Business support systems and operations support systems, also known as telecom OSS, refer to information technology processes used to accomplish telecommunications service. The former refers to those portions of this business which deal with customers while the latter deals with the network itself. To try and keep up with the ever changing telecommunications environment, one must analyze and manage these systems to provide the demands of an impatient and creative consumer base.
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.
The two sides are equally important to the conduct of a successfully implemented telecom OSS, yet companies often have difficulty balancing the focus given to the two, with the predominant focus leaning to the customer side, as that is the revenue generating source. But for the company to sustain itself, a balanced approach must be maintained or the risk of falling behind will become reality.
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 a number of successful campaigns that made the hard work of laying cable and checking reception very popular. These have usually used clever or humorous simplifications of actual hard work and manpower required to keep the idea that spending money on the actual product is good for the consumer. The trick is to keep the focus on the customer by using the development of new technologies, the expansion of physical parts of the system and the computer technology to control it as a means to show how much service is being provided.
In this complicated industry, management must essentially run two businesses at the same time. They have to keep the hardware working, expanding and changing, while at the same time managing the service provision side of business. Computers are obviously critical to this field and they have been using them for nearly half a century. But now, first level computers are not enough.
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 future of telecommunications and the determining factor of who will succeed and who will become footnotes in the evolution of communication depend on data mining and accurate decisions. Consumer data alone is an overwhelming cache of information to accurately parse, and adding the relentless innovation and information system updates to the database makes it nearly impossible for human control. The enlightened players are focusing on telecom OSS to keep their seat at the table.
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