Product Catalog Providers

There are a number of excellent next-gen catalog solutions in the marketplace that can help operators transform into digital service providers and next-generation communications service providers.

Amdocs

Amdocs Master Enterprise Catalog is a holistic, centralized data repository that consolidates and manages all products and related information in the various business support systems (BSS) and operational support system (OSS), while supporting the product structure that corresponds with the business’ needs.  The solution is an enterprise business enabler at the heart of critical business processes. Vertically, Amdocs Master Enterprise Catalog bridges the gap between BSS and OSS, and horizontally, it leverages product assets across lines of business. Its support goes beyond the Amdocs portfolio, integrating with any BSS product catalog and/or OSS service catalog, whether home-grown or third party.

Sigma Systems

Sigma Systems has really moved to the front of the unified catalog space following the acquisition of Tribold. Sigma says its innovative Sigma Catalog is a single source for all product and service data. The Sigma Catalog creates a unified catalog for creating, selling and delivering rich product offerings across all channels. Sigma has developed many added components that enrich and increase the value of the catalog, including enterprise data management, data integration, product lifecycle management, business intelligence, and product channel management.

Ericsson

Ericsson’s power in the catalog space grew from its ConceptWave acquisition. Ericsson’s Catalog Manager is more than a simple product catalog management system. It enables operators to quickly create new products and services from reusable product, service and resource components, so they can assemble offerings, drive sales and manage fulfillment processes with lower costs and better reliability. Product teams can define new product offerings and specifications quickly by leveraging pre-defined technical specifications and provisioning processes. Customer service representatives (CSRs) find the most relevant customer solutions through an automated product selection search engine. Even if offerings involve third parties, Ericsson Catalog Manager federates processes across multiple fulfillment stacks and methods for coordinated and dynamic product provisioning.

Comarch

Product Catalog from Comarch helps service providers simplify IT architecture and accelerate new product launches by providing a single place for managing products and the product life cycle. Comarch Product Catalog deals with offers and product specifications, defines relationships between various products, and specifies which of these are exclusive or sold only as a component of a bigger package. It also defines target customers, their locations, and many other parameters. The system is based on the TM Forum Information Framework, also called the Shared Information Data model (SID).

Innovation starts with the catalog

In order to compete in the digital economy, CSPs must essentially become digital-services retailers of many thousands of products. They must be able to rapidly design, sell, launch, and scale solutions, integrate their offerings seamlessly with third-party solutions and numerous partners, and constantly manage dynamic promotions and incentive bundling to stay ahead of competitors and meet the needs of an increasingly demanding user base. To top it all off, there are more sales channels than ever before.

Communications and digital service providers need systems that set up and manage all sellable items, including telecoms-network services, content services, billing services, physical devices, accessories and third-party products or services. From a support services perspective, the foundation is crucial, and that foundation is the catalog.