Hello,
Since graduating from University in 1997; I have worked on projects across a number of industry verticals; I found the telecommunications sector to be one of the most interesting. Perhaps this is due to the extremely complex underlying technologies that operate under the bonnet. But what is it that has helped the industry plan and deliver well?
I believe a key enabler and no doubt there are others alongside this has been the development and implementation of the eTOM framework. Let me go over this a bit within this article.
There is a bit of history where the telecom industry was in a somewhat chaotic state during the transition from being an engineering-oriented discipline during the early eighties to a more mature business and customer-oriented discipline with the passing of time. A dearth of a pervasive yet integrated approach to define the DNA of this sector was identified. Another realisation was the pivotal role of processes within such complex organisations. There needed to be an agreed-upon approach for capturing processes across the entire enterprise in a holistic and integrated manner.
The TeleManagement Forum (www.tmforum.org) based out of England with its background in service management and processes was at the right place at the right time and hence spearheaded this effort to develop what ultimately became eTOM (the "enhanced Telecommunications Operations Map"). It has now become a globally accepted best practice for telecom operators as well as other players in this service provider space. Since its launch in 2001, eTOM continues to grow and adapt to changes in order to stay abreast of research and continue to deliver value to implementing organisations.
eTOM provided a standard approach and common language due to which all parties could align with; operators, suppliers, application developers and technology providers; eTOM provided an operating model and reference point against which both functionality and interoperability would now be established. Let us look a little further into this model.
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Image Source: https://bit.ly/2z3Jb2X
The figure above depicts the Level 0 "Conceptual" view of eTOM which in effect breaks down the enterprise into 3 process groups as follows:
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The Customer is placed at the top of the diagram as the beneficiary and recipient of all process work carried out. At the bottom of the diagram are the internal entities who carry out many of the tasks or who have a vested interest in how well Operations works. The Suppliers/Partners bubble just above Enterprise Management refers to external entities with whom the service provider will need to have legally binding agreements and SLAs.
The horizontal domains, e.g. Market, Product and Customer represent key functional areas which span across the organisation internally.
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Image Source: https://bit.ly/3fZrK49
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The above figure represents Level 1 of eTOM; this level introduces 8 vertical process categories which represent an end-to-end process, e.g. Billing. If functional linkages need to be analysed, then the horizontal process groups are referred to instead.
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Image Source: https://bit.ly/2zTdbhQ
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The above figure then presents the next stage of decomposition; that of Level 2. Each of the white boxes sits at an intersection of the vertical with horizontal process groupings, e.g. Service Configuration and Activation. At this level, its one and the same process whether being viewed from a vertical or horizontal perspective.
Following is an overview of the process groupings in this area:
- Strategy and Commit encompasses processes related to the enterprises's strategic positioning and planning as well as gaining commitment from the business to support these priorities. The scope is at all levels; market, customer, products, resources as well as the supply chain.
- Infrastructure Lifecycle Management is concerned with the planning and implementation of the application, computing and network infrastructures to ensure these capabilities meet current and future business and product requirements.
- Product Lifecycle Management manages the product portfolio and catalogues through the lifecycle of the product; ensuring products meet both cost and quality imperatives.
- Marketing and Offer Management; the first of the horizontal groupings here considers areas such as the sales channels, product marketing, pricing and marketing communication.
- Service Development & Management covers all service related activities thereby ensuring that all services delivered meet requirements of Operations, enabling Operations to meet the needs of the customers effectively.
- Resource Development & Management takes care of the network, physical and non-physical resources ensuring that the right planning, design and deployment is in place so they can support services and products in the Operations domain as per the requirements.
- Supply Chain Development & Management looks at selection of suppliers and partners such that their delivery can aid innovation and deliver superior support. Supplier agreements and their performance measurement is covered here also.
Let us take a brief look at the Operations area; this represents no doubt the core of eTOM and where it has the most focus and maturity. The groupings are as follows:
- Operations Support & Readiness provides management, administrative and logistical support to the subsequent 3 processes of Fulfillment, Assurance and Billing (FAB). Furthermore; FAB executes direct customer facing processes and those which are more in the background are placed here.
- Fulfillment processes orders in a timely manner meeting customer expectations. It matches what the customer requests with the product catalogues and gives real time updates on progress with order execution. It ensures the customer is pleased with the overall request and provisioning process until closure.
- Assurance looks at quality and performance proactively and reactively in a way that SLAs and quality metrics are setup and being monitored for adherence. It strives to identify and eliminate root causes of failure and where they occur to focus on their restoration as quickly as possible.
- Billing supports both prepaid and postpaid customers so that customers can access what they have paid for or have agreed to pay for. Its process translate usage records and process them to generate accurate bills which are sent to customers on a timely basis. Bill related enquiries and problems are handled by this process grouping.
- Customer Relationship Management is the first horizontal grouping in his area, taking ownership for all processes related to acquiring, retaining and looking for innovative means making customers more valuable to the enterprise. All channels are analysed to ensure they remain effective. This process group also retains key information on the customer and their buying behaviour in order to influence strategies for marketing and sales.
- Service Management and Operations which takes care of the services aspect; how services are defined, governed and implemented. The scope here is on services and not the underlying technology.
- Resource Management and Operations takes care of the underlying technology (application, computing and network) and all of the resources across these domains to ensure that both network and IT resources function and support the services to the requisite level of performance.
- Supplier/Partner Relationship Management handles the relationship with suppliers and partners; ensuring that agreements are put in place to enable a seamless end-to-end delivery of service and support as well as vendor performance management. These processes also cover procurement activities, track payments and deal with issues as they may arise.
The final area of eTOM have the Enterprise Management cover processes that are not telecom related; however are required by all organisations. Quite often referred to as processes that support corporate functions such as HR, finance, R&D, PR, risk management, legal affairs and the likes of these.
The objective here was to provide an eagle eye's view of eTOM noting that this business process framework has become the defacto approach used by telecom and other leading service provider organisations across the globe. It leverages significant benefits and continues to adapt and mature.
Your feedback always most welcome via email on mail@musab.co.uk.
Take care and kind regards,
Musab
