Today’s telecommunications industry is
virtually unrecognisable from the one of ten, or even five, years ago. The convergence of voice, data, content, and mobile services has created a telecommunications super-industry, in which traditional telecom providers are vying against non-traditional competitors for market share and mind share. And the lines between the different companies--and their offerings--are blurring
These firms not only face increasing competitive pressure from each other, but also from consumers, who increasingly demand lower rates and more comprehensive service offerings. As the lines between companies and their offerings blur, consumers can more easily switch providers to the one that offers the most comprehensive offering at the best price--with no downside to the consumer. While every company is betting on different strategy, there is one constant: each company wants to leverage its subscriber base and brand recognition to sell services to new and existing customers.
Accomplishing this goal is not easy, thanks to the lightning-fast pace of change in the telecommunications industry. Companies must be increasingly agile to keep up with this pace and, in doing so, face several challenges.
This is where BPM (Business Process Management) has come to the rescue. In a few of the biggest and best telecommunications companies, IT and business have used BPM disciplines and technologies to streamline mission-critical processes and gain competitive advantage. Through BPM’s efficiencies and cost reductions, telecommunications companies have found ways to adapt quickly to a shifting industry landscape—resulting in more market share and lower costs.

The challenges
Struggling to react
First, the functional architecture of most service providers, commonly known as Operational Support System (OSS) or Business Support System (BSS), was developed at a time when service providers offered relatively few, geographically specialised services. Thus, these systems were typically highly customised, making them simply too rigid to handle today’s rapidly changing underlying technology and business requirements. In today’s business environment, by the time a change in the returns and repair process for a new mobile service is introduced in older systems, it can already be outdated when the mobile service is actually launched, leaving returns and repair process and other operational changes critical to a carrier’s success dependent on slow applications and delivery cycles.

Inconsistent ownership
Second, many of the processes within telecommunications firms exist in silos in the organisation. That is, order management, CRM, provisioning, customer care, and billing functions  managed by different applications do not always share information and view information differently. Reality is, however, that customer-facing processes span departments and functions, making it difficult to get a single, 360-degree view of the customer across all relevant departments and to satisfy customers. Often, decisions must be made and actions must be taken without the support of these applications, or an audit trail, leading to errors and inaccuracies as well as long cycle times--not to mention customer dissatisfaction.

Tighter delivery time frames
Third, the rapid pace of change in technology requires service providers to constantly test and certify network and supporting equipment and incorporate it into the order provisioning process lifecycle. The challenge is to ensure successful certification and process controls and meet ever-faster delivery schedules while keeping operating costs under control.

Keeping up with regulations
Finally, the regulatory environment in the telecommunications industry is also shifting quickly. With this change comes the need for firms to maintain compliance with these regulations.
In order to meet the pace of change, reduce exposure to risk, keep down operating costs, and improve customer satisfaction, telecommunications companies must improve their business processes, While many leading-edge telecommunications firms have explored process improvement and quality initiatives, most have not had success in implementing BPM software to manage and control the lifecycle of key processes. A vast majority of current solutions deal with system and document integration but do not factor people into the processes, making it more--rather than less-- difficult to design repeatable business functions throughout the entire process lifecycle. n