Windstream uses intelligent automation to cut provisioning time by 80%

• Who: Windstream Communications and Blue Planet, a division of Ciena
• What: Used intelligent automation to make its managed SD-WAN services more agile and dynamic
• How: Using TM Forum’s Open Digital Framework, including business process and application frameworks
• Results: Provisioning time and costs dropped 80% and 60%, respectively

Network transformations aren’t simply technology for technology’s sake. The overarching goal is to transform the service provider’s business – a point that’s sometimes easy to overlook amid the buzz about network functions virtualization (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN). Windstream Communications kept its eye on that goal with its software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN) suite, which includes Concierge service model and Cloud Core services. Launched in August 2017, the suite is now part of WE Connect, a self-service portal and mobile app that lets enterprise customers configure and manage SD-WAN and other services, all from a single pane of glass. “WE Connect allows customers to get the most out of their Windstream services,” Layne Levine, Windstream Enterprise & Wholesale president, said at WE Connect’s launch in January 2019. “And it does that by delivering powerful, online, self-service controls in a singular, intuitive interface.”

Streamlined workflows boost customer satisfaction

Working with Ciena’s Blue Planet division, Windstream used intelligent automation to make its managed SD-WAN service more agile and dynamic. The solution operates on a microservices-based, cloud-native platform, with automation across IT and network operations and integrated analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) for network insights and intelligence. The implementation, which is depicted in the graphic below, resulted in a streamlined workflow that yielded several immediate and profound efficiency gains, including:

• Reduction in chair swivels by more than half
• Almost 80% improvement in service provisioning time, which was cut from 90 minutes to 20 minutes
• 70% increase in activations completed on time
• More than 98% reduction in discrete manual inputs needed to provision a service end to end (from 250 to 6), and a related 80% reduction in failed activations due to manual entry errors
• 30% improvement in issue resolution, because agents had fewer complex processes to wade through
• Reduced operating expenses related to SD-WAN services, including a staggering 60% reduction in fulfillment costs due to reducing the number of systems accessed

Leveraging TM Forum’s Open Digital Framework for intelligent automation

To implement intelligent automation, Blue Planet and Windstream leveraged the TM Forum Open Digital Framework, specifically the Business Process Framework (also called eTOM) and Application Framework (also called TAM). The Business Process Framework is a comprehensive, industry-agreed, multi-layered view of the key business processes required to run an efficient, effective and agile digital enterprise, while the Application Framework provides a common language and means of identification for buyers and suppliers across all software application areas.

The graphic shows how the Blue Planet portfolio (indicated by the ‘bp’ icons) maps to the ‘Level 2’ processes defined by the TM Forum Business Process Framework. The framework is grouped into levels that provide increasingly detailed views of telco business processes: For example, Blue Planet accelerates order-to-service practices with automated provisioning across multiple network layers and vendor domains, which maps to service configuration and resource provisioning processes. Additionally, Blue Planet provides end-to-end views and alarms that accelerate trouble-to-resolve procedures and maps to multiple processes within the Retention & Loyalty and Resource Data Collection & Distribution areas.

By using the Business Process Framework and TM Forum Metrics Definitions (a guidebook of metrics for business, customer experience management, security operations and fraud management that is part of the Application Framework), Windstream was able to identify, quantify and report on key aspects of their business transformation efforts in ways that are understandable across all Windstream departments, as well as to their telco and cloud service provider partners. The operations business profile and quantifications are based on Windstream’s SD-WAN service. “Using elements of the Business Process Framework, we identify the metrics related to key functions - such as our order-to-service and trouble-to-resolve processes - and quantify those metrics to create an operations business transformation profile that will take us from our present mode of operations to our future, automated mode of operations,” says Mike Frane, Vice President of Product Management – Network, Security and Digital Experience.

• Level 0 – business activities that distinguish operational, customer-oriented processes from management and strategic processes
• Level 1 – process groupings including business functions and standard end-to-end processes
• Level 2 – core processes that combined deliver service streams and other end-to-end processes
• Level 3 – tasks and associated detailed ‘success model’ business process flows
• Level 4 – steps and associated detailed operational process flows with error conditions and variations for specific products and geographies
• Level 5 – further decomposition into operations and associated operational process flows

“The natural focus of the industry is on the technologies and processes needed for successful transformation,” Frane says. “But it is equally important to quantify the impact of transformation to the service provider’s business, and ultimately our customers, in order to measure and report on success.”