Subex reveals the results of a global operator survey on Data Integrity Management (DIM)

London, UK – Subex Ltd, a leading global provider of Business Support Systems (B/OSS) for Communications Service Providers (CSPs) and Heavy Reading, an independent research organization conducted an in-depth global survey to understand the problems operators face with their data quality and data integrity.

The in-depth survey based on responses from 95 operators across North America, Europe, South America, Asia/Pacific, and the Middle East and Africa, highlights some critical benchmarks in the data integrity management space. It reflects how CSPs across the globe lack substantial investment in data integrity.

Poor data integrity has been a longstanding problem in carrier environments that leads to inefficiencies and expensive manual re-work across the full range of operations such as provisioning and activation, service assurance, billing and capacity planning. According to the 2011 Analysys Mason Report, the global market for Data Integrity Management will reach $137M by 2014 from $98M in 2010.

A few highlights of the ¬findings are:

• Six out of every 10 operators globally experience up to 30 percent order fallouts.
• The main reasons for high order fallout are too many manual steps and also too many siloed processes and process views.
• The majority of operators still feel more than 20 % of their inventory data is out of sync with the network
• Approximately 50 percent of operators still use ad hoc manual audits to keep inventory data in sync with the network.

The report shows trends and results across geographies, with results for ¬five major regions: North America, Europe, South America, Asia/Paci¬fic, and the Middle East and Africa. It takes into consideration the fact that results vary across the globe, as operators and their demands are specifi¬c to their own region. On average, North America emerges as a region that uses maximum automation in processes, while Asia/Paci¬fic shows maximum synchronization between network and inventory data.

Data accuracy and integrity are the tenets of operational excellence for telecommunications and network service providers. So to combat the problems that operators have with the quality, accuracy, consistency and relevance of data Subex offers its ROC® Data Integrity Management solution.

Subex’s ROC Data Integrity Management solution combines three powerful data integrity functions: multi-layer network and service discovery; data reconciliation; and discrepancy analytics. The solution discovers devices and logical services in diverse network environments and reconciles this data with the OSS/BSS on a continuous, controlled basis. The result is consistent, relevant data throughout service provider operations, enhancing the effectiveness and value of service fulfillment, service assurance, and billing systems.

Sudeesh Yezhuvath, COO, Subex Ltd said, “For an operator, the goal is to reduce operational, network and capital expenditures in a cost-optimized and time-efficient manner that accelerates ROI from a data quality program. Although many operators are now recognizing the need for a data integrity solution, we believe that with the entry of new technologies and higher complexities, data integrity management will gain considerable importance with discovery and reconciliation solution high up on the list”.

The Subex/Heavy Reading Data Integrity Management (DIM) Benchmarking Survey also looks at CSPs’ wish list for future offerings, their planned areas of investment around OSS/BSS which they cannot obtain at present.