Combining technologies to reduce demand to fulfillment OpEx

The telecom industry is under pressure to constantly and quickly evolve networks to meet customers’ growing expectations. This is challenging for telcos such as Saudi Telecom Company (STC), due to a complex mix of systems and services, including fixed line, broadband and mobile. Furthermore, many products and services are delivered using legacy tools, processes and procedures, and in partnership with a variety of suppliers and partners. This scenario makes it difficult to ensure network infrastructure is deployed in the right place at the right time and to manage the roll-out effectively. Additionally, the lack of digital interfaces with partners’ systems and processes, as well as manual methods for updating databases, reviewing documents, and securing approvals, typically lead to delays in network deployment. This proof of concept Catalyst project explores how business process management software (BPMS), Open APIs and standardized deployment references support digital integration between the champion – STC – and its partners to enable fast, efficient, and effective deployments of infrastructure. To help it achieve these goals, STC’s Catalyst partners are participants Huawei, Nokia, Norconsult Telematics, and Solutions by STC.

Digitalization strategy

Mohammed M. Albadrani is Infrastructure Implementation General Manager at STC, which is championing the proof of concept project, Digital Accelerator for faster network infrastructure deployment, to address some of these issues. He explains that the Catalyst project aligns with the digitalization strategy at STC, and is specifically designed to help the communications service provider (CSP) to improve its operational environment. Deployment of network infrastructure at STC is driven by demand from the CSP’s ‘internal clients’ in the shape of the Marketing, Sales and Financial departments. Deployment means coverage and capacity, which can involve new or upgraded radio sites. The team wanted to reduce time to market which adversely affects Marketing and Sales. Preliminary research indicates that deployment and modernization of wireless networks might take between 68 and 140 days for complete fulfilment (compared to the benchmark of 25 to 35 days by international operators). In addition, delays in recognizing revenue from consumers and other end users makes accurate financial forecasting difficult, while the large number of people involved in the processes from demand to fulfillment results in big OpEx overheads.

Micro-management, paper documents

Some of the issues STC identified regarding the lag between demand and fulfillment include too many approvals and delays in those approvals and reviews, which involve paper documents and manual updates. It is clear that a move is needed from a culture of ‘micro-management’ to an efficient B2B environment with partners. This is what the solution shown in the diagram below was designed to achieve. The Catalyst team stresses that these technologies and approaches need to be applied together for the solution to be effective.

The team used TM Forum’s Open APIs, and referenced the Application Framework (also known as TAM) and the strategy portion of the Business Process Framework (also known as eTOM). It mapped the applications and processes, respectively, from the frameworks to wireless network deployment, from start to finish which acted as a reference throughout.

Regarding the APIs, the team deployed TMF681 – the Communication API, TMF667 – the Document Management API, and TMF701 – the Process Flow Management API. This will be extended to cover process orchestration and contributed back to the Forum’s Open API project. Solutions by STC was responsible for implementing AI machine auditing, Norconsult Telematics deployed the Open APIs for B2B communications. Huawei and Nokia were jointly responsible both for the Digital Accelerator – that is the business process management flow to facilitate B2B interactions – and the technical architecture.

Trust is the key to better B2B

STC is moving from a human checking every document – and the delay that causes – to building B2B trust, and system-based approvals based on Digital Accelerator rules to progress or reject submissions. So-called golden reference documents will be used to check all incoming documentation from partners. The AI auditing will leverage a combination of natural language and optical character recognition for text, and computer vision and convolutional neural network (CNN) for images.

STC’s ultimate aim is to progress to full automation of the processes and applications, with AI auditing for document reviews and approvals or rejections. This would also enable STC to enhance the system of progress tracking and penalties for partners who submit incorrect or wrong data or documents, with non-compliance detection by the AI tools.

The team believes this is the first time that AI, the Digital Accelerator concept and Open APIs have been deployed together to improve basic OpEx. Watch the video of their presentation as part of the Catalyst Digital Showcase.