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Catalyst Program

About the Program

Catalyst Program

A Catalyst begins with one or more end users (service providers, MSO, defense agencies, enterprise IT departments) defining their requirements. Multi-company, multi-national teams then work together using leading edge IT concepts coupled with TM Forum best practices and standards to solve the service providers’ challenges – generally some of the most pressing operational and interoperability issues they are facing.

Catalyst projects typically run 3-6 months in duration, enabling service providers to have possible solutions to their requirements in a much shorter time than a standard RFx or lab testing process. Suppliers benefit by learning service provider requirements in detail, by forming vendor partnerships, and by proving out their products and solutions in new environments.

Rather than discussing hypothetical situations, the TM Forum’s Catalyst Program is all about taking real-world business problems and coming up with viable solutions to address them.

Solutions built by Catalyst projects utilize existing standards from TM Forum or they may explore the creation of a new standard if nothing suitable is available. Findings from Catalyst projects are fed back into the TM Forum Collaboration Program as extensions to existing best practices and standards or as the groundwork to launch new collaborative projects, so that the results benefit the entire TM Forum membership.