Page 414 - Handbook of Modern Telecommunications

Network Management and Administration 3-205

• Scalability to support rapid carrier growth
• Expediency to facilitate rapid time to market
The outside layer represents many other enabling processes and functions of service providers that
have not been addressed explicitly in this publication. These include among others:
• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) represents a well-known set of functions and services includ-
ing asset management, maintenance, general ledger, accounts payable, procurement and purchas-
ing, bill verification, and commissions management.
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) offers emerging customer-facing services including trou-
ble management, account management, cross-selling, bill inquiry, and bill adjustment functions.
• Partner Relationship Management (PRM) represents a new emerging area for well-organized col-
laboration among business partners. A highly flexible infrastructure is required to support merg-
ers and acquisitions, and the various depths of partnerships.
• Sales force automation represents a new emerging area of account, sales force, opportunity, con-
tract and contact management.
• Business intelligence (BI) is a special area of providing tailored business rules for operations met-
rics, SLA management, data warehousing, product management, marketing, and CRM.
• Decision Support Systems (DSS) are based on business intelligence, and business rules are implemented
for a higher-level of automation, in particular to operate the underlying network infrastructure.
• Support of eBusiness: This new and emerging area could play a significant, even survival role for
service provider. It includes Web-based order entry and returns, Web-based trouble reporting
and status inquiries, electronic bill delivery and payment, and Web-based customer profile and
product information. This is the basis for business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer
(B2C) on behalf of service providers.
• Interconnection between multiple service providers: All the technologies implemented with
enterprises, small businesses, and residential customers may be implemented among multiple
providers, retailers, and wholesalers. Besides traditional techniques for supporting settlements,
eCommerce techniques are also expected to be implemented.
• Employee training and education: Besides powerful workforce solutions to support workforce
dispatch optimization, training, education, and cross-education of all employees of the service
provider are extremely important. This includes knowledge distribution about the service port-
folio, sales techniques, support systems, documentation systems, management systems, basic
financials, and the strategic position of the company among other competitors. State-of-the-art
Internet-based technologies may help to increase educational efficiency.
It is obvious that ISSs have tight connections to:
• Mediation systems
• Inventory and documentation systems
• Provisioning solutions
• Billing products
These systems and products are the core components of OSSs and BSSs.
Security management is considered as part of management systems. Usually, TSPs structure their
management solutions around FCAPS (fault, configuration, accounting, performance, and security
management), whereby accounting and security receive special attention. Accounting is becoming part
of OSSs with the exception of capturing raw data in networking equipment. Security is supported in
different areas by different subject matter experts. Subgroups may include:

• Securing the networking infrastructure using, among others, security frameworks, intrusion
detection and prevention, firewalls, and virus protection.
• Protecting customer privacy of TSPs.