Cloud services, such as cloud computing, storage and applications, represent a significant evolution in the application of IT for business effectiveness. While market hype and growth in cloud services is at an all time high, the development of a commercial market of buyers and sellers of such services is just ramping up.
Already the market is becoming littered with a confusing array of technical features, names, terms, and proprietary approaches. While the market holds great promise, it won’t grow if real customer’s needs are not addressed, or if services don’t deliver the quality, value and security that they promise.
TM Forum’s Cloud & New Services Initiative's aim is to take this nascent market beyond the hype. By bringing together cloud users, technology suppliers and cloud service providers to better understand user needs and remove barriers to growth and success. The program is helping the industry overcome barriers to adoption and assisting in the growth of a vibrant commercial marketplace for cloud-based services.
By their very nature, cloud services exist in value chains (multiple parties involved in the creation, delivery and monetization) and unless there are some simple commons standards for the hand-off points for basic management functions like orders, contracts, problem resolution, payments and settlements, the cost of operations will be crippling. Imagine the impact on customer service and operations costs if every cloud implementation had custom interfaces and information at every border between value chain partners or required manual intervention.
To achieve the vision for scalable cloud services, the entire value chain can benefit from utilizing TM Forum's Frameworx as a standardized operational framework for the creation, delivery and monetization of digital services.
Removing barriers to turn concepts into commerce
There are many business and technological roadblocks that stand in the way of innovation and widespread adoption of cloud capabilities. Unless these barriers can be removed, and economic and operational cost pressures addressed, cloud services will never realize their commercial potential. This is where the TM Forum comes in.
The Forum has a proven track record of leading the communications and IT industries through market challenges and helping the market create, deliver & monetize new business opportunities.
We do this by providing an effective ecosystem that enables our members to identify, understand and address these challenges, enabling competitive advantage built on sustainable ground rules.
TM Forum’s Cloud Services Initiative brings together the elements
necessary for realizing a successful cloud services market:
- The Enterprise Cloud Leadership Council—containing some of the world’s largest enterprise companies, dedicated to developing joint business and technical requirements and communicating them to cloud service providers and technology suppliers.
- Foster an effective and efficient marketplace for cloud computing infrastructure and services across all global geographies
- Reduce the risk involved in the adoption of Cloud services
- Accelerate standardization of Cloud services
- Share industry-specific, validated commodity stacks and processes
- Share knowledge and reference information about what works
- Business guidance including benchmarks and service quality metrics
- Technical best practices and agreements developed in collaboration with other industry groups.
Creating an ecosystem for success
TM Forum’s Cloud & New Services Initiative is establishing a healthy and vibrant ecosystem composed of buyers and sellers of all types. This creates a virtuous circle by encouraging dialog and open exchange of ideas that enable requirements and solutions to be presented discussed, understood and implemented.
Enterprise Customers (Enterprise Cloud Leadership Council)– Defining enterprise IT needs for realizing greater efficiency and clarity in purchasing cloud services. Focus areas include security, service definitions (taxonomy), vendor lock-in, metrics, service levels and addressing the unique needs of key industry verticals including Financial Services, Pharmaceutical, Energy, Automotive, Aerospace, Media and Entertainment, Government and Defense, as well as the common needs of large IT organizations horizontally across industries.
Cloud Technology Suppliers – Advancing functionality and removing cost out of today’s business and software solutions through best practices, benchmarks, processes, applications, information, common interfaces, and other management technologies related to cloud computing and communications products, services, and resources.
Cloud Service Providers – Identifying top supplier and integration priorities in product development and operational management for Infrastructure and Software cloud services (IaaS & SaaS). Operations scope focuses on fulfillment, assurance, revenue management, and customer self-service processes needed by Service Providers as they establish and grow a cloud services business to service downstream customers.
Industry Standards Groups -- Working with other key industry bodies on the development and adoption of cloud technologies and standards. This is imperative if we are to create quickly an open and vibrant marketplace for cloud services. Standards organizations need to ensure they work collaboratively and do not work on solving the same problems; synergy across working groups will remove risk and fast forward the creation of standards and best practices.
How to Get Involved
Existing TM Forum corporate members are welcome to join the program and take an active role by contacting
Aileen Smith at asmith@tmforum.org.
If your company is not currently a member, please contact Apostolos Kallis, SVP, Account Management & Sales at
akallis@tmforum.org. The Cloud Services Initiative is just one of many benefits openly available to TM Forum
members. Learn more at www.tmforum.org/membership.
