Figure 2 depicts the Network Management Forum (NMF) simplified diagram of the business processes used by a typical phone company. The boxes with the black indicator in the upper corner of Figure 2 represent processes not usually associated with billing.

Figure 2. NMF Business Process Model

During an implementation, these processes aid in understanding the course of action. It is also important to keep the following in mind:

• leveraging existing IT investments—This saves time and money. Most companies have good IT processes in place that, when executed properly, will ensure a smooth implementation. It is necessary to evaluate and modify these processes to incorporate any streamlining or efficiencies that are introduced by the new application.

• ensuring interoperability with other applications and platforms—This can be one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks of any new billing implementation. Most billing systems have standard protocol for sending data to and receiving data from the application. However, failure to allow for an appropriate test plan or testing time frame will result in a poor outcome that could hamper production time.

• leveraging the Internet—The Internet is new to billing applications and is a tool that can keep any company closer to its customers. With the proper training and an initial pilot rollout to a carefully selected handful of test customers, Internet billing can prove to be a cost-effective means both to bill and to please customers. However, Internet billing cannot be expected to be warmly received by all customers. Research should be performed in this area to determine which, if any, customers would embrace this form of billing.

• implementing reusable technologies and components—It is important not to throw away good systems or applications hastily. A cost-and-benefit analysis should be performed to determine if the changes necessary to the legacy components and systems are more effective from a cost, feasibility, and future-use perspective than purchasing or building new technologies and components.

• building an architecture that is durable—A durable architecture is one that withstands the test of time. The architecture should be flexible and layered with clear separation of services, business and application logic, and data access. This will ensure plug-and-play readiness should better pieces of the solution become available during the life of architecture.