- What benefit will I get by participating in the Business Benchmarking program?
- How much effort does it take to participate?
- Is there a cost to participate in the program?
- How many SPs are participating already?
- Why should I participate in this program compared to other initiatives in the industry?
- How are the metrics developed?
- If I contribute data to the Business Benchmarking program, how secure is my data? Also, how private is this information i.e. will others be able to figure out what information is associated with my company?
- How specific is the benchmarking information that I can get from this program?
- Where can I get more information?
- If I am not a Service Provider, can I get access to benchmarking information?
1. What benefit will I get by participating in the Business Benchmarking program?
Benchmarking provides a way of measuring and comparing your business and operational performance versus your peers/competitors. This will help you to establish not only meaningful strategic transformation objectives, but equally importantly, near term goals based on your competitive landscape. Benchmarking information will also enable you to prioritize your investments to get you a high ROI (Return on Investment).
2. How much effort does it take to participate?
Based on the experience of the current participants, the effort involved can take as little as a few days. More typically it takes about a man week. If you do not have a stream lined metrics collection process in place already, the first time around may take some more time. However, one of the positive side effects is that collecting these metrics will also improve your metrics collection process for internal use.
3. Is there a cost to participate in the program?
If you are service provider member of TM Forum, there is no cost to participate.
4. How many SPs are participating already?
There are over 100 participants today across the Broadband, Mobility, and High Speed Broadband studies.
5. Why should I participate in this program compared to other initiatives in the industry?
There are a number of reasons why TM Forum believes this program provides a very high value to its participants. First, this is an industry led program that targets the key needs of the Service Providers from a business and operational transformation perspective. A group of charter member Service Providers approve the metrics that are created by TM Forum – in essence, this is program designed for SPs by SPs.
Second, given that this is an industry led program with very strong security and privacy requirements, your specific information will not be used to sell you additional services and products. Third, since there are over 200 SPs who are members of TM Forum, the richness of the potential benchmarking information will be very difficult to match by anyone else. Finally, as stated before, there is no cost to you to get the benchmarking information if you contribute data.
6. How are the metrics developed?
As indicated earlier, a TM Forum Business Metrics team comprised of seasoned industry veterans develops the metrics, with input/guidance/final approval from a core group of Service Providers. The focus of the metrics team is to develop just enough, extremely relevant metrics to target the sweet spot for the SPs.
7. If I contribute data to the Business Benchmarking program, how secure is my data? Also, how private is this information i.e. will others be able to figure out what information is associated with my company?
Your information is very secure. You enter the information yourself into an extremely secure portal. The process, software, and physical environment have been audited and approved by several unaffiliated security auditors.
Also, your information is very private since the data stays anonymous and attributions cannot be made. When you look at the data, you see your score but no one else’s.
8. How specific is the benchmarking information that I can get from this program?
There are two ways you can get the benchmarking information. The first way is a very easy to read report, which among other items, provides you with an at a glance picture of your performance vs. the industry participation. This information is provided on a per metric basis.
Another way to get access to the information is by querying the benchmarking database. Your query requests can get very specific such as SPs in my region or SPs of my size. This access mechanism is unique in the industry.
9. Where can I get more information?
For more information on the TM Forum Business Benchmarking program, please click this link.
10. If I am not a Service Provider, can I get access to benchmarking information?
Non-participants may purchase a subscription to the results of a single Research Stream (such as Revenue Management, which includes RA and Billing) or all the Research Streams.
If you are interested in purchasing a subscription, talk to your account manager or write to benchmark@tmforum.org.