Look before You VoIP: Inventory Management Paves the Way to ...

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By Joe Warnement,CEO. With all the hype surrounding VoIP, one could be lead
to believe that migration to voice transmitted over an IP network is easy.
...

With all the hype surrounding VoIP, one could be lead to believe that migration to voice transmitted over an IP network is easy. In reality, if organizations dont establish full visibility into their existing circuit, equipment and telephone inventory prior to launching a convergence project, things are likely to go a lot less smoothly than planned, take a lot longer and cost a lot more
Unfortunately, few organizations have yet to achieve this. 82 per cent of organizations report that their top challenge is visibility and control of network assets and 74 per cent report that management of inventory runs a close second.

The problems of lack of visibility into inventories start with uncontrolled procurement of telecom services. 59 per cent of respondents to a recent industry analysis poll suggest organizations need to centralize procurement of telecom services to gain more control. Uncontrolled procurement largely results from the fact that enterprises do not have the technology in place to help them manage their order activity and their inventory.Aberdeen (News - Alert) has found that less than one-third of respondents have adopted provisioning software to manage service order activity. 68 per cent of organizations do not have technology in place to manage this on a centralized basis.

Preparing for VoIP
While VoIP will run over any type of network (corporate, private, public, cable and even wireless), a successful VoIP deployment requires detailed network analysis before any transition is started. This should include a complete inventory of the communications resources of the enterprise equipment, circuits and services. Enterprises also need to have a comprehensive listing of their working telephone numbers and billing accounts to control the porting process from local carriers.

This analysis should identify the following:
· Detailed location and information on circuits and services. Enterprises need to track which services and users are associated with the circuits and services and who is responsible for them. This enables network managers to quickly assess the impact of disconnecting a service. In addition, it helps to ensure that the right services get to the right people when planning new deployments.
· Complete technical details of every circuit and service in the organization. Technical information provides the data needed to determine if the converged network will be able to meet the same level of service as the existing network.
· Full information about equipment termination. In order to effectively baseline capacity, it is important to know if there are enough circuits to handle bandwidth requirements and if the equipment has enough capacity to handle the bandwidth. Equipment inventories also help with planning the service calls to install, move and disconnect the circuits.
· A comprehensive listing of working telephone numbers and billing numbers. Enterprises need this information to efficiently manage the porting process from incumbent local exchange providers.

Network Transitions Dont Have to be Expensive
Porting the existing phone service with ILECs to VoIP service is a complex process, regardless of whether it involves installing new services and disconnecting existing services with the same incumbents or disconnecting existing services, and establishing new services with new providers.

Enterprises must establish robust technology to manage the Move Add Change Disconnect (MACD) activity for the network changes. Throughout the transition process, organizations need to track complex timelines to assure accurate reconciliation of their MACD activity with their billing records. Often, there are disjointed dates for when a MACD service order is requested, when it is implemented, and when it appears on a bill or is removed from a bill. If there is a two-month delay for the services to be disconnected and another four-month delay before items are removed from the billing, the organization needs to maintain complex record keeping to properly accrue credits. There will almost always be services that are not removed from billing, as requested, and enterprises may be due credits.

Without software automation to manage and track the entire process, accurate reconciliation of inventory for a large network is nearly impossible. These network transitions do not have to be expensive. In fact, Aberdeen has found that the operational savings for service order technology alone can range from 10.4 per cent one per cent of the telecom spend, depending on the amount of MACD activity and mix of services being managed. Additional savings can be captured through using inventory records to optimize the network.

Regardless of the reason for implementing new network services or applications, effective management of inventories of assets and centralized procurement of telecom services can minimize the errors and costs associated with network change. These transitions are traumatic enough for IT executives without the added pain of irreconcilable activity and billing. Automation is a powerful solution to balance activity, billing, and costs.

Service Order Management Landscape
When evaluating suppliers to help automate service order management, enterprises should seek solutions that offer:
· Comprehensive templates and listings of orderable circuits and services. Circuit and service-specific templates should list all of the technical information required by vendors to accurately fulfill the requests. This reduces time to place orders and avoids rework from incorrect orders. It also captures the information that is required for management and network planning.
· Configurable internal workflow processes. Effective service order management solutions allow for configuration of the internal approval workflow, procedures to drive compliance to policies, purchasing from preferred suppliers and tracking of the ordering process.
· Tight integration with carriers. The software should help track all the critical milestones to manage order confirmations, installation and service commitment dates, and actual fulfillment dates. Integration with carriers streamlines the steps in managing internal and external SLAs.

Enterprises that are considering converged service initiatives need to establish clear visibility into their total telecom assets. Research suggests that this starts with the implementation of centralized automated service activation solutions to ensure tight controls are maintained on all circuits being managed.

Technology can help to ensure communications services are procured properly. In addition, enterprises can access automated tools to manage their inventories much more effectively.

While a convergence project may serve as the catalyst, enterprises can also achieve real operational savings and benefits from proactively deploying these solutions to manage their communication assets more effectively. An inventory system that provides a holistic view of all wireline and wireless assets with real-time updates from service order activity and MACD activity is critical to manage costs, gain operational efficiency and achieve IT governance imperatives.

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Digital Fairway Corporation is a leading communications management software company that helps enterprises and communications service providers simplify the management of their communications infrastructures.

ProvergentTM is a web-based software solution, developed to help enterprises better view, understand and manage their voice, video and data communications infrastructures. It provides a set of easy-to-use management tools that help substantially reduce the runaway telecommunications costs associated with both traditional and converged voice and data communications services.

ProvergentOSSTM is Digital Fairways web-based order-to-activation service fulfillment solution for communications service providers. It facilitates end-to-end process automation for fast, efficient and accurate provisioning of all telecom services.

Digital Fairways customers and partners include a growing list of some of the world's largest enterprises and most successful service providers.

Founded in 1999, Digital Fairway is a privately-held corporation, with Canadian headquarters in Toronto, Ontario and U.S. headquarters in San Francisco, California. For additional information, please visit www.digitalfairway.com.
Voice over IP (VoIP)
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A real-time communications system that converts voice into digital packets containing media and signaling data that travel over networks using Internet Protocol....more