Supplier and Service Management Managing Suppliers, Partners and Services within complex Industry 2.0 business models

Transcription

1 Functional Overview Infonova R6 Supplier and Management Managing Suppliers, Partners and s within complex Industry 2.0 business models Effective Supplier and Management plays a key role in multilayered, cross-industry 2.0 business models. In order for Providers to take advantage of cross-industry 2.0 business models, they must be able to easily introduce a variety of services from different suppliers and partners into their service portfolio. These can then be exposed so that end-customers can select from a wide array of single products and bundled offers. The market is opening up to aggregating services or products from multiple suppliers and partners thereby leveraging brand power and customer access. In order to widen the market exposure of services where the Providers do not have direct access to the branded products, they can also define channel partners, virtual service operators (VSO), who offer the services to other markets under their own product brands.

2 TWO-SIDED BUSINESS MODELS Cross-industry 2.0 fundamentally calls for the capability to manage a multi-layered business model. In a two-sided business model, a platform aggregates multiple services from different suppliers into wholesale and retail offers that include legacy and other products, services and devices. END-CUSTOMER Traditional Wholesale / Retail Retail Product Offer Provider Retail Product Offer Retailer / Virtual Operator 1 Wholesale Product Offer Provider Retail Product Offer Retailer / Virtual Operator 2 Wholesale Product Offer Infonova R6 Virtual Retail Virtual Wholesale s s Supplier Supplier 1 Supplier 2 Figure 1: Infonova R6 multi-layered business model Infonova's R6 is a comprehensive multi-layered platform that can manage both traditional and cross-industry 2.0 business models. On the one hand, it aggregates multiple suppliers' services into wholesale and retail offers that include next generation, legacy and other products, services and devices. On the other hand, the platform supports the definition of multiple retail operators (sometimes called tenants) and channels, and enables these tenants to sell and deliver their branded and bundled offers to end-customers, and bill them for services provided. SUPPLIER AND SERVICE MANAGEMENT R6 Supplier and Management enables the Provider to easily define and manage suppliers, partners and their services. In the cross-industry 2.0 scenario, collaboration is the key to successful delivery of value-added services and retention of customers. Infonova's Supplier and Management provides the capabilities to aggregate suppliers and their services on one platform which enables the services to be made available throughout the Infonova business ecosystem.

3 SERVICE MONETIZATION The monetization of service usage is equally important as enablement. The supplier management functionality is the foundation for effective Mediation and Rating processes and the correct allocation of charges for execution of the wholesale and retail bill runs. The following figure shows how a service of a supplier becomes a product offer suitable for endcustomers. VSO Tariff service Product Offer Configuration Retail Product Offer VSO service VSP Tariff Product Offer Configuration Wholesale Product Offer service VSP Product Configuration Wholesale Product Feature Tariff Feature Feature Provider Figure 2: Monetization The wholesale operator creates and manages service providers / suppliers and manages their service portfolios by defining services and related service events and service s. The wholesale operator then defines and manages products by choosing services from one or more suppliers' service portfolios and associating a variety of charges to them. Once the wholesale product has been exposed to the Retail Operator, it enables the Retail Operator to individually price the underlying services for the end-customer consumption.

4 HOW SUPPLIER AND SERVICE MANAGEMENT WORKS R6 Supplier and Management involves: Management of suppliers/partners Configuration of services provided by a supplier/partner Assignment of business process events for the triggering of service provisioning via adaptors Definition of resource management workflows for service fulfillment Figure 3: Supplier and Management in the Infonova R6 process overview SERVICE INTEGRATION PATH The service of a supplier is introduced into the Infonova R6 business ecosystem by following the Infonova integration path appropriate for service integration. This involves: Defining Suppliers / Partners in Supplier Management Defining s and SLAs in Management Integrating service event handlers Provisioning interface integration in and Resource Provisioning workflow integration in Workflow Management This integration is a combination of step-by-step configuration and process and data integration, described in detail in the Administration Guide, Supplier Management Guide, Workflow Development Guide and Resource Provisioning Guide.

5 Figure 4: Infonova R6 Integration Paths - Integration STEP BY STEP SUPPLIER AND SERVICE INTEGRATION R6 Supplier and Management allows the easy definition and management of suppliers and their services. Supplier / Partner All supplier/partner information like supplier names, contact information, and contracts are collected in the system. Supplier management establishes a billing account for each new supplier / partner to which the mediation and rating process allocated charges are accumulated for reconciliation invoicing. Specification and characteristics A service specification represents a template definition of a service (e.g. DSL, Mobile, Insurance, power, etc.) or resource (equipment) and comprises of invariant characteristics associated with the specification. This service specification definition enables multiple instances to be derived from a single specification entity.

6 Management Specifications Characteristics Figure 5: Management specifications define a service or resource that can be provisioned from either a B2B gateway to a 3rd-Party Provider (e.g. PSTN line, DSL, mobile handset), an integrated Delivery Platform (e.g. AAA, IPTV), or an integrated Management System. Several aspects need to be considered for a service specification: What are the service characteristics that are customizable and need to be captured at the time of order placement? What characteristics need to be defined as read-only and therefore require a default value? What characteristics need to be defined for service provisioning, but do not need to be shown during order process? specification characteristic templates are available for the definition of characteristics sets. characteristics can be defined in various formats, e.g. as phone numbers, strings, lists, dates, numbers and Boolean, supported by configurable validation rules. Figure 6: Specification

7 A service definition comprises a service specification, service characteristics and supplier. Supplier and Management - Instantiation Suppliers Specifications Characteristics s Figure 7: Supplier and - Instantiation A service is defined (instantiated) when a service specification is associated with a supplier / partner, given unique identity information. A service thus contains the full range of service characteristics available from the original service specification and their default values where applicable. The service can represent one, and only one, external service or resource that can be provisioned; external services with the same service specification from different suppliers must be defined by different services. Workflow Integration Process integration involves defining the workflows that are required to fulfill service activation, modification and termination that are triggered by business process events (Orders, Relocations, Payments, Dunning, etc.) Task Management Infonova R6 Rule Engine Workflow Engine NEW UPGRADE TERMINATE workflows Figure 8: workflow integration Workflow Assignments are a way to let the workflow engine know which specific workflow is assigned to specific actions or events in combination with s. For example, if a new service XYZ is created during an offer, the workflow engine can look up in the Supplier Management which specific workflow must be started if the service XYZ is affected by the CREATE event.

8 Provisioning Interface Integration and Resource Management Adaptor -oriented architecture plays a highly important role in Infonova R6.The Infonova SOA approach enables greater flexibility, efficiency, and responsiveness in the way that companies produce and use services; particularly when OSS/BSS environments are heterogeneous and business requirements are dynamic. Infonova SOA is enabled through a number of technologies, such as Enterprise Bus (ESB), Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), or Web s (WS). Interaction can be established through four different kinds of communication levels: Local Call for synchronous local calls when the Infonova BPM runs on the same instance as the caller Enterprise Java Beans or Web for synchronous remote calls when the Infonova BPM runs on a remote instance Java Messaging and Enterprise Bus for asynchronous remote calls when the Infonova BPM runs on a remote instance File communications using the Infonova ImpEx (Import/Export) for file/location based interfaces Many legacy systems don t use web services but some other form of communication, e.g. file/location based interfaces. The Infonova ImpEx (Import/Export) component can be used in such situations. Task Management Infonova R6 Rule Engine Workflow Engine Resource Management Adaptor EJB File JMS ESB Web Figure 9: Resource Management

9 Assigning Fulfillment Workflows to a Supplier and Management - Instantiation Suppliers Specifications Characteristics s Fulfillment workflows Figure 10: Business event workflow integration A dedicated fulfillment workflow can be assigned for every service or service provisioning type (e.g., NEW, CHURN IN/OUT, UP/DOWNGRADE and TERMINATE). Supplier Management interfaces to the supplier through a defined resource management adaptor to which the fulfillment workflows communicate. Figure 11: Add business event workflows to s Supplier mediation feeds Supplier mediation feeds and service events, which are used for the billing of service consumption data, are defined per supplier. Supplier and Management - Instantiation Mediation events and feeds Suppliers Specifications Characteristics s Fulfillment workflows Figure 12: Mediation events and feeds

10 This definition is the foundation for effective Mediation and Rating processes and the correct allocation of charges for execution of the wholesale bill run. Figure 13: Add mediation events and feeds in Supplier Management

11 INFONOVA Infonova, founded in 1989, specializes in providing technology and business-oriented solutions and services to telecommunications, media, utility and convergent industries. Infonova s BSS solutions have been implemented for incumbent, attacker and cable operators supporting triple & quadruple play service portfolios. Encapsulating decades of knowledge, Infonova s latest BSS product, R6 is a fully J2EE platform that supports real multi-tenant concept-to-cash operations for fully convergent and complex multi-industry 2.0 business models while also supporting Telco 1.0 simultaneously. R6 also delivers transformation scenarios and Pre- & Post-paid Convergence at a fraction the cost and time of traditional integration scenarios. For more information please visit