Leading Telecommunications Outsourcer Reduces New Customer Time-to-Profitability with Visionael NRM

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Outsourced services can be a highly lucrative business for telecommunications providers— if managed properly. Despite a highly regarded brand and a large base of enterprise customers, this leading Telecommunications Outsourcer’s management processes were largely manual, creating inefficiencies that directly reduced its bottom line. It offered a range of services—including basic network equipment maintenance, LAN/WAN maintenance, Frame Relay network management, converged network management and PBX outsourcing solutions—all of which were initially managed by inefficient manual processes.

“Before Visionael® NRM we used a series of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets for customer device, contact, address and contract information,” says the Telecommunications Outsourcer’s Director of Network Management. “Some of this data was available on an internal Web page. It was very cumbersome and time-consuming to look up information in this manner, and it also made change management more difficult and time-consuming. There was no integration between our management platform and our ticketing system and the spreadsheets. Information for a new customer had to be entered into each system manually.”

Visionael NRM reduces management overhead, boosting profitability
After deploying Visionael Network Resource Manager (NRM) in 2002, the Outsourcer currently manages more than 70 large enterprise customers in the Visionael system. NRM plays and integral role throughout the customer lifecycle; it is the starting point for implementing every new customer, working off data (customer name, IP address, etc.) the Telecommunications Outsourcer has assembled in a macro-enhanced Excel file called the Master XLS.

The auto discovery, data collection and reconciliation capabilities of Visionael NRM are then called upon to bring detailed physical network data into the system and associate it with the customer data from the Master XLS. Included in the process are scripts developed by the Outsourcer that make calls to the Visionael Exception Manager, giving users the ability to do manual or automated reconciliation of discovered devices.

The Telecommunications Outsourcer additionally relies on Visional NRM for circuit management. System users commonly keep the Visionael system’s Studio design environment open, viewing circuit records and their properties. All together, these NRM capabilities have virtually eliminated the tedious manual processes the Telecommunications Outsourcer previously used, greatly speeding time-to-profitability with each enterprise customer.

Fully integrated into the management environment
The Outsourcer has made Visionael NRM the foundation of its network management infrastructure. Every day scripts run from all polling domains, extracting information for their domain devices from Visionael NRM. Any network or device changes resulting from this polling are propagated into NerveCenter and Netcool/Omnibus. These logical fault managers continue to poll customer devices throughout the day. Every night, the Outsourcer also backs up its customers’ router configurations using device information (IP Address, SNMP Community String, etc.) derived from Visionael NRM.

Visionael NRM also speeds the population of trouble tickets, decreasing time-to-resolution when network issues occur. Every two hours, the Informatica application extracts real-time information such as circuit layout records and contacts from Visionael NRM and uses it to pre-populate a trouble ticket in the BMC Remedy ARS database. Netcool can launch a BMC Remedy trouble ticket without pulling data from NRM. In some cases more information will be needed—such as when multiple interfaces are involved—and to expedite the process, the Outsourcer has inserted a “Pull Visionael NRM” graphical button in ARS that will populate the ticket with complete device information from the NRM database.

Visionael NRM speeds time-to-profitability
When bringing new customers online with outsourced services, every day spent on administrative preparation reduces the account’s profitability. Visionael NRM has dramatically reduced the Telecommunications Outsourcer’s ramp-up with new accounts, allowing revenues to be captured more quickly. Its Director of Network Management says, “The biggest benefit is the speed with which we can bring a new customer on board. Whereas before Visionael NRM it could take a week, now we can do it in a day or two. Another benefit is that changes need only be made in a single place; NRM pushes the information out to all the appropriate applications.”

Industry/market:
Telecommunications Outsourcing

The Network Environment:
A range of services—including basic network equipment maintenance, LAN/WAN maintenance, Frame Relay network management, converged network management and PBX outsourcing solutions—provided to more than 70 enterprise customers.

The Challenge:
To reduce the amount of time spent on ramping up new customers, thereby speeding time-to-revenue.

The Solution:
NRM plays an integral role throughout the customer lifecycle. It is the starting point for implementing every new customer. Then the auto discovery, data collection and reconciliation capabilities of Visionael NRM are called upon to bring detailed physical network data into the system and associate it with customer data. The Telecommunications Outsourcer additionally relies on Visional NRM for circuit management.

The Benefits:
Visionael NRM has virtually eliminated the tedious manual processes the Telecommunications Outsourcer previously used, greatly speeding time-to-profitability with each enterprise customer.

Epilogue:
Visionael NRM has allowed revenues to be captured more quickly. The Telecommunications Provider’s Director of Network Management says, “The biggest benefit is the speed with which we can bring a new customer on board. Whereas before
Visionael NRM it could take a week, now we can do it in a day or two. Another benefit is that changes need only be made in a single place; NRM pushes the information out to all the appropriate applications.”

Customer Profile:
This leading Telecommunications Outsourcer enjoys a highly regarded brand and has a large base of more than 70 enterprise customers nationwide.

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