A manual start

When tackling a complex task for the first time, people learn by doing – with their hands. So, tackling this manually at first may make sense, but this is not sustainable.  As the order-to-cash process complexity grows the manual approach becomes onerous.  For instance, tracking who owns a particular Ethernet service order among the various organizations involved becomes harder when there are more moving parts to handle.  As new technologies are introduced, understanding how network equipment is being used means staff has to look at live network elements, element by element, to determine which one to use for an order. In some cases, staff may have to be dispatched to the field to figure out what is really going on and to look for stranded assets. Activating services gets more delicate as a growing set of virtual resources need to be manually coordinated and configured across many different systems. The end result is an order-to-cash process that may take weeks and even months to complete.

Automation comes to mind, but how do you go about it? How do you know when you are ready?

Automate when conditions are right

Automation for automation’s sake may not guarantee success.  The effectiveness depends on what you automate. If you automate in a suboptimal way, along with inaccurate data, then automation tends to suffer from excessive fallout and other disruptions – thus impacting your ability to offer service level agreements. Not to mention that you are perpetuating a suboptimal customer experience for which little human supervision is provided. You need the right operational environment. 

When doing things manually, current operational environments are not structured enough to capture and operationalize what people are learning. When someone figures out the best way of designing and allocating virtual connections of an Ethernet LAN service, for instance, there is no mechanism in place to translate this knowledge into a best practice and to use that best practice to automate the corresponding process accordingly. The end result: a never ending manual mode of operations that continuously relies upon a few experts.

So, what is the first step?  Achieving consistency – in the data and the processes.

Achieve consistency through best practices

System consolidation plays a key role in achieving consistent data – meaning accurate data. For instance, you need to reduce the number of inventory systems into a standardized platform that relies either upon centralized or federated data.  System consolidation also eliminates redundant processes although not necessarily improves its quality.  For that you need best practices. 

But how to do you capture best practices and use them to drive automation? For that you need a more structured method of operation that revolves around a centralized catalog complemented with a mechanized framework that handles the design and assignment of service and network resources. The catalog uses best practices to make service recommendations during order negotiation and to orchestrate and drive the automated processing provided by the framework. Reliable automation, in the order of 90% or higher, is then achieved by combining best practices with accurate data. This creates a consistent, optimal experience.

Prepare for change

Once automated, are you done? No. Change is always lurking somewhere – either in your operations (best practices change over time due to new LAN technologies) or in the market place (evolving enterprise business objectives demand new services.)  So, you need to keep moving to the next set of new procedural challenges.  As those are figured out, new best practices emerge, thus leading to further opportunities for automation.  And while doing this, you need to keep revising what you have automated to let existing best practices stay relevant over time. A flexible platform, based upon a dynamic catalog, is critical for achieving this.

A case in point

An international communications service provider wanted faster response to changing enterprise customer needs.  Work began by capturing and using best practices to automate the provisioning of its fiber facilities. The solution involved the consolidation of various systems onto an integrated inventory system that included automated provisioning functions. The consolidation resulted in a lower total cost of ownership. It also improved data accuracy. This, combined with the use of best practices, resulted in substantial annual OPEX savings with much lower error rates and improved service assurance processes. 

 Take it to the next level

By having a more structured and disciplined approach – one that removes the current lack of consistency, centralizes knowledge and provides a mechanized framework – you can reliably automate the best way of provisioning enterprise services while using the most accurate data.  Achieving this is not easy – it requires determination and focus. So, you may not be able to get rid of the sweat. But at least you may be able to avoid the tears.