A key success factor for a vendor’s business is to develop products that deliver attractive features without extensive customizations. To do so in a timely manner, vendors must focus on developing new features, as opposed to custom development. Today’s systems/IT environments are structured in such a way that the cost of integration outweighs the value of the project. As a result, non-optimal solutions are becoming the norm.

With most contracts working within very strict budgets, it is important, from a sales perspective, to reduce the cost of sale and to increase the margin for profit within the fixed budget.

Historically, the cost of delivering solutions has taken the biggest slice of the available budget, leaving little for licensing fees and profitability. Reducing cost of delivery enables the supplier to focus on delivering the functionality that the customer requires with a minimal deliver and integration tax. It also provides a business model that will enable the supplier to deliver profitable solutions.

While it is imperative to understand the customers’ needs at the time of delivery, the nature of the communications world that we now live in makes it impossible to foresee the future. Vendors must therefore develop flexible solutions that will accommodate market changes quickly

The risks associated with introducing new systems into increasingly complex OSS and BSS environments has long been a major inhibitor for Service Providers and suppliers wanting to move towards wide process automation. The new breed of provider needing to deliver a wide range of services quickly and accurately, the need for process automation is no longer an option but critical to success. Reducing the risk for implementing these complex environments is therefore paramount.

Why TM Forum?

The TM Forum’s origins are deeply rooted in providing a collaborative forum that allows its members to work together to understand and develop solutions for the problems that the communications industry is facing today and will face in the future. Many members have developed strong alliances with service providers that have strongly and successfully influenced their product offerings.

Many of the projects run under the TM Forum’s Collaborative Program have been focused on achieving high levels of process automation. These initiatives range from the development of common practices and guidebooks, common process and information models and low integration cost APIs and interfaces. These solutions really do work … and we have 150 case studies from our members to prove it!