Ask the Expert: Adapting the Business Process Framework for a digital world

This is the first in a news series of Q&As with TM Forum’s technical experts that takes a deep dive into the nitty-gritty details of processes, operations and best practices. I spoke with Alfred Anaya-Dubernard, the Forum’s Director of Frameworx Conformance and Digital Maturity Services, who explains recent proposed changes by Huawei to Level 2 (L2) processes in the TM Forum Business Process Framework. As CSPs evolve to digital operating models, they need to ensure frequent and sometimes continuous alignment between elements of the Business Process Framework (often referred to as eTOM) so that they can quickly respond to changing market conditions and ultimately grow revenue. TM Forum member, Huawei, is currently driving the work in this area. As a refresher, the Business Process Framework is a comprehensive, industry-agreed description of the key business processes required to run an efficient, effective and agile digital enterprise. These processes cover the whole lifecycle of a service-focused company, from conceptualizing a service to ordering, billing, customer care and assurance, and retention. The framework delivers a hierarchical catalog of the key processes, focusing on strategy, operations and management. In the Business Process Framework, core processes are everywhere and represent a level of process hierarchy or granularity. They are also reflective of the business operating model of an enterprise and reveal the industry to which the enterprise belongs.

What business issues do the proposed changes to L2 processes address?

In many ways the proposed process is “catching up” and making explicit in the Business Process Framework what digital natives already embrace as an operating principle: frequent and sometimes continuous alignment between elements, be they in the same domain or different domains – for example, Uber adjusting price on a continuous basis to balance out demand and supply. Such dynamic orchestration is typically enabled by digital operating models and would not have been possible before. The frequent alignment contrasts with practices often seen in non-digital native CSPs where alignment and coordination typically focus around the annual operating plan. After aligning at the beginning of the year, non-digital native CSPs often find domains quickly falling out of alignment with each other, i.e. domains start working in their own silos until the next annual operating plan. In fact, it may also be the case that elements within a single domain fall out of alignment with each other. What is this impact of this “fall out”? It’s twofold. First, the non-digital native CSP finds it difficult to adapt to market changes mid-year. Second, plans are executed in a sub-optimal way because of alignment drift. For example, the sales domain fires up a new campaign, but network resource is not ready. Despite its drawbacks the annual-centric alignment model of non-digital native CSPs worked well up to the advent of digital native competitors. Their improved agility has highlighted opportunities for non-digital native CSPs to improve. The proposed new process supports them in this endeavor. What is the difference between the proposed new process and Capacity Management which already exists in the Business Process Framework? The proposed new process complements Capacity Management; it is not intended to substitute. The Capacity Management process focuses on management of capacity. Domain Orchestration, on the other hand, focuses on coordination and alignment of elements, be they domains or components within a domain. An example might be journeys for customer onboarding where ID, facial photo including ID, a facial recognition app, address, credit checking, service and resource availability need to be in positive alignment for provisioning to proceed. Could the Capacity Management process also make use of the Domain Orchestration process? Yes, a Business Process Framework practitioner might want to use the two in combination. For example, when the Marketing/Sales domain is launching a sales campaign in a particular locality and needs the Resource domain to ramp up network capacity to accommodate greater volumes. Do existing processes cover alignment? Yes and no. First, it could be argued that some existing processes implicitly include coordination and alignment, an example being “1.7.1.2.5 - Facilitate Negotiation & Implementation of Potential Mergers & Acquisitions” where planned integration synergies could be difficult to execute without cross-domain and intra-domain alignment. Second, other processes go further and refer to stakeholders. These could be references to stakeholders within the same domain, or could, where stakeholders are in multiple domains, be references to a cross-domain. An example is process ID 1.1.3.4 concerning sales forecasting where the sales forecast is provided to all areas that need to know. Third, some processes explicitly mention cross-enterprise coordination, e.g. 1.5.2.1 Map & Analyze Resource Requirements. However, in a world where competitors are increasingly digitalized and agile, orchestration (both inter- and intra-domain) becomes an essential, not a nice-to-have. Alignment and coordination have become too mission-critical to be left to implicit references. It needs to be explicit, embedded in the Business Process Framework. Given that, is it necessary to have an explicit orchestration process? While it was not necessary a few years back, the advent of digital-native competitors has now made it necessary. Inter- and intra-domain agile working is quickly becoming the default, not an opt-in. Equally, one might contend that all the proposed new process does is elevate or promote alignment-related remarks present in existing extended descriptions to a common process. Either way, the case for the new proposed process could be said to be validated. When might this proposed new process be triggered? The process may be invoked any time there is a requirement to proactively align between elements in one or more domains. It does not matter which domains or elements as the process is neutral from this perspective. It can be used on both an inter- and intra-domain basis. What are the benefits to the CSP? These new processes can enable domains and elements within them to be aligned as and when necessary to support evolving goals. They also enable parallel working, which reduces reducing customer journey time, improves agility, breaks the silos and stops the “throw over the wall” mentality. Finally, these changes allow CSPs to quickly respond to changing market conditions. Can you give me any case study examples? Sure. Huawei is working on two case studies. The first is centered on Capacity Management processes with Maxis in Malaysia. Here the overall focus is on leveraging AI, advanced analytics and automation to improve efficiency and accuracy of network planning process to ultimately lead to shorten time-to-market and improve customer experience. The second case study with XL Axiata in Indonesia uses AI, advanced analytics and automation to improve the efficiency of the retailer’s performance improvement by aligning network performance, marketing and sales performance. To learn more about how you can get involved in TM Forum’s Collaboration Community, please contact Andy Tiller.