Product Convergence and the Catalogue Driven Architecture

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Product Convergence and the Catalogue-Driven Architecture

The Product Challenge

The communications marketplace is becoming increasingly competitive. Consumers' expectations are growing and the range of products and services they demand are increasing in complexity. Existing infrastructure, processes and software practices are failing to keep pace.

The aspirations of aggressive, consumer driven business are to increase time to market and reduce large upfront expenditure. Monolithic systems, heavyweight suppliers and traditional delivery approaches are outdated in this type of market.

TCB were among the first to recognise this and respond to the challenge. We are entering a new era of service-based delivery and software agility that will transform the communications market. The key step towards increased profitability and competitiveness is a centralised view of products.

The Issues

In many organisations the management, rules and configuration associated with products have become dispersed throughout the organisation. As a consequence implementing change has become difficult and expensive.

Maintaining integrity between business systems has become increasingly problematic. Testing overheads have begun to grow exponentially and time-to-market has increased from weeks to months.

Processes, roles and responsibilities have also become disjointed. They have become fragile and complex and often riddled with manual, error prone and unofficial workarounds.

Multiple, overlapping 'business languages' have evolved causing confusion and misunderstanding.

Product in this environment has ceased to be a discrete domain and the responsibility for it has become fragmented.

The TCB Solution

Successful organisations are no longer obsessed with five year plans, and now demand flexibility and agility in the marketplace.

Streamlined processes, rapid product deployment and support for complex and tailored products are the roadmap for success.

At TCB we offer a contrasting approach to traditional Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) in our industry. We call this the Catalogue Driven Architecture (CDA).

Catalogue Driven Architecture is not a software system or product. It is a mixture of architectural blueprint, capability and approach.

CDA is a service-based solution that recognises that no two organisations are the same. It is business value driven to address your greatest needs first.

We help businesses refine their definitions of products and the processes that support them. Product artefacts include product datasheets, pricing, availability, rules, people, roles and responsibilities.

Our aim is to help you integrate all product information (convergence) and provide a Common Business Language (framework).

By leveraging adaptive delivery techniques TCB are able to introduce the new architectural concepts in a measured, gradual, risk-conscious manner.

Our Approach (Services based)	Traditional PLM (Product based)
Blueprint	Fixed solution
Low initial cost/risk	High initial cost/risk
Immediate ROI	Long term ROI
Flexible, Responsive	Fixed, Monolithic
'Just Enough' capability	High complexity
Business-value driven	Supplier sales value driven
Standards based	Proprietary
Solution focused	Technology focused

Our iterative approach combined with our industry experience and architectural blueprint offers a tailored solution that has low upfront costs and provides immediate return on investment.

The CDA is a concept made powerful through its simplicity. Architecturally it is the separation of the customer view of products from the underlying technology. As a capability it is the experts and knowledge that TCB supply. As an approach it is an incremental, agile development process.

The Benefits

This trinity affords our customers greater leverage of their infrastructure and brings benefits such as:

Fast time-to-market for new products.
Bundling of complex product mixes.
Direct management of products by the business.
Reduced churn through continual product development.
Increased collaboration through the Common Business Language.
Easier maintenance, less errors, lower risk.
Separation of business and technical considerations.

Things have changed. The new marketplace for communications and software is service-based, delivery oriented and agile. TCB help organisations to achieve all three.

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