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B1	Tuesday, March 26, 2002 · 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm

Customer-Focused OSS OSSs are often selected and deployed as tactical solutions focused on the mechanics of managing provisioning transactions. However, today's successful providers are asking a new question of their OSS infrastructure: "Why can't my OSS be customer-focused on customer-impacting results rather than just transaction management?" The result, for some, has been an OSS that enhances customer satisfaction while reducing operational burden. This panel will discuss the following: Characteristics of Customer-Focused OSS Impact on Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention Examples of Successes and Failures in Deploying OSS Infrastructures

CHAIRPERSON: Kent Steffen, President and Chief Executive Officer, Telution, founded the company in January of 1998. Previously, Mr. Steffen was with Andersen Consulting, where he was part of the communications-industry practice, working with long-distance and local providers to create customer-care and call-center solutions, and was a representative to numerous standards bodies. SPEAKERS: Jim Brown, Chief Executive Officer, EZ Talk Communications, is a founding shareholder and the president of the company that provides local prepaid phone services. D. Kurt Dahm, Director, Business Development, Communications Software Group, Cisco Systems, leads OSS software and systems-integration strategy for the service-provider line of business. Stephen Gay, Director, Planning and Analysis, Z-Tel Communications, manages the process and design of the technology solutions for UNE platform provisioning and customer service. Eric Nelson, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Netifice Communications, has more than 22 years of IT and systems-development experience, including more than seven years in the telecommunications industry.