Harmonizing People | Process | Technology

CASE STUDY

Ufone standardizes Enterprise Architecture

Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) started its GSM operations in 2001 Customer
under the brand name 'Ufone'. After PTCL's privatization, it became part of Emirates Ufone
Telecommunication Corporation Group (Etisalat) in 2006. Ufone is now the second Pakistan
largest GSM operator in Pakistan with a customer base of over 20 million. Ufone has
network coverage in 10,000 locations and caters for International Roaming to more Industry
than 288 live operators in more than 160 countries. Telecom

With a complex IT systems landscape, Ufone wanted to establish core systems Offering
architecture principles and monitor their adoption. For this purpose, Ufone standard- Enterprise Architecture
ized on the NGOSS set of standards and asked Techlogix to implement an Enterprise
Architecture solution based on this.

Over the course of an 18 month engagement, Techlogix helped implement a Enter-

prise Architecture function in the Office of the CIO and produced the first set of
deliverables documenting compliance with NGOSS.

About the Client

Ufone is Pakistan’s 2nd largest cellular services providing company with a subscriber base of over
20 million. The company maintains network coverage across 10,000 locations. Ufone has focused
on being the market leader in Value Added Services (VAS) by constantly introducing innovative
services.
 The Challenge
Telco market trends are ever evolving. Acquisitions,
Re-Branding, expansion of mobile usage and an increasingly
bandwidth hungry generation of Telco users are but a few of
those. For a leading communication services provider, this
raises critical challenges such as ensuring leadership in time
to market of new products and services, efficient and timely
change management and linking enterprise-wide initiatives
together with a complete alignment of inter and intra-
department vision and budgetary spend.
Ufone wanted to use Enterprise Architecture to build
strategic capabilities to allow it to meet these challenges.
Through this practice, Ufone wished to introduce tools &
methods to define and govern change, at the center of
which is a comprehensive and connected repository of
business, data, application and infrastructure information
components. By using Enterprise Architecture, Ufone also
wanted to leverage best practices for the Telco industry.
Specifically, Ufone envisaged the use of the New Generation
Operations Systems & Software (NGOSS) framework to
benchmark against industry proven references and standard-
ize its OSS/BSS development, integration and operations.
As a parallel initiative, Ufone had also acquired a comprehen-
sive suite of IBM Rational products to manage IT projects
within the Enterprise for the complete lifecycle. It was
essential that the tools and technologies adopted in
establishing the Enterprise Architecture would minimize
rework, reduce information maintenance and allow full
integration of information across Ufone IT landscape.
The first phase of the engagement was carried out in 10
weeks. Given the timeline of this project, the key challenge
was to involve business in the initiative and not limit the
scope of engagement to IT, which traditionally provides the
easiest ROI. The involvement of the business was designed
to ensure smooth progression of the EA initiative to the
entire Enterprise in subsequent phases.
tool for Enterprise Architecture, supports various standard
EA Methodologies including NGOSS and TOGAF and
supports standard notations for various domains out of the
box and provides a comprehensive list of definitions that are
fully extensible.
In this initial phase the approach was to take a thin but deep
slice across the entire set of functional domains for the
identified business area: Sales & Distribution.
The following set of points were identified to set the
Architecture Vision at the onset of the project and were
used to design the EA structure at Ufone:
◉ Design the Architecture to provide quick answers to a
set of frequent analysis undertaken by the key
stakeholders
◉ Define a uniform view of Vision, Goals and Objectives
to link strategic drivers for all assets and initiatives
within the Enterprise
◉ Identify, document and link key business processes for
the selected business area to bring clarity on the AS-IS
process, services, roles and responsibilities
◉ Using NGOSS/eTOM standard process maps, identify
the level of coverage and redundancy in AS-IS state at
Ufone to help identify gaps and plan the TO-BE
roadmap
◉ Identify, document and link IT, non-IT and Information
Infrastructure within the Enterprise
◉ Identify areas of IT hardware consolidation
◉ Identify areas of Software and Service consolidation
◉ Using NGOSS/TAM standard Application Map, identify
the level of coverage and redundancy in AS-IS state at
Ufone to help identify gaps and plan the TO-BE
roadmap
Architecture design discussions were conducted with the
stakeholders to create a fully connected Metamodel view of
Ufone with information and data linkages across the
enterprise.

The Solution
The initial engagement was part of a
phased approach to a comprehensive
Enterprise Architecture rollout at Ufone. It
provided Ufone with the capabilities
required to model its AS-IS enterprise
architecture, analyze its baseline and define
a transition roadmap. The project involved
IT and Business together to identify,
document, link and populate the informa-
tion across all relevant domains for Sales &
Distribution as the primary business area
and the IT function as a secondary stake-
holder.

After evaluation of different tools for this

project, Ufone selected IBM Rational System Architect for
their EA initiative. System Architect is the leading software

Enterprise Architecture at Ufone

02
Techlogix Case Study
 All information and data for the identified domains was Benefits
captured, consolidated and imported for the Sales &
Distribution department including comprehensive process Enterprise Architecture allows better change planning,
documentation of business critical processes and a compli- reduces time to market for new products and accelerates
ance heatmap for all eTOM defined processes. Similarly, all IT capabilities development because of a central connected
related domains and assets related to Sales & Distribution repository of information. With clear and agreed Architec-
were captured in IBM Rational System Architect. ture Principles, this information is maintained live and
up-to-date providing stake-
holders real-time access to
Strategy
Corporate Mission Corporate Vision information at the touch of a
is translated to defines
button.
Departmental Mission
is achieved by

guided by
Business Policy has achievement
supported by In August 2009, Ufone
Strategy
supported by
Goal performed an analysis to
is executed by
guided by
Business Rule has achievement
supported by
is defined by
identify the usage of its
Tactics
achieved by
Objectives database servers with a view
to consolidate licensing as a
assigned to
fulfilled by

serves
Owns
cost saving initiative. EA was
is located at Party serves Business Process Organization used as the primary analysis
Party Uses

Business Process Department tool. The analysis provided

Party Group can be

can be
Consumes
Related To
has easy access to key information
Channels Perform
Roles
has
Sub Function such that the scope of
Sells
located at
Maintained by Provides
exercise could be extended to
Services Application Data
located at
consider migrating the
sells
Products Application
is an instance of

Data
database server technology to
provide
Services
supported by
Application Instance
Owns
an alternative. EA helped
Ufone identify all the stake-
holders to reduce the risk and
Location Infrastructure effort in change management
resides on Infrastructure of this initiative. This initiative
Located at
Location
also allowed Ufone to have
Infrastructure Instance is an instane of

architecture consolidation and

is located at

enhanced cost savings.

Ufone Metamodel for Enterprise Architecture
In September 2009, the Ufone
Sales & Distribution department used EA to simulate and
During this exercise, mapping and compliance with NGOSS plan introduction of a new external channel, the “Mini-
was also carried out to determine level of standardization Franchise” into its Distribution chain. The exercise provided a
and plan future initiatives. Furthermore, a clear set of clear roadmap of the implication of the introduction of this
Architecture Principles were designed to define the process new channel, associated on-boarding and operational
for induction of new initiatives within Ufone that will keep processes, enhanced set of services and impact on affected
EA updated with minimal efforts. applications within one week, whereas previous similar
planning exercises would traditionally have taken over 3
In August 2009, Ufone presented its Enterprise Architecture months to complete
to Etisalat for managing IT synergies across its subsidiaries
along with other IT initiatives at Ufone. EA was selected for The Ufone IT and Sales Department have also used EA to
rollout across the entire group. Currently, IT initiatives are identify gaps and consolidate functionality of their applica-
being routed through EA to complete the full map through tions to initiate a project to enhance its CRM application and
Architecture Principles defined for Information and data sunset three standalone applications that had redundant
updates as part of this project. functionality.

Technology
The Enterprise Architecture project was implemented using
the IBM Rational System Architect platform.

Enterprise Architecture at Ufone

03
Techlogix Case Study
 Telecoms
www.techlogix.com/telecoms

Techlogix has worked with some of the largest telecom companies in the world
focused on the nexus between CRM, Billing and Engineering systems. We have
engineered solutions in high volume transaction processing and also complex
multi-state process orchestration to ensure the efficient flow of orders from CRM to
the relevant downstream systems. We have considerable experience in Telecoms
related standards including NGOSS and eTOM and detailed understanding of the
process and system architectures prevalent in a modern Telecom environment.

Contact
For more information, contact info@techlogix.com

About Techlogix
Techlogix is an IT Services, Consulting and Business Solutions company that helps its global clientele achieve
enterprise transformation by harmonizing people, process, and technology. Techlogix builds high performance
solutions using practice-specific delivery methodologies that utilize its globally distributed development
teams. Our people combine the spirit of engineering excellence with a strong commitment to end-to-end
customer experience. Techlogix employs approximately 300 people in 5 delivery centers worldwide.

Visit us online at www.techlogix.com

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