TM Forum, the world’s premier industry group focused on business effectiveness for the communications and media sectors, revealed recently the ground-breaking business transformation solutions that will be demonstrated in the exclusive Forumville innovation zone at the Forum’s flagship Management World conference (4-8 May 2009, Nice, France).

Business Transformation is one of six key strategies to combat the economic downturn and prepare the industry for the future. In a world where communications service providers face the continual challenge of maintaining profitability for increasingly competitive and diverse services, TM Forum is leading the way in improving business effectiveness. Through leadership and collaboration, the Forum is delivering the standards and best practices that underpin automation, reduce OpEx and customer churn, and allow service providers to adapt to new business models.

According to Martin Creaner, President and COO, TM Forum, “Forumville brings together leading industry experts in a series of live Technology Catalyst and Content Encounter demos, providing examples of the innovation and rapid solution development only possible through collaboration. Together with business and technical presentations focused on implementation of TM Forum standards, Forumville will offer conference delegates a one-stop-shop for essential transformation tools.”

Business Transformation — Tuning Business for the Road Ahead
The Business Transformation innovation area looks at the big picture of how the TM Forum best practices, business programs, and executive communities can help businesses become more efficient, automated, agile, and customer-centric. Visitors will see how TM Forum Solution Frameworks have already helped hundreds of companies around the world save millions of dollars by shortening return on development investment, getting new services to market faster and driving down operational costs through a multitude of business process and IT transformation projects.

One of the highlights of the Business Transformation zone is TM Forum’s Business Benchmarking Program, which boasts more than 100 service provider participants. The program allows service providers to assess metrics, ranging from operations to finance, and to see how they compare to best in class providers around the world. The data support business decision-making — a crucial need as companies undergo massive operational transformations to support new converged, media-rich services, reduce costs, and provide outstanding customer experience with low levels of customer churn.

The Business Transformation zone will also feature a defense industry Technology Catalyst demonstration on Managing Future Satellite Communications. The Catalyst focuses on operational agility and the real-time management of complex space networks. The defense industry is transforming its management strategies using TM Forum-based standards to create a solution framework that manages across operator boundaries.

As Service Providers implement business transformation projects, one of the complex issues they face is how to migrate key customer data and other records into their new systems. The data must be verified, rationalized, cleansed, formatted and then moved. The Application Data Migration Technology Catalyst addresses the industry challenges resulting from current migration practices and strategies to overcome those challenges. It demonstrates the principles and recommendations using a real-world case study.

Forumville will include two theaters, offering in-depth technology demonstrations, case studies of real-world implementations, and educational presentations. Attendees will also receive free registration to the Forum’s new online community, where members can connect to their peers and gain access to the latest industry topics and thought leadership.

The strategies and tactics unveiled in Forumville will be mirrored throughout the Management World 2009 conference, which opens with an impressive keynote lineup on Wednesday, May 6. “Forumville, along with the entire Management World conference this year, focuses on the strategies and tactics service providers need to embrace to survive. The current economic situation presents an opportunity for service providers to transform themselves to support the new business models that will prove to be essential to future growth and profitability for service providers,” added Creaner.

The full conference agenda, keynote and speaker details, as well as information surrounding certified training courses available in Nice are available now at http://www.tmforum.org/ManagementWorld2009/

To learn more please visit www.tmforum.org http://www.tmforum.org

About TM Forum
With more than 700 member companies in 75 countries, TM Forum is the world’s leading industry association focused on improving business effectiveness for service providers and their suppliers. Serving the information, communications and entertainment industries, the Forum provides practical solutions, guidance and leadership to transform the way that digital services are created, delivered and charged. Members include the world’s largest service providers, cable and network operators, software suppliers, equipment suppliers and systems integrators.

TM Forum provides a wide range of information and support to help its members reduce the costs and risks associated with creating and delivering profitable services. These include industry research and benchmarks, technology roadmaps, best practice guidebooks, software standards and interfaces, as well as certified training, conferences and publications. The Forum also provides its member community with extensive marketing and networking opportunities, enabling business with new customers and partners.