3/20/2018 A Guide to Implementing the eTOM Business Process Model

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A Guide to Implementing the eTOM Business

Process Model
by Greg Carmody on Nov 16, 2015 3:54:56 PM

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Introduction
One of the most interesting initiatives from the TeleManagement Forum (TMF) is the
de nition of the eTOM Business Process Framework. eTOM is the “Enhanced Telecoms
Operations MAP”. 

eTOM is based on the Telecom Operations Map (TOM), which is a high-level reference
process model for Operations and Management in a modern telecommunications
company.

 The Telecom Operations Map was developed to drive a consensus around the processes,
inputs, outputs and activities required for service provider operations management. It
serves as the blueprint for the de nition of standardized business processes and provides
a reference point for internal process reengineering needs, partnerships, alliances, and
working agreements with other providers.

So what is the bene t of eTOM to Technology and Operations Managers ? Apart from the
bene ts of adhering to standardised business processes (lower implementation costs,
more 'out-of-the-box' functionality, lower upgrade costs, etc), this series of blogs will

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demonstrate how Salesforce can be used to quicker implement powerful and exible
business processes that provide conformance to eTOM. 

 
Overview
This is the rst in a series of blogs which will introduce the eTOM framework and a practical
approach to implementing conformant process ows. Throughout this series of blogs,
reference is made to the following diagram which is presented in the TMF
recommendation GB921 Business Process Framework:

 Customer Relationship Management (CRM): This horizontal functional process grouping

covers customer requirements and includes the functionalities necessary for the
acquisition, enhancement and retention of a relationship with a customer. It provides for
customer service and support and includes multiple channels such as storefront,
telephone, web or eld service. It is also about cross selling and up selling, retention
management and direct marketing for the purpose of selling to customers.

 CRM also includes the information related to personalising, customising and delivery of a
service to a customer, as well identifying opportunities for increasing the value of the

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customer to the business. CRM applies to retail as well as to wholesale interactions, such as
when an enterprise is selling to another enterprise that is acting as the "retailer".

CRM Support & Readiness processes ensure the support capability is in place to allow the
CRM Ful llment, Assurance and Billing processes to operate e ectively. The responsibilities
of these processes include, but are not limited to:

Provision of sales, product and customer process infrastructure;

Policy support and decision support knowledge for customers and customer
interactions (including billing activities), sales activity and sales interactions, and
product o erings;
Management & analysis of sales campaigns (including direct and outbound calling);
Management and analysis of sales activity and sales opportunities (including funnel
and prospect analysis and support);
Maintaining and managing stocks of marketing collateral to be distributed using the
Marketing Ful llment processes
Maintaining inventories to support the sales, product and customer data required by
the FAB (Ful llment-Assurance-Billing) and CRM OS&R (Operational Support &
Readiness) processes
Monitoring and reporting on the capabilities and costs of the individual CRM FAB
processes
Longer term trend analysis on product, sales and customer FAB processes in order to
establish the extent to which enterprise targets for these processes are being
achieved and/or the need for the processes to be modi ed.

 
Customer Interface Management: eTOM integrates customer interface management for
FAB including the following:

Manage Contact - Manage all contacts/requests between potential or existing

customers and the enterprise.
Manage Request (Including Self Service) - Manage all requests (inbound and
outbound) made by potential and existing customers.
Analyze & Report on Customer - Perform all necessary analysis on closed requests
and on customer contacts and generate related reports.
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Mediate & Orchestrate Customer Interactions - Ensure that transaction message

structure and interactions conform to agreed, externally de ned standards used by
the enterprise and its customers.

 
Selling: manages the selling process including:

Manage Prospect - Match identi ed leads with the most appropriate products and
ensure that these prospects are handled appropriately.
Qualify & Educate Customer - Ensure that the business agreement between the
customer and service provider is based upon mutual understanding.
Negotiate Sales - Close the sale with terms that are mutually agreeable to both the
customer and the service provider.
Acquire Customer Data - Record all pertinent customer data.
Cross/Up Selling - Ensure that the value of the relationship between the customer
and service provider is maximized by selling additional, or more of the existing,
products.

 
Marketing Ful llment Response: it includes functionalities necessary for de ning
strategies, developing new products, managing existing products and implementing
marketing and o ering strategies especially suitable for information and communications
products and services:

Marketing and o er management – manage market and product strategies, pricing,

sales, channels, new product development (and retirement), marketing
communications and promotions.
Issue & Distribute Marketing Collaterals - Issue and distribute marketing collateral
(i.e., coupon, premium, sample, toys, iers, etc.) directly to a customer.
Track Leads - Track leads generated through marketing, or that arise in the course of
business.

Order Handling

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Manage Customer Billing - Ensure e ective management of the customer's billing

account 
Manage Customer Payments - Collect payments made by the customer and reconcile
the payments to the invoices.
Manage Customer Debt Collection - Collect past due payments from the customer.
Report Customer Order Handling - Monitor the status of customer orders, provide
noti cations of any changes and provide management reports.
Track & Manage Customer Order Handling - Ensure customer provisioning activities
are assigned, managed and tracked e ciently to meet the agreed committed
availability date.
Close Customer Order - Close a customer order when the customer provisioning
activities have been completed.
Complete Customer Order - Manage customer information and interactions after
customer contracts or associated service orders have been nalized and during the
order completion phase.

 
Problem Handling

Isolate Customer Problem - Identify the root cause of the customer problem.
Create Customer Problem Report - Create a new customer problem report.
Report Customer Problem - Monitor the status of customer problem reports, provide
noti cations of any changes and provide management reports.
Track & Manage Customer Problem - Ensure that recovery activities are assigned,
coordinated and tracked e ciently, and that escalation is invoked as required for any
open customer problem reports in jeopardy.
Correct & Recover Customer Problem - Restore the service to a normal operational
state as e ciently as possible.
Close Customer Problem Report - Ensure that a problem a ecting the customer is
solved

 
Customer QoS/SLA Management

Access Customer QoS/SLA Performance - Manage the overall assessment of the

customer QoS/SLA performance.

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Create Customer QoS Performance Degradation Report - Create a new customer

QoS performance degradation report.
Manage QoS/SLA Violation - Ensure that the customer and the relevant internal
processes are informed of service quality degradations and violations and that action
is undertaken to resolve the degradation or violation.
Track & Manage Customer QoS Performance Resolution - E ciently assign,
coordinate and track speci c customer purchased product o ering related
performance analysis, restoration and improvement activities, and escalate as
necessary.
Report Customer QoS Performance -Report on the customer's QoS/SLA
performance.
Close Customer QoS Performance Degradation Report when the performance of the
customer purchased product o erings has been resolved.

 
Billing and Collections Management

Apply Pricing, Discounting, Adjustments, & Rebates - Ensure that the bill invoice is
re ective of all the commercially agreed billable events and any bill invoice
adjustments agreed between the Service Provider and the customer.
Create Customer Bill Invoice - Production of a timely and accurate invoice in
accordance with the speci c billing cycles.
Produce & Distribute Bill - Physical production and distribution of bills to customers
in accordance with the speci ed billing cycle.
Create Customer Bill Inquiry Report - Create a new customer bill inquiry report and
provide access to the report as required and as authorised.
Authorize Customer Bill Invoice Adjustment - Adjust the customer's bill invoice based
on detailed assessment and/or policy.
Track & Monitor Customer Bill Inquiry Resolution - E ciently assign, coordinate and
track speci c customer bill inquiry.
Report and Close Customer Bill Inquiry - Report on the customer's bill inquiry and
close once the inquiry/complaint has been satifactorily resolved.

Retention & Loyalty

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Establish & Terminate Customer Relationship - Verify the customer identity, manage
the customer identity across the Enterprise, and manage termination as appropriate.
Build Customer Insight - Ensure that Service Provider and the customer feel
con dent that the relationship is founded on up-to-date, accurate and legally
compliant information.
Analyze & Manage Customer Risk - Ensure that a consistent customer risk
assessment is used across the Enterprise and ensure that risk analysis is based on
information collected from all processes.
Personalize Customer Pro le for Retention & Loyalty - Provide the personalization
opportunities for customers that will encourage them not to switch to another
Service Provider.
Validate Customer Satisfaction - Validate that predicted/expected value is delivered
by the solution and initialize the after-sales processes (billing and assurance).

Next Steps
As we have just learnt, eTOM is a business process framework organized as a hierarchical
process listing or decomposition. It does not contain process ows as such. Trying to
engage with potential clients in process discussions with eTOM, and having no process
ows will be a dead-end discussion.

In the next series of blogs, I will be focusing on some relevant process ows. These are
typically named “X to Y” to re ect the nature of the ow; eg “Lead to Order”, “Quote to
Cash”, etc. TMF have produced an addendum to GB921 (Addendum E) which covers a
number of these process ows. This will be used as the basis for describing a practical
implementation approach for these as well as a number of other pertinent ows.

End of Part I

Topics: eTOM, Telecommunications

About The Author

Greg Carmody

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3 Comments

Livesh Naidoo
8/10/2016, 1:36:46 PM

???

Reply to Livesh Naidoo

⤴

kimleonard
11/23/2016, 12:06:30 PM

Thanks for sharing!

Reply to kimleonard
⤴

Praveen Kumar Kambhampati

10/4/2017, 9:26:19 AM

Nice breakup of the process framework. Thanks for sharing.

Reply to Praveen Kumar Kambhampati

⤴

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