supplier and service management - infonova r6 - … functional overview | infonova r6 supplier and...

R6 Functional Overview | Infonova R6 Supplier and Service Management

Effective Supplier and Service

Management plays a key role in multi-

layered, cross-industry 2.0 business

models. In order for Service 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 Service 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.

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

models

Functional Overview | Infonova R6


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.

Supplier

Service

Provider

Retailer /

Virtual Service

Operator 1

Service

Provider

END-CUSTOMER

Retail Product Offer


Wholesale Product Offer

Retailer /

Virtual Service

Operator 2


Infonova R6


Supplier 2

Services

Virtu

al W

ho

lesa

le

Tra

ditio

na

l W

ho

lesa

le / R

eta

il

Virtu

al R

eta

il

Supplier 1

Services

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 Service Management enables the Service 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 Service 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.


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 end-

customers.

Figure 2: Service Monetization

The wholesale operator creates and manages service providers / suppliers and manages

their service portfolios by defining services and related service events and service features.

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.



feature

feature

Service Provider

VSO

VSP

Service

Feature

Feature

Feature

service

feature

feature

service

feature

feature

service

feature

feature

Product Offer

Configuration

Product Offer

Configuration

Product

Configuration

Wholesale Product

feature

VSO Tariff

VSP Tariff

Tariff


HOW SUPPLIER AND SERVICE MANAGEMENT WORKS

R6 Supplier and Service 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 Service 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 Services and SLAs in Service Management

Integrating service event handlers

Provisioning interface integration in Service and Resource Provisioning

Service 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 Service Resource Provisioning Guide.


Figure 4: Infonova R6 Integration Paths - Service Integration

STEP BY STEP SUPPLIER AND SERVICE INTEGRATION

R6 Supplier and Service 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.

Service 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.


Service Management

Characteristics

Service Specifications

Figure 5: Service Management

Service specifications define a service or resource that can be provisioned from either a B2B

gateway to a 3rd-Party Service Provider (e.g. PSTN line, DSL, mobile handset), an integrated

Service Delivery Platform (e.g. AAA, IPTV), or an integrated Service 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?

Service specification characteristic templates are available for the definition of characteristics

sets. Service 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: Service Specification


Service

A service definition comprises a service specification, service characteristics and supplier.

Figure 7: Supplier and Service - 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.

Service 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.)

Figure 8: Service workflow integration

Service Workflow Assignments are a way to let the workflow engine know which specific

workflow is assigned to specific actions or events in combination with Services. 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.

Supplier and Service Management - Instantiation

Suppliers

Characteristics


Services

Infonova R6

Workflow Engine

Rule EngineTask Management

workflows

…UPGRADENEW TERMINATE


Provisioning Interface Integration and Resource Management Adaptor

Service-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 Service Bus

(ESB), Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), or Web Services (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 Service for synchronous remote calls when the

Infonova BPM runs on a remote instance

Java Messaging Service and Enterprise Service 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.

Figure 9: Resource Management

Infonova R6

Workflow Engine

Rule EngineTask Management

Resource Management Adaptor

EJB JMS WebServiceESBFile


Assigning Fulfillment Workflows to a Service

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 Services

Supplier mediation feeds

Supplier mediation feeds and service events, which are used for the billing of service

consumption data, are defined per supplier.

Figure 12: Mediation events and feeds


Suppliers

Characteristics


Fulfillment workflows

Services


Mediation events and feeds

Suppliers

Characteristics


Fulfillment workflows

Services


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

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 www.infonova.com

supplier and service management - infonova r6 - … functional overview | infonova r6 supplier and...

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