TMNG Global Provides OSS Infrastructure To An Energy Company's Telecom Subsidiary

Challenge

A startup subsidiary of a major utility company in the western United States planned to enter a highly competitive niche market of telecommunications, offering an array of data and voice services over “last mile” fiber to commercial customers.  The fiber pathways were unique in that they utilized existing power access and egress from buildings instead of traditional telco conduit and de-marks.  TMNG Global was asked to assist the client with the selection of the entire OSS infrastructure, including decisions about OSS architecture (pre-integrated suite or best-in-class, stand-alone applications connected with middle-ware).

TMNG Global Solution

As the client’s OSS architecture preference was undecided, TMNG Global experts developed a series of RFPs utilizing our proprietary Lexicon (TMNG Lexicon™) methodology.  The RFPs were designed to address the functionality needed in Order Management and Provisioning, Customer Relationship Management, Billing/Invoicing, Data Collection and Mediation, and Network Operations (which included trouble and work-force management).  A comprehensive framework, Lexicon addresses thousands of individual functional requirements in the system and vendor evaluation process.  Further, RFPs developed under Lexicon are designed to be architecturally agnostic, calling only for functional compliance and for in-depth descriptions of vendor product architecture.

Vendors were asked to give special attention to past integration experience in their responses and were also required to list other industry applications where successful installations had been effected.   Ultimately, three RFPs were submitted to more than thirty application vendors and five system integrators.

TMNG Global coordinated the administration of non-disclosure agreements with the industry vendors and integrators and authored a document designed to elicit a response from each vendor concerning the RFP (of multiple RFPs) to which they wanted to respond.  Requests for and responses to RFPs were tracked throughout the response period.

System integrator candidates were asked to submit a short resume (maximum two pages) detailing specific experience with industry applications and middle-ware, citing their application preferences and most relevant experience.

TMNG Global first reviewed and scored the proposals, rank ordering each application vendor in one of two categories (stand-alone application provider or integrated suite provider).  The rankings were based upon raw scores of functionality.  Subjective comments, based upon our experience with the various vendor solutions, were included to highlight particular vandor and sysstem strengths or deficiencies.  The system integrator candidates’ responses were evaluated separately from the others and we displayed system integrator responses in a matrix, displaying vendor choices for middle-ware and functional applications.

Benefits to the Client

This client acknowledged the speed of the entire RFP process using our methodology and toolsets and the benefits of our disciplined and unbiased approach to information gathering, scoring, and ranking. In just over three months, we had enabled the client to complete an extremely wide-ranging system and vendor evaluation process. TMNG Lexicon™  allowed the organization of tens of thousands of details into summary reports that clearly and succinctly presented results and allowed the client to easily narrow the potential field of application and integration providers to only the most qualified. 

Thus, our client was able to quickly and decisively chose the top candidates for systems integration and an integrated suite provider.  The top stand-alone applications providers in each functional area were already apparent via the Lexicon rankings. The scores of the candidates and the matrix display of application and middle-ware preference led this client to a final decision to design its OSS using best-in-class applications integrated via middle-ware.