Defining The Product

July 16, 2001

Product definition is such a simple task. After all, you have dial tone, voice mail, call waiting, and DSL, and perhaps a few other features that make up your entire product line. Anyone can define a product, however, making it work is another matter. The key to product definition is not the description of the product or the features available, but whether you can technically support the product and all of its features.

You would be amazed at the number of times a product marketing manager dresses up his product with enhanced new features, prepares the sales collateral, authorizes the financial analysis, informs billing of the rates, and gets ready to launch and then discovers that the switches were not bought with the features now being requested. The product manager had only to check what a switch could do when it was installed. A little problem, but one that could have been discovered much earlier in the process.

This problem is not only a situation for a facilities-based carrier. Technical specifications that define what a local switch can or cannot support should be easily obtained from the technical service organization. This assumes that they have retained what they procured and installed.

Step one in product definition is defining what you can support on your network. If you cannot support a specific feature or option, your choice is to evaluate the cost of obtaining that feature versus the lost opportunity and revenue you might gain by having that feature associated with the product. The final analysis is always revenue and not only just revenue, but margin positive revenue.

Switch features are not the only product enhancement you must be aware of. In addition, the interconnections to support calling cards, voice mail or operator services must be understood. If vendors, are providing these services then you must gain a good knowledge of all the features they will allow you to use versus what they themselves offer. Often, wholesalers will offer only standard features and keep enhanced features for their own use.

This can have even more impact on a reseller of services. Resellers of local services have a different problem and one that can stop product definition in its tracks. Basic touch-tone service is pretty much assumed across all local carriers. Quite often, if a feature is available in one part of the state it is assumed that the feature is also available in all other areas of the state as well. You know the old saying, never "ASS U ME". Depending upon the local company and how far they have either upgraded or installed new features, it is quite possible that within the same general area, served by two different central offices, the available features may be totally different.

This makes the task of defining a product is quite difficult, especially if a CLEC's market expands across regions and encompasses several different ILECs. How does one define a product that is fully functional and can be marketed as a unique product if the features for the product exist in only parts of the market area? The simple answer is you can't. What you can do is offer a base package that does encompass common features. But the only way to know what is being offered is to research the offerings in the areas that your market covers.

This research is no different if you are a facilities-based carrier. Even the research you do internally must be done externally as most facilities-based carriers handle a portion of their market in a resale mode.

So how is this done? First, you must query your wholesaler to determine what features are offered on a central office by central office basis. There will be resistance, but for you to have a ubiquitous product and be prepared for the future, this activity must be accomplished. This will require an understanding of the Universal Service Order Codes (USOC) as the ILEC will provide the requesting information in this form. These USOCs are the only way to communicate product and feature information to the ILECs.

Once these codes are obtained, you need to extract the codes that related to your product and determine where deficiencies may lie within your market for your product as a result of ILEC wholesale services. You may choose to alter your product offering in those areas, but all sales and support material must reflect the changes in the product for the areas segregated. I would not recommend this approach as it introduces the possibility of error in the install process, which ultimately leads to dissatisfied customers.

It is also helpful to maintain a library of the features and services available to you at a NPANXX level as you build your product definitions. These codes and the understanding of the codes will provide the instructions necessary to implement your product offering with the ILEC. The library will position you for further product definition in a faster timeframe since much of the research is already accomplished. Product definition is not hard; it is the implementation of the product that is difficult in the CLEC market.

Jim Marsh is a senior consultant for The Management Network Group, a telecom consulting organization.  Jim has worked in telecom for 15 years and is an expert in revenue assurance, risk management and fraud. Jim speaks and writes on improving operational systems and functions to improve bottom lines.