MANAGING GROWTH AND DELIVERING

PROFITABILITY THROUGH AN INTEGRATED

SERVICE MANAGEMENT APPROACH

CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION

2. THE NEW BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT REQUIRES A MORE AGILE AND LOWER COST OSS INFRASTRUCTURE

3. SERVICE MANAGEMENT IS EVOLVING

4. INTEGRATED SERVICE MANAGEMENT HELPS RESOLVE OSS CHALLENGES

5. DELIVERING INTEGRATED SERVICE MANAGEMENT: THE AMDOCS SERVICE MANAGEMENT SUITE

1. INTRODUCTION

Increasing competition and shareholder pressure means that service

providers worldwide are challenged with growing their revenues
from next-generation services, while at the same time increasing
their profitability by reducing their operational costs. This paper
examines why operational support systems (OSS) are currently
preventing service providers from delivering against these goals
and explains how integrated service management is being used
by leading operators to lower costs and increase both revenues and
productivity.

PAGE 01

2. THE NEW BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT REQUIRES A MORE AGILE AND

LOWER COST OSS INFRASTRUCTURE
AN EFFICIENT OSS CAN DELIVER COMPETITIVE
ADVANTAGE

LEGACY OSS IS A BARRIER TO DELIVERING

AGAINST NEW BUSINESS GOALS

Historically, the telecoms market changed relatively slowly: services

had long life spans and new services were launched infrequently.
In addition, incumbent operators were usually monopoly providers
of telecommunications services, so there was little pressure on profit
margins.

Although service providers have a high-level understanding of the

new market dynamics and the business goals that these have created,
one of the main obstacles they have in delivering against them is
the legacy systems that support their operations. While legacy
operational support systems (OSS) and associated processes were
adequate in a telecoms market where there were few service launches
and where speed-to-market was not such a critical issue, they present
a range of challenges that service providers now have to address. Key
weaknesses of legacy OSS include their:

Today, however, increasing levels of competition globally, the

privatization of telecoms operators, and the market entry of a wide
range of new players mean that service providers now face radically
different business models and new market dynamics. Shareholder
pressure means that they need to deliver both revenue growth and
enhanced margins, in the face of price competition from other
operators and new entrants.
To compensate for falling revenues from traditional services, service
providers need to exploit the huge revenue-generating potential
of next-generation networks and services. But while they have
invested considerable sums in rolling out next-generation network
technology, the key to unlocking this potential is a more agile and
lower cost OSS infrastructure that will enable them to launch large
numbers of new services quickly and cost-effectively. In the
next-generation market, those service providers that have such an
infrastructure will have a competitive advantage over those who
do not.

> Inability to scale to deliver large volumes of services to market

quickly, as is required in the next-generation environment
> Needlessly complex architectures resulting from years of tactical
investment, adding to operational costs and impeding business
agility
> Stovepipe solutions that themselves are based on data silos, leading
to a fragmented customer experience and slow time-to-market for
new services
> Dependency on manual processes which increases costs and
inefficiencies, and impedes service launches

PAGE 02

3. SERVICE MANAGEMENT IS EVOLVING

THE NEED TO MANAGE THE SERVICE AS AN

ENTITY IN ITS OWN RIGHT

THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN SERVICE

FULFILLMENT AND ASSURANCE IS BLURRING

In particular, the introduction of all IP, next-generation networks and

multi-service access nodes means that subscribers can now access any
service over any network which, in turn, results in a proliferation of
products and services that are more frequently modified and have
more logical layers. It is, therefore, no longer sufficient just to
manage the customer or the network; there is also a need to manage
the service as an entity in its own right, throughout its entire lifecycle
and history, as shown in Figure 1.

In the past, services and service-related customer support were much

simpler. Once the service had been activated, then assurance of the
service began. There was usually little reason to have to revisit
the fulfillment process, and certainly not as often as is envisaged
in the next-generation environment.
For example, with a traditional simple voice telephony service
(POTS), once the service had been activated the only occasions when
fulfillment processes were triggered were when the customer moved
house or premises, or if they needed additional lines. Both scenarios
typically occurred very infrequently, and customer expectations were
to have the request fulfilled in weeks or days.
Today, however, we have far more service complexity than
previously, and customer expectations have shifted. Customers now
expect fulfillment of services they have ordered to be no more than
minutes, and they add and change services far more frequently than
was previously the case. From an operational perspective, this means
that the boundary between service fulfillment and service assurance
is blurring.
The blurring of this boundary, along with the frequent intersection
of service assurance and fulfillment processes and interfaces, favors
integration or consolidation of service fulfillment and assurance
on the same platform. Operational staff also need to be supported
by a converged layer that supplies common, real-time operational,
monitoring and control tools, and which serves as a unified back-end
system to the technology-agnostic and business-focused CRM layer.
In other words, they would benefit from an integrated service
management layer.

FIGURE 1: SERVICES NEED TO BE MANAGED AS ENTITIES IN THEIR OWN RIGHT

FIGURE 1: SERVICES NEED TO BE MANAGED AS ENTITIES IN THEIR OWN RIGHT

PROCESSES

PROCESSES

PROCESSES

CONTENT
PROCESSES

IMS

SINGLE
CORE

THERE IS A NEED TO MANAGE THE

SERVICE AS AN ENTITY OF ITS OWN

MORE PRODUCTS & SERVICES...

MORE FRQUENTLY MODIFIED...
MORE LOGICAL LAYERS...
MUCH MORE COMPLEXITY

WIDE RANGE OF ACCESS

PAGE 03

4. INTEGRATED SERVICE MANAGEMENT HELPS RESOLVE OSS CHALLENGES

INTEGRATED SERVICE MANAGEMENT IS ALIGNED

WITH eTOM

INTEGRATED SERVICE MANAGEMENT ENABLES

MANAGEMENT AND AUTOMATION OF THE ENTIRE
SERVICE LIFECYCLE

The concept of integrated service management is aligned with the

enhanced Telecom Operation Map (eTOM) of next-generation OSS,
and has been embraced by leading service providers such as BT
and Telstra. eTOM is part of the framework that the TeleManagement
Forum uses to help service providers meet the challenges
they are facing today, and to help them transform their OSS
into next-generation OSS. eTOM describes a horizontal service
management layer, which focuses on the knowledge of services
and includes all the functionality necessary for service delivery,
management and assurance, as shown in Figure 2. Beneath the
service management layer is another horizontal layer the resource
management layer. This maintains knowledge of resources and is
responsible for managing resources such as networks, IT, servers and
routers to deliver and support a proposed service to customers.

With an integrated approach to service management, service

providers are able to manage and automate the full lifecycle of their
services: from fulfillment to assurance and back, and from the
customer all the way to the network. An integrated approach means
that any request order, trouble ticket, change request can be
processed on a single platform, using the same methodology, tools
and interfaces. It links BSS and OSS, and spans across both legacy and
next-generation networks. Additional benefits resulting from
embracing an integrated service management approach are: helping
service providers migrate from legacy to next-generation OSS;
streamlining the information between BSS and OSS and bridging
the BSS/OSS gap; providing a unified platform for all service
management processes, increasing efficiency and flexibility, and
reducing both cost of ownership and time-to-market; lowering the
integration cost and risk, allowing changes to be applied more easily
and efficiently; as well as supporting increased automation, which
reduces costs and speeds service launches and fulfillment processes.

INTEGRATED SERVICE MANAGEMENT HELPS REDUCE RISK

AND COST OF TRANSITION TO NEXT-GENERATION OSS
The ability of integrated service management to bridge between
legacy and next-generation OSS is of particular importance. While
service providers recognize the need to transform their OSS, they
are anxious about the process of transformation. They wish to reduce
both the risk and the cost of transformation projects, and to
transform while still conducting business as usual. They also wish to
leverage their considerable investment in legacy platforms
scheduling consolidation and decommissioning of legacy systems
when convenient.

FIGURE 2: A HORIZONTAL SERVICE MANAGEMENT LAYER

A FRAMEWORK TO HELP
MEET CHALLENGES
SERVICE MANAGEMENT
Horizontal functional process grouping focusing
on the knowledge of services and includes all
functionalities necessary for the service delivery
and management of services

SERVICE MANAGEMENT:
SERVICE READINESS, FULFILLMENT & ASSURANCE

PAGE 04

5. DELIVERING INTEGRATED SERVICE MANAGEMENT:

THE AMDOCS SERVICE MANAGEMENT SUITE
AMDOCS SERVICE MANAGEMENT SUITE
ENABLES EFFICIENT LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT
OF SERVICES
The Amdocs Service Management Suite helps service providers
transform their OSS by efficiently managing and automating the full
lifecycle of their services from the customer all the way to the
network. It achieves this by linking BSS and OSS, and by providing a
single platform that integrates fulfillment and assurance processes
across both legacy and next-generation networks. The Amdocs
Service Management Suite is positioned at the heart of the OSS
domain, but rather than replacing existing systems, it provides a
platform that helps service providers control the systems they have
plus tools that assist with defining new business services (see Figure 3).

FIGURE
3: AMDOCS
SERVICE
SUITE SINGLE
SINGLE
PLATFORM
TO MANAGE
THE ENTIRE
FIGURE
3: AMDOCS
SERVICEMANAGEMENT
MANAGEMENT SUITE
PLATFORM
TO MANAGE
THE ENTIRE
SERVICE
PORTFOLIO
LIFECYCLE
PLANNING,TOFULFILLMENT,
FULFILLMENT,
TO ASSURANCE
AND BACK
SERVICE
PORTFOLIO
LIFECYCLEFROM
FROM PLANNING,TO
TO ASSURANCE
AND BACK
CUSTOMER MANAGEMENT

TROUBLE TICKETS

AMDOCS
SERVICE ORDER MANAGER

AMDOCS
SLA MANAGER

AMDOCS SUPPORT

AMDOCS B/OSS MANAGER

AMDOCS
CHANGE MANAGER

AMDOCS UNIFIED SERVICE MANAGER

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

OTHER OSS SYSTEMS

PRODUCT CATALOG

ORDERS

PAGE 05

5. DELIVERING INTEGRATED SERVICE MANAGEMENT:

THE AMDOCS SERVICE MANAGEMENT SUITE (CONT.)
SIX MODULES

The suite is centered around the Amdocs B/OSS Manager and is

made up of six modular products:
> Amdocs B/OSS Manager Sitting at the heart of the suite, this is
an OSS console that helps managers run day-to-day OSS activities.
It orchestrates and streamlines all service management processes
including fulfillment, assurance and operational readiness. It also
provides a rich set of tools and applications that are applied on top
of a process manager, including central fallout management,
jeopardy management and task management coupled with
business activity monitoring (BAM). Amdocs B/OSS Manager is
provided with Solution Packs and Knowledge Libraries of out-ofthe-box processes and interfaces that allows service providers to
benefit from our domain expertise, and reduce their implementation
time and costs.
> Amdocs Unified Service Manager provides a single repository
for service data linking customer products to services and
resources. The Amdocs Unified Service Manager also records
service instances during the service fulfillment process, which can
later be accessed during the service assurance process.

> Amdocs Change Manager is related to the planning or

operational readiness in relation to the network changes. It
provides a standard method to implement and approve both
planned and unplanned changes to the network. For example,
where upgrades are required in order to fulfill an order, this
process will be managed by the Amdocs Change Manager. This
product enables better predictability and control of the risk
associated with infrastructure changes.
> Amdocs Service Order Manager provides a single focal point
for all ordering channels for bi-directional communication. It
captures the customer order and decomposes it into networkfacing projects and service orders.
> Amdocs Support is the service assurance product for trouble
ticket management or problem and incident management (both
from the customer and network operation control perspective).
It supports closed-loop, advanced trouble-ticketing hierarchies,
prioritization, and out-of-the-box case types.

> Amdocs SLA Manager A common operational SLA management

platform for fulfillment and assurance, Amdocs SLA Manager
ensures that service management is performed in such a way that
service-level agreements (SLAs) are adhered to. For example, it
ensures that order fulfillment or trouble ticketing are performed
within the time allotted by the SLA. The solution also provides
real-time SLA jeopardy identification, enabling service providers
to take action where an SLA is in danger of being breached.

PAGE 06

5. DELIVERING INTEGRATED SERVICE MANAGEMENT:

THE AMDOCS SERVICE MANAGEMENT SUITE (CONT.)
AMDOCS SERVICE MANAGEMENT SUITE
SUPPORTS SERVICE ASSURANCE AND DELIVERS
A RANGE OF BENEFITS
The Amdocs Service Management Suite supports service assurance
by correlating between incidents reported by customers and, for
example, network fault management system. Once the fault has been
identified, the Service Management Suite orchestrates problem
management and automates problem resolution. It also manages
complex trouble ticketing, helping teams to work together to resolve
problems efficiently and according to SLAs. A dashboard provides
information and statistics to technicians and managers about the
status of the system. The main features and benefits of the Amdocs
Service Management Suite are summarized in Table 1.

(BT Wholesale uses) Amdocs as our Service Management

platform to meet the needs of over 30 million customers in the
UK. Based on our success with Amdocs, we are increasing our
usage of the product to 10,000 BT Wholesale personnel.
P H IL DA N CE
CIOTECH N OLOG Y
BT ON E IT, U K

The Amdocs Service Management Suite enables service providers

to deliver an enhanced customer experience, improve the
management and fulfillment of services, and reduce the complexity
and costs associated with bringing new IP-based services to wireline,
wireless and broadband customers. It also reduces transformational
risk by bridging between legacy and next-generation OSS systems.
Developed in partnership with leading service providers, such as UK
incumbent BT, Amdocs Service Management Suite supports our
customers next-generation OSS transformations, and helps them to
achieve the seemingly impossible challenge of managing growth
while at the same time delivering profitability.

TABLE 1: MAIN FEATURES AND BENEFITS OF THE AMDOCS SERVICE MANAGEMENT SUITE

FEATURES

BENEFITS

Phased implementation of OSS

transformation

Reduces total cost of ownership and

transformation risk

Delivers service fulfillment and assurance Increases operational efficiency

on a single integrated platform
through automation and orchestration
Full service lifecycle management and
unified view on a single platform

Faster time-to-market for next-generation

products and services

Single platform spans legacy and

next-generation OSS systems

Provides next-generation scalability

Preintegrated with Amdocs resource

and customer management solutions

Improves customer experience

PAGE 07

ABOUT AMDOCS

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