tions operators started to appear, links to governing bodies became weaker. From a technical perspective, the pri-vatization of the telecommunications industry has resulted in a range of international standards, such as GSM, CDMA and UMTS.

The advent of the Internet further revolutionized the industry. Together with the widespread adoption of broadband access, this new form of competition and convergence has triggered international competition between telecommunications and other industries. IT and mass media are among the industries competing in what is now commonly referred to as the “communication services industry”.

Examples and statistics reflecting this relatively new market trend are

ubiquitous. In France alone, official figures from the national regulator, ARCEP, shows that in the second quar-ter of 2005 there were 1.9 millions VoIP lines other than ADSL while there were only 1.5 million during the first quarter. At the same time, France Télécom is losing 10,000 fixed line customers a week.

The Emergence

of the IMS Standard The IT industry has always been a highly competitive market character-ized by intense competition, constant innovation and a pragmatic culture. As a result it has a long list of standards based on best practices. One of the most interesting standards originating from the IT industry is the IP protocol.

The IMS standard outlines a general architecture for offering VoIP and mul-timedia services. It is an international standard established by the 3GPP. This standard is independent from differ-ent types of network access, includ-

ing GSM, WCDMA and WLAN among others.

The IMS standard is based on IPv6 for the network layer. Beyond its tech-nical and short term implications, IMS represents a change in direction for the telecommunications industry. Indeed, after relying mainly on its own rules for many years, the field now integrates the best elements of each competing industry.

For users, IMS will enable them to communicate through a variety of dif-ferent services, including video, voice, pictures, text or a combination of all of these. Accordingly, communication can be channeled from one person to another or from content to content.

Improved time

to market and lower costsIMS will enable operators to reduce costs, implement new services and improve time to market through the use of IP networks and improved standardization, thereby allowing



carriers to compete more effectively against other industries.

As a direct result, other systems will also have to improve. Indeed, while IMS services are faster to imple-ment, if a carrier’s billing system is not prepared to charge for services, the advantages of IMS are lost.

In this context, we can predict that BSS and OSS systems will have to pro-vide increasingly higher levels of API in

order to improve integration time. In terms of standardization, we may also see the wider use of OSS/J type stand-ards in order to reduce integration costs and time.

Increased partnershipsAs the telecommunications industry becomes more closely linked with IT and media, the borders between billing systems will also disappear.

Imagine that you decide to pay to watch a movie on your mobile phone while returning home on the metro. When you arrive at home you con-tinue to watch the movie, however this time with access via the optic fiber Internet. When you buy the movie from the service provider you can pay the mobile phone operator directly for the film. The mobile operator will later redistribute a percentage of the money

The telecommunications, IT and media industries are merging into IMS to drive the Communication services industry

Telecommunication industry

IT industry

Media industry

Communication services industryIMS

17www.comarch.com


to the film service provider. When you continue watching the film via the optic fiber, your mobile operator will have to redistribute a proportion of the payment to your ISP as well. In this example, the billing process and rev-enue sharing between third-parties is based on a single product and a single session, that is, the film. Naturally, such a scenario would require more tightly integrated billing systems and a stand-ard revenue sharing protocol amongst billing system vendors.

Complete OSS system

for complex networkIMS is also aimed at reducing costs through the management of network logic. However, this does not come without problems. OSS systems must be adapted to handle increasingly complex networks. A comprehensive OSS system is vital to manage the multi-services (IM, VoIP, VoD, push to talk) and multi-layers (layer applica-tion, session, transport) which IMS promises to make available.

An additional benefit of IMS is the increased flexibility and time to market it can offer by using a higher application layer. Accordingly, the rate of network change is likely to increase and also the activation and provision-ing requests from the OSS part.

A convergent OSS systemAs in every technological change, there is often a long period of over-lap. During this time, operators are forced to maintain two systems: their legacy wireline and wireless networks together with their IMS-based net-work. This scenario calls for a conver-gent OSS system which is able to deal with both systems.

Together with mediation issues, the need for a convergent and compre-hensive OSS system for provisioning and the activation of mixed layers and technologies, encourage the use of message bus. A message bus such as JMS is able to aggregate and manage the flow of information in a coherent, simple and fast way. It is the backbone that supports the entire OSS system.

Fraud detection

and SLA management In an IP world, the pragmatic IT approach can sometimes cause prob-lems. One pressing issue is security. Security in traditional telecommunica-tions networks is significantly easier to manage because they do not offer as much functionality as IP-based net-works.

In this packet-based network, wire-less voice is likely to become a com-modity for which users will pay a flat fee – in the same way some operators now charge for wireline voice. Service level management will gain impor-tance as it may become the main bill-ing source for some services because users, especially business users, are often willing to pay more for a guaran-teed high service quality.

What next?Like other technological break-throughs, IMS will also evolve over time. There are signs that changes are already taking place. These emerging trends are not yet widely known in the telecommunications industry.

One of the first is the COTS approach and the need for open standards and open systems. Open standards and open systems gener-ally offer lower cost than proprietary and unique platforms designed by vendors. Having open standards and systems distribute the costs amongst all the participants that choose to become involved with the standard.

You might say that this trend is already happening with IMS. However IMS does not define every aspect of the communication – the next ver-sions of IMS will probably see more standardization in the higher levels of the OSI model.

Secondly, we will probably see the development of distributed archi-tecture. Skype is the best example of such distributed architecture: Every Skype user routes other close peer calls and chats and thus removing the need for a complex and costly centralized system. In this situation, end users pay indirectly for others.

Another example of distributed archi-tecture is the Internet. The Internet is completely distributed as opposed to the earlier attempts to build such global networks, such as the Minitel. Dramatically reduced costs is arguably the strongest driver for distributed architecture. Distributed architec-ture may also occur at a level lower than IMS, and possibly in the world of wireless. Fon Technology, for exam-ple, has a very interesting business model based on this particular type of architecture. It is not a coincidence that both Google and Skype recently invested in the company.

The necessity of modern

BSS/OSS infrastructures In order to gain all the benefits that IMS promises to deliver, operators will need to have best of breed BSS and OSS systems. These systems will have to be inherently more complex if they are to deal effectively with constantly appearing convergent products in order to monitor and rate in real time.

The IP protocol shares some of the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principles with Unix. In the past, many industry analysts failed to consider this prin-ciple when developing huge costly projects that appeared perfect on paper. BSS and OSS vendors should also bear this principle in mind for the user part of their systems, if they want to offer operators a complete system with a simple user interface, fast integration and a good API that is prepared for IMS.

In the same way, IMS also looks nice on paper. Operators should always keep this in mind when implement-ing IMS. Otherwise, in a few years, IMS will be just another buzzword from history. In this scenario, the amalgama-tion of telecommunications together with the IT and media industries as part of the new “communication serv-ices industry” could be endangered.

David GourdelierBSS Consultant

Comarch France



Customers and partners

Comarch BSS Suite

Marketing Sales Customer & Partner

Management

Billing Payment & Collection

Business Intelligence

Revenue Protection

CRM Campaign Management

Customer ManagementAgent Care

Commission

Dealer Management

Loyalty Management

Self Care

Partner Management

Workforce

Service Provisioning

Billing System

InterPartner Billing

3ARTS

Real-Time Billing

Document Management

System

Mediation

Data Processing Server

Billing System

Cash Desk

Least Cost Routing

Data Analysis & Reporting

Business Analyzer

Revenue Assurance

Fraud Detection

Comarch OSS Suite

Quality and Operations Management Service and Resource Management

Network Performance Management

Fault Management

Service Level Management

Trouble Ticketing

Reasoning Engine

Inventory Management

Service Provisioning

Mediation

Business Process Management

www.telecommunications.comarch.com

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