A pair of approaches to managing the immense data in telecommunication is known as BSS/OSS, acronyms for business support system and operations support systems. For clarity, the business systems are all the processes which deal with the consumer, the people portion. The operations system deals with all the process that deliver the actual service, the hardware portion.
There are few places on earth that are not part of a global communications system we refer to as telecommunications. There are cables on the ocean floor stretched between continents, satellites in space, and towers traverse the wilderness and are mainstays in our cities, usually along our transportation infrastructure. Most of us take this service for granted, giving little thought to the complexity of managing a service that is global and personal.
It is important that they pay attention to both elements, as do most businesses, but in the telecommunications field, both customers and capabilities continue to evolve at an incredible speed. Consumers demand faster and more diverse applications to run their devices, which have evolved to the point that resemble computers more than phones. To comply with these increasing demands, the telecom billing system that supports the service has to keep up.
It comes as no surprise that the industry focuses so intensely on their customers, because they have a serious tendency to change providers for even small difficulties. The number of providers is steadily increasing as technology is mined for ever greater options such as voice over internet protocol. Companies have to invest in new transmission methodologies, equipment and transmission towers to stay ahead of the competition.
There have been some successful providers who have made quite a presentation of technical hardware infrastructure development while focusing on all the service this hardware creates. This allows a public focus on both company practices working well while having one bolster the other. This is an ingenious way to have the moneys spent bolstering the consumer process side which the consumer usually ignores.
Dealing with the overwhelming mass of information and attempting to determine what it is the consumer really wants is a Herculean task. Considering the telecommunications consumer population diversity and the extreme penetration each provider is attempting to attain, it is important to evaluate data in multiple levels. Having a dual path system that tracks, analyzes and selectively reports data to management allows maximum flexibility.
What is needed to remain capable and efficient is an overarching system that can control the others. While this may conjure up images of artificial intelligence run amok, in the same light as the computer on board the space ship in the famous movie, there are many examples of computers running computers. The concept of business intelligence, a new managerial approach to business, relies heavily on programs which automatically direct multiple systems to derive data in specific actionable ways.
The success of providers in the telecommunication industry will be selected by their ability to flexibly respond to consumer desires. This requires them to stay abreast of information technology industry progress and innovation in general, as well as predicting applications to the telecommunication customer devices. They also need to be exceedingly aware of the desires of the consumer on everything from colors, shapes and styles to capabilities. It will require a dedication to a robust telecom billing software process to succeed.
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