Service providers still struggling with siloed systems are limited in the creativity they can apply to new feature and capabilities; therefore, it is difficult for them to differentiate services from those of other service providers. Additionally, the lack of standardized interfaces makes adjustments to market changes arduous and time-consuming.

For service providers to command their margins, they must build frameworks on top of which they can rapidly create new service offerings. That requires business process automation through the employment of best practices and blueprints that clearly demonstrate connections among different stakeholders in the value chain.

A key success factor to convergent, multi-service offerings will be the ability to develop attractive features without extensive customizations. The whole point of getting into digital content is to do something different—to consider which niches of customers are willing to pay premiums for hard-to-get entertainment and information and personalized services. Understanding what is commoditized and what may exist in the Long Tail will help service providers generate more revenue.

While considering how to generate more revenue, service providers must also consider the cost of providing services. As margins thin, service providers have to be wary of managing too many partners in the service delivery value chain with manual, non-standardized processes and mechanisms.

Lack of visibility across partners makes consistent branding difficult, and also opens up holes for revenue leakage and service quality issues.

Why TM Forum?

Service providers and all their partners stand to benefit from interfaces, frameworks and guidelines that automate and synchronize customer views across multiple providers’ networks and systems.

Input from the 670 member companies ensures that expansive input, design and thought has gone into each element of TM Forum solutions.

Because companies need to be on the same page about how they will make changes in their management systems, no software product or solution can stand alone. All components must be capable of integration. The TM Forum’s Business Process Framework (eTOM) defines a process framework in which operators ‘decompose’ their own processes so they can understand them and map them into workflows.

The Applications Framework (TAM) relates the abstract processes revealed in the Process Framework and links them to the applications which can execute them.

TM Forum standards and frameworks are designed to enable providers to evolve their IT environments to enable real data sharing and process automation - replacing information islands with a seamless IT environment that supports the rapid delivery and management of complex, next generation services. TM Forum’s Information Framework (SID) standard is critical for this development.

The TM Forum ensures its standards actually get implemented through its Prosspero initiative, which packages working open-source code, testing frameworks, guidebooks, online developer support, development tools and access to reference implementations.