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I t is essential for the network and related op-erations and business support systems (OSS/BSS) to work together to enable a company’s

wanted position. The systems must:▶ “know” the customer and the service being used▶ be able to put the two into context ▶ be able to act accordingly, monitoring and cor-recting, should customer experience metrics be violated.

Communication service providers use OSS/BSS to create differentiated offerings effectively. Ericsson claims OSS/BSS are key to enabling the Networked Society, but you may ask, what’s new about that? Quite honestly, nothing much. The novelty factor is for the future: it has to do with the difference between the way these systems work today and the way they will need to work tomorrow. To put this into perspective, it’s use-ful to explore current OSS/BSS a little.

Today’s OSS/BSS are extensively customized. The “best-of-breed” buying behavior that has developed over the past decade has resulted in the integration of many point solutions, seldom leading to long-term efficiency – not to men-tion the legacy lock-in effect of customized so-lutions based on very specific business-use cas-es. Some require small armies of contractors just to keep running. The introduction of a new product becomes a mammoth task, and it is of-ten necessary to carry out months of feasibility studies in advance. The various systems are of-fline, and human beings are the integration points between them. As a result, user-experi-ence management and business innovation amount to little more than a couple of appeal-

ing concepts in the minds of marketing execu-tives.

Business efficiency is about turning the com-bination of OSS/BSS into the business enabler – not the thing that holds business back. To move toward that goal, existing OSS/BSS solutions must be transformed; they need to be online, real-time and event-driven. They must also be closely integrated with the network. OSS/BSS must make a business agile and flexible, enabling it to develop continuously in line with the evo-lution of the business environment, technology and customers. Business efficiency is ensured through the establishment of effective, carefully managed business processes.

A series of effective core business processes are outlined in the figure on page 16.

This process may be described in the context of the mining industry, which was used in the case outlined in the previous articles in this se-ries.

IDEA TO PLAN

Imagine a country that’s dependent on the ex-port of raw materials, like South Africa. One morning, an eager young marketing executive of a network operator finds his mind is bubbling over with ideas for offerings, having found out that 50 percent of his company’s non-smartphone mobile-broadband SIMs are being used in sen-sory and measuring equipment in the mining in-dustry. Each of his ideas will have to be support-ed by a business case, and each should support the overall business plan and marketing strategy of the communications service provider.

OSS/BSS explained, part 3:

Business efficiency – how a mining company’s problems can be solvedThe first two articles in this series focused on how to manage user experience, and the crucial role of policy control respectively. Here, Jaco Fourie ties the series together, concluding with a concrete case of business efficiency.

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The idea-to-plan process facilitates creating, validating and approving the business case. Next, the actual products to be offered and the target-ed segment (precious metals or iron ore) is se-lected. The predictions with respect to custom-ers’ uptake of new products are used to identify the physical infrastructure and resources re-quired to realize the proposed offerings. Next, the board’s decision on whether or not to go ahead is key. If it is a “go,” detailed product, re-source and infrastructure specifications are pre-pared and the plan for how to realize the pro-posed offerings is finalized. Once the plan is ap-proved by the board, the idea-to-plan process is concluded and the plan-to-provision process kicks off.

PLAN TO PROVISION

This process includes all the steps required to get the mining company’s product offering ready to launch, such as:▶ identifying and engaging suppliers and subcon-tractors due to be involved once offerings are launched▶ planning a go-to-market strategy, offerings launch and sales preparation▶ carrying out operational planning for once the offerings are in use by customers and partners (the key is to be able to handle exception cases and maintain customer and partner Service Lev-el Agreements (SLAs), even in the event of fail-ure)▶ building, testing and approvals – everything new is verified and added to the portfolio in a controlled way (this includes having facilities and equipment prepared and conducting preproduc-tion testing; creating settings in production sys-tems ranging from the portal to screens in the call center; creating price lists; and setting sales margins, discount allowances and so on).

Once all the steps outlined above have been completed, the launch date and the final check-point is the preproduction run, which is used to validate products, partners and established pro-cedures, and ensure that systems work in an on-line, real-time and event-driven way. The new offerings are launched for the mining industry at the annual Precious Metals Conference just three months after the marketing executive came up with the idea. This concludes the plan-to-provi-sion process.

In this case, the communications service pro-vider/operator has partnered with the No. 1 min-ing-management and control-systems provider in the region. Together they have turned the man-agement and control system from an offline hu-man-intensive system into an online solution that gives mining companies the ability to monitor

the yield of every shaft in real time. The opera-tor further connects the mining-equipment ven-dors and provides them with online data about the state of wear and tear of their equipment. All of this is enabled through embedded communi-cations in the equipment vendors’ monitoring and control systems; each mining unit includes a 3G module and SIM card housed in a protec-tive casing.

This has posed some fulfillment challenges for the operator. These were resolved through a new process that enables the partner to order SIMs and provision them itself. Best of all is that the process is fully automated and does not interfere with the existing retail-fulfillment processes. This seems so good that it may sound too simple to be true – which in a way it’s not, but it still means a radical step toward a new level of flexibility and agility in the way operators work.

LEAD TO ORDER

Once the product is launched, the lead-to-order process starts. Leads could, for example, be cre-ated from contacts made at the Precious Metals Conference. These contacts are followed up and developed into actual sales leads, which we call lead management. Lead management includes sales tools, prospect handling and so on.

The board of one of the big mines in the Jo-hannesburg area shows a lot of interest, and as the quotations are prepared, the OSS/BSS place the partners involved on high alert. In some cas-es, preorders are even created to secure delivery capacity in case the communication service pro-vider and its mining partner should win the deal with the mining company. After a board meet-ing at the mine, the decision is a “go.” The quo-tations are automatically turned into orders and the order-to-service process starts.

ORDER TO SERVICE

The order-orchestration function in the OSS/BSS breaks down the orders into different work pack-ages, and subcontractors receive work orders. The equipment partner handles the SIM cards as they are received from the SIM supplier. These are mini SIMs sent directly to the partner’s fac-tory, where they are installed into the modules by an automated assembly line. A few days after the placement of the orders, the first physical de-liveries are made to the mine and the first data becomes available centrally and online. At the mining company, people are extremely impressed by the speed and efficiency of the biggest trans-formation process involving automation at the mine. The most significant improvement made is that new parts function on delivery – not sev-eral weeks later. This is enabled by OSS/BSS do-

▶Business development «« next generation support systems ««

“The equipment partner handles the

SIM cards as they are received from the SIM

supplier. These are mini SIMs sent directly

to the partner’s fac-tory, where they are

installed into the mo-dules by an automated

assembly line”

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ing automatic configuration work based on the data received from the partner’s systems. If some-thing goes wrong, the OSS/BSS automatically send out new settings to bring new sensors into service.

The drilling machines are among the first min-ing equipment to go online. Already on day one, the management system reports to the equip-ment vendor that the sensors indicate that a ma-chine is vibrating outside the allowed parame-ters when under full load. The vendor is able to correct the problem during a shift change, which means operations remain uninterrupted at the mine.

The order orchestration (or order manage-ment) function tracks all the different compo-nents of a single order from the mine, and the sales representative is able to check on the sta-tus of the various activities carried out by both partners and subcontractors at any particular time. The order is in place, and this concludes the order-to-service process.

TROUBLE TO RESOLUTION

The case described may have sounded like a fairy tale with everything just running perfectly, so let’s get real and look at how problems are han-dled. A base station cell that provides the mine with coverage goes dead. Nonetheless, it does not leave the mine exposed since the network is planned in such a way that there is sufficient overlay to be able to handle a single cell failure.

OSS/BSS automatically dispatch work orders to the network operations center (NOC) to in-vestigate the issue. At the NOC, it is quickly de-termined that the fault must have been caused by a physical infrastructure failure at the cell, and the ticket is updated with the relevant informa-tion. Work orders are dispatched by OSS/BSS to the company handling field support for sites at mines. In the meantime, the OSS/BSS add the channels of the affected cell to the other cells in the cluster covering the mine, and boost their output power to provide for any low-coverage points. Even though devices that are now on the cell edge may suffer lowered throughput, the OSS/BSS set the priority for the modules de-ployed at the mine higher than that of mine em-ployees so as to give preference to traffic from mine systems. This is done since it is time for a shift change, and that would mean a large num-ber of mobile phones are connected to the net-work as workers start their journey home.

One hour after the failure of the cell, field sup-port arrives on site to replace the faulty module. As soon as the cell is switched on, the OSS/BSS move the channels back to the cell, adjust the output power of the other cells in the cluster, and

set the priority levels back to normal. From the time of the failure, OSS/BSS orchestrated all the activities carried out by people and systems alike to resolve the problem as quickly as possible. Upon its replacement, the faulty module is marked as such, a fault report is logged with the supplier and the module is subsequently shipped to the supplier for correction. The central spares-stock database is automatically updated.

At the end of the month, the head of opera-tions can see all failures throughout the infra-structure and get an overview of the national spares status on a tablet device. The sales repre-sentative gets a report of the SLA KPI perfor-mance versus target for the mine, and even though a dip was recorded when the failure oc-curred, the SLA threshold agreed with the mine was not violated. At the monthly meeting held with executives at the mine, the sales represent-ative is able to show the customer the real-time SLA performance – both for the network and the mining equipment being managed.

SERVICE TO CASH

Many believe service to cash involves mainly the charges between a communication service pro-vider/operator and its customers. But that only covers the retail part of business; the business-to-business part is usually larger. An operator sources products and services from partners and subcontractors for part of the physical fulfillment of the products. Then there is the mining part-ner with which it shares revenue and has a cross-supply agreement, and last but not least, the field force company that had to send out an engineer to repair the cell, as in the example mentioned above. Taking care of all the settlements and charges throughout the lifespan of the products in their business context allows the operator to see the total cost and revenue yield for its min-ing sector portfolio. This is only possible when taking into account the total business.

With all the charges to customers and partners tallied up against all costs, the marketing man-ager can access a dashboard on a tablet and track the mining business in real time.

The mine is integrated with the OSS/BSS and the invoices are passed electronically to the min-ing company.

This brings us to the business process that is the least used in telecoms today.

LAUNCH TO RETIRE

The name of this process is another term for product life-cycle management. You may ask why the latter term is not used. To date, the telecom industry has focused on customer acquisition and subscriber growth, and

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consequently, product life-cycle management has been largely neglected. This is how it should be:

Launch to retire starts the day the product is put into production. From this point, the yield of the product or segment must be tracked. Should the yield not live up to the predicted busi-ness metrics defined during the idea-to-plan pro-cess, corrective measures must be taken.

At any given time, the marketing manager knows which customers are using the product and what it yields. They would also know when to start moving the customers to new products by activating campaigns. Once all customers are moved, the marketing manager can earmark the old product for retirement. This includes having all agreements with third parties terminated, re-covering infrastructure and resources where pos-sible, and ordering the decommissioning and possibly selling or recycling of redundant equip-ment. With a complete report of the total profit and loss of the product during its life cycle, the retirement process is complete.

OSS/BSS should not be separated from the un-derlying network (this would be impossible an-yway); true business efficiency can be realized only when they are handled as a unit. It should also be clear that the way to make a difference with respect to business efficiency is to take into account all business processes, not the systems that initiated them.

And this is how the mining story ends: the min-ing group found that the biggest mine in Johan-nesburg boasts the highest level of productivity in the country, and the decision has been made to transform all of the company’s mines in South

Africa using the same management systems de-ployed at the pilot mine. The communication ser-vice provider and its partner have become the main ICT partners to the mining group, and to-gether they are now reviewing processes to in-crease productivity even further.

Mining operations data is now available in the management systems, tying together previously isolated data points and allowing for a better un-derstanding of how different mining activities re-late to one another. This could help the mines in-vent new ways of doing things, leading to in-creased safety for workers as well as yield.

Some readers of this series on OSS/BSS will say it is too expensive to do everything in real time. This is an argument I hear a lot. My answer is very simple: if your real-time processing is ex-pensive, your system is fundamentally flawed.

AUTHOR

▶ JACO FOURIE is Senior Expert Business Support Systems at Ericsson’s Business Unit Support Solutions. He focuses on the evolution of the company’s Operations and Business Support

Systems portfolio to meet the demands that the Networked Society will impose on next-generation support systems. Fourie began his career in data communication in the 1980s, working with the X-Series Standards for packet-switching. In the early stages of the introduction of GSM, he joined MTN South Africa and focused on value-added services and charging. He joined Ericsson in 1999 as Head of Product Management for Charging Systems.(jaco.fourie@ericsson.com)

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