In order to assemble a value chain for any organization, we need to begin by addressing the many different kinds of alignment issues we have been
discuss-ing. At this point, it probably makes sense to spend a moment on this issue of alignment. In the previous chapter we showed how the company’s organiza-tional structure and information systems tended to cluster together into loosely related knowledge areas. We also showed that when you start to examine those systems more closely, you begin to discover a lot of inconsistencies in that alignment.
While on the one hand we are insisting that it is imperative that we discover and understand exactly where these misalignments between organization, func-tion, computer system, and knowledge needs might be, on the other hand we in no way imply or insist that some kind of fully logical or comprehensive strategy needs to be put in place in order for us to proceed. On the contrary, we perform our analysis of this alignment to help us understand where our ware-housing efforts may provide value by filling in the gaps between organizational groups or functions. Although some overambitious and enthusiastic well-meaning theoreticians might try to take this exercise and turn it into some kind of all-encompassing theory of information systems architecture, we state em-phatically that our only purpose in doing so is to provide us with a generalized roadmap of the directions that our warehousing efforts should take us.
4.3 Telecommunications functions and systems
We will begin our search for the telecommunication firm’s typical value chain by getting a good understanding of just what the basic functions are that a telecommunications firm must exercise in order to deliver value to the customer.
As we consider each of these functions, we will also take a brief inventory of the nature of the computer information systems associated with those functions.
This will provide us with our first level of understanding of the telecommuni-cations company’s knowledge infrastructure and potential knowledge manage-ment needs.
Since we include in our discussions a wide range of segments (traditional telephone, long line, cellular, PCS, cable/developmental, CAP, etc.) within the telecommunications industry, we will borrow terminology and concepts from each of them to present an all-inclusive impression of a “typical “ firm in the industry. Obviously, for each individual company of a different size, shape, history, culture, and industry segment, the analysis will vary, but our model should remain relatively applicable across the board.
4.3.1 Creation (new product development and exploitation)
For those telecommunications organizations that are later in their life cycle (long lines or traditional services), it is difficult to remember those early days of telecommunications when the concept of “a telephone in every home,” let alone the “a telephone in every hand” concept of today, was new, radical, and socially inconceivable. So, for those kinds of companies the creation process is pretty much taken for granted and assumed to bedone. However, for a large percentage of the telecommunications industry, especially the PCS, cable/tele and other high-creativity, high-risk entrepreneurs, the lion’s share of the company’s in-vestments are going into the identification and creation of new kinds of products and services to meet customers needs.The information needs of the creation function are usually large and include the need for marketing information, customer activity history, and consumer trends analysis, along with the inclusion and dissection of vast amounts of technical information as alternative “product offerings” are tested and improved.
While the role of creation will take on a different emphasis depending on the company, it certainly needs to be included in our “generic” model.
As far as information systems deployment goes, creation needs to be one of the biggesttakersof knowledge from other areas of the business, and also needs to be one of the smallestgivers. Creation activities generally happen without the benefit of almost any “operational” systems of any kind (except of course in the cases ofmonsterR&D companies like AT&T), and usually provide no output to other areas of the firm until a product is “created,” at which time the entire organization is restructured.
4.3.2 Acquisition (acquiring the “right” to do business)
The vast majority of “real” telecommunications companies today may invest some small portion of their budgets in the creation process, but for the most part they leave those kinds of efforts to the small, startup “pioneer” or R&D firms that function separately from the main telecommunications providers.
The one thing that every telecommunications companymustdo, however, before anything else, is to acquire the right to service certain geographical or legal areas and work to maintain that right.
4.3.2.1 Acquiring the “right” to do business
The nature of the right to do business and the way it is acquired vary with the country, the industry segment (cellular, PCS, long line, traditional service, etc.), and the economic sector (government, industry, residential, commercial,
mili-tary, private, public, etc.), but without fail someone has to give you permission and the right to service their area of concern.
The acquisition and maintenance of the right to service an area may require no more knowledge or experience than supporting a legal staff that resolves boundary disputes and protects territorial claims. Or it could be as all encom-passing and exciting as the process of bidding on huge blocks of market share/radio frequencies being auctioned off to the lowest bidder by government agencies.
In all cases, the acquisition and maintenance of the right to do business is a foundation of the telecommunications company’s existence. In the “olden days” of telecommunications, this right was usually taken for granted. Old-form telecommunications companies in the United States and in most countries around the world were established as a government-sanctioned monopoly or a division of the government itself. Today, you not only have to “win” these kinds of rights, you often have to fight to keep them, and youalwayshave to report to the agency that granted you those rights in order to prove that you are worthy of keeping them.
Just as in the case of the creation activity, the acquisition function provides very little input to the rest of the business in terms of traditionally based computer data, but it does create vast quantities of nontraditional documenta-tion, maps, presentations, and other forms of knowledge transfer, which form the basis for the entire telecommunications organization.
The acquisition function also requires that the rest of the organization provide a substantial amount of reporting-type information in order to support the legislated and mandated requirements of various government committees, departments, agencies, and other administrative organizations. These reporting requirements can at times become quite substantial. Traditionally, the acquisi-tion area of the telecommunicaacquisi-tions firm will have no computer systems of its own, but will frequently tap into the information systems of other groups to gather the information required.
4.3.3 Network infrastructure planning and development (creating the “phone system”)
Assuming that the company has a known product to sell (e.g., traditional phone service) and has acquired the right to provide that service to a specific area, we come to that point of the business where everyone has to start producing—that is in the area of network infrastructure development.
The people involved in this process are the ones who decide where the cables need to be laid, where the switching stations will be located, what
equipment will be placed into the stations, and in general create what is known publicly as “the phone system.”
Now, obviously, depending on the technology you are talking about and the age and history of the particular company, the knowledge management demands of these groups can be varied. But by the nature of the business you will have to know about and plan for certain things.
This area is also responsible for the identification, understanding, and engineering of cross-carrier interfaces, that is, making it possible to “hand off”
traffic to long-line carriers, CAPs, and the other “partners” necessary to create a complete communications service to the customer.
The key data requirements for the engineers in this area have to do with developing estimates for the volume, nature, and intensity of different types of traffic that the system is expected to carry. These specialists develop estimates of that activity and then use those estimates to determine how best to deploy different throughput and bandwidth traffic scenarios.
The areas of the business concerned with these kinds of activities are usually inundated with several different kinds of specialized hardware and software, depending on which aspects of the system you are talking about. This area determines what kinds of switching mechanisms will be deployed and how that information will be made available for other areas of the business.
This same area will also require information about historical calling patterns (from the switches); geographical, topological, and a wide range of scientific and meteorological data (to help in deciding the how and where); billing and customer activity levels (from the billing area); and projections of increased demand requirements (based on information gleaned from outside sources or from marketing).