Ahead of regulatory changes in Australia, Vodafone has implemented a process management system from Staffware, which enabled the operator to automate the process of transferring existing telephone numbers from its network to another provider.
New regulations in Australia make it necessary for operators to allow mobile phone customers to transfer existing telephone numbers from one carrier to another. Vodafone selected Staffware, market leader in the business process management (BPM) industry to provide it with an enterprise solution.
According to Mark Ehmke, Staffware SA`s managing director, this project demonstrates Staffware`s experience in implementing process management systems for telecommunications clients.
"The local market will benefit from this expertise when mobile number portability (MNP) is required, and Staffware is geared to handle the transition smoothly," he says.
Vodafone required a system that would deal effectively with MNP, as well as provide customer self-service, carry out customer order and fulfilment processing as well as office automation.
According to Vodafone`s program manager, Kathy Condos: "We are aware such regulatory changes often place pressure on existing systems. However, with the Staffware system, we were well-placed to achieve even higher levels of customer satisfaction. In addition, we found streamlining our business processes created greater levels of efficiency.
"The speed at which the Staffware product was deployed, coupled with its ability to process high-volume transactions quickly and its user-friendly interface, made it the ideal choice for us. We were confident the solution`s proven scalability and capability to do the job, coupled with the broad experience of the Staffware team, would ensure a successful partnership for both companies."
With Staffware`s involvement, the successful port of a number to or from Vodafone, or between two third-party carriers was completely automated, from the time the port was initiated by the customer or gaining carrier, to where the number is connected on the new network and the industry notified to update essential routing information.
Staffware`s process management solution constituted business process control, which monitored and directed the operations of the other applications comprising the mobile number porting processes.
"A port is the transfer of a mobile number from one carrier to another, involving the updates of provisioning and billing systems to disconnect the number from the original carrier and to connect the number to the new carrier without the customer experiencing a loss of service," explains Ehmke.
"It also involves the updates of network routing information of all carriers to ensure any calls to that number can be routed to the correct carrier regardless of the source of the call."
Other processes automated by Staffware as part of MNP included several secondary processes, such as the return of a number to the original owner of a number once a customer requests the disconnection of a number that has been ported away from its original owner; the management of the quarantine process for the period after a ported number has been disconnected and the follow-up process if a port request has been rejected by another carrier.
"Staffware`s role in Vodafone`s MNP solution included integration with new and legacy systems via middleware, controlling the porting processes in a coherent manner, tracking and reporting on the progress of a port, providing management reporting information, monitoring Vodafone`s system performance against industry code standards, handling escalation processes and facilitating corrective actions, meeting requisite system performance standards, and scaling to meet increased porting volumes when required.
"We chose Staffware because we were aware Staffware was active with other telecommunication providers. We also had prior knowledge of Staffware`s expertise in the telecommunications environment," says Condos.
Staffware has extensive experience in implementing process management systems for telecommunications clients, such as British Telecom, the Dutch telecommunications giant KPN, Telefonica in Spain, Ericsson in the UK and Scandinavia, and RSL Com and VIAG Interkom in Germany.
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