The enhanced Telecom Operations Map® is an ongoing TM Forum initiative to deliver a. business process model or framework for use by service providers and others within the telecommunications industry. The TM Forum enhanced Telecom Operations Map® (or eTOM for short) describes all the enterprise processes required by a service provider and analyzes them to different levels of detail according to their significance and priority for the business. For such companies, it serves as the blueprint for process direction and provides a neutral reference point for internal process reengineering needs, partnerships, alliances, and general working agreements with other providers. For suppliers, eTOM® outlines potential boundaries of software components to align with the customers' needs and highlights the required functions, inputs, and outputs that must be supported by products.
A particular strength of eTOM® as a business process framework is that it is part of the TM Forum NGOSS (New Generation Operations Systems and Software) program and links with other work underway in NGOSS.
The eTOM team is responsible for capturing and representing business requirements in the form of business process models, and for developing and publishing these in the eTOM® documentation. The eTOM® has significantly augmented the original TOM, and is replacing this as the de facto standard for representing an enterprise-wide view of service provider business processes for the industry.
The eTOM® has built on TOM as a base, and has expanded this to be a total enterprise business process model, which supports a service provider’s e-business enterprise and provides systematic process decompositions, flows and descriptions. These process descriptions, including high-level definition of information requirements, are a key link to the systems context work of NGOSS.
eTOM Buiness Framework Project Charter
The eTOM Business Process Framework serves as the blueprint for process direction and the starting point for development and integration of Business and Operations Support Systems (BSS and OSS respectively) and helps to drive TM Forum members work to develop NGOSS solutions. For service providers, it provides a neutral reference point as they consider internal process reengineering needs, partnerships, alliances, and general working agreements with other providers. For suppliers, the eTOM Framework outlines potential boundaries of software components, and the required functions, inputs, and outputs that must be supported by products.
This document is the Project Charter for the next phase of the eTOM work, aimed at developing updated and extended content for a new release of the eTOM GB921 Model and other artifacts, and also consolidating member-originated changes.
The eTOM Team has responsibility for delivering and maintaining the eTOM Business Process Framework. The eTOM Framework provides guidance on the specification and organization of business needs through process modeling. The Team has a role as a clearinghouse/ steering/ mentoring group for the business view, and liaises with other activities in the TM Forum NGOSS program concerning this. It also works with the TM Forum Change Control Board (CCB) to progress contributed Change Requests that affect eTOM.
This Team has overall responsibility for defining and developing business processes used by a Service Provider enterprise, through decompositions, hierarchies and flows. However, these and other business view artifacts will also be developed by other Teams, in liaison with the eTOM Team, and possibly through liaison with organizations outside the TM Forum. The CCB provides the co-ordination for bringing all this work together through the change control process.
It is also expected that the eTOM provides an enduring view of business processes for the telecommunications industry, and that it continues to provide a useful model as change arises in the industry. However, it is recognized that eTOM may need adaptation and modification to remain relevant and useful as time passes and new requirements are identified.
As eTOM is now well-established in the industry, increasingly the emphasis of the work of the eTOM team is evolving from framework definition to address aspects of eTOM application. The eTOM work is therefore a continuing activity and this document generally describes the project in these terms. However, the specifics of the deliverables are focused on the current phase of the work.
Participating Companies: Accenture, Acterna, Amdocs Ltd., BT Exact Technologies, Cap Gemini Ernest & Young, Casewise, CH2M Hill Communications Group, Cisco Systems, CITR PTY Ltd., Clarity International, Comnitel Technologies, Deutsche Telekom AG, Dutchtone, Ericsson, France Telecom, Fraunhofer Fokus, Fujitsu, Fundação CPqD, IBM Corporation, IGS Inc., Lucent Technologies, Marconi plc, Metasolv Software Inc., NEC Corporation, NTT Group, Popkin Software & Systems Inc., Qinetiq, SBC Communications, Siebel Systems, Sodalia SpA, Sonera Corporation, Sprint, Telcordia Technologies, Telecom Italia Group, Telefonica Movies Espana, Telia, Telstra Corporation, US Interactive, Vodafone Group, Worldcom Inc.