IBM B2B and commerce solutions empower communications providers to operate efficiently by integrating traditional connectivity with media and IT services, thereby enhancing customer experience and growing revenue. The solutions streamline product management, sales, and partner integration, leading to faster time-to-market and reduced sales costs through personalization and agile management. Notable case studies demonstrate significant improvements in billing collection rates, sales, and customer satisfaction following the implementation of these solutions.

1. IBM Software Communications
IBM B2B and
Commerce Solutions
for communications
IBM B2B and Commerce Solutions enable
communication providers to become demand driven
Executive summary
Communications companies are delivering convergent services:
traditional communications connectivity plus media, entertainment,
and information technology products and services. Success now means
operating like a world-class retailer whose products are a mix of goods
and services from other suppliers. It means having visibility to virtually
all the links in supply and distribution chains, and a robust,
comprehensively integrated set of selling and distribution channels
providing a consistent, high-quality experience for the customer. IBM
B2B and Commerce Solutions enable communications providers to
meet these imperatives, resulting in lower investment and operating
costs, while growing customer experience and revenue.
IBM B2B and Commerce Solutions
IBM B2B and Commerce Solutions enable providers to transform and
help optimize their business collaboration networks of internal
stakeholders and external partners and suppliers. Providers can better
streamline their product management, customer sales, and partner
integration processes to speed time to market, increase new revenue
generation, and lower the cost of sales. The solutions also enable the
personalization of products and services for the individual needs of
customer segments and requirements of sourcing and sales channels.
IBM B2B and Commerce Solutions can help:
Improve time to market and reduce the cost of new market segment•
offerings and model introductions through agile and adaptable offer
management
Build market segment specific products and promotions through•
segmentation and personalization capabilities supporting particular
target market segment offer models
Increase revenue per sale and reduce the average cost per sale through•
cross-channel selling and ordering
Cost-effectively expand marketplace presence and offer breadth•
through flexible partner and supplier integration and digital
collaboration.
Overview
One communications service provider•
increased its billing collection rate by
76 percent within one year of
implementing IBM B2B and
Commerce Solutions
A broadband communications service•
provider doubled their average sales in
the first three months with IBM B2B and
Commerce Solutions
A U.S. cable, TV and broadband provider•
migrated a significant portion of its sales
and ordering to the lower-cost
e-commerce channel
A U.S.-based broadband provider•
deployed one order management system
to orchestrate and execute virtually all
fulfillment transactions

2. “With IBM®
Sterling Multi-Channel
Selling,prospects can come to RCN.com
and,through the online shopping cart,buy
cable,phone and Internet services.The
solution allows us to offer a variety of new
services to our customers as well as the
appropriate add-ons and customizations that
you would expect for those services.”
— Director of Web Strategy, Major US Communications Service Provider
IBM Software Communications
2
Dynamic business network: IBM B2B and Commerce Solutions help communications services providers transform and optimize their dynamic business
networks. Providers can better connect, communicate and collaborate to grow their revenue streams while reducing their risks and costs.
Demand
Communities
Creative
Communities
Finance
Communities
Infrastructure
Communities
Fulfillment
Communities
Businesses
Wholesale
VARs/OEMs
Dealers/
Distributors
Consumers
Outsourced
Services
Product
Supplies
Equipment
Suppliers
Network
Providers
Traditional
Fulfillment
Digital
Fulfillment
Digital Rights
Management
Partner
Interconnection
Product
Providers
Service
Providers
Arbitrators
Content
Developers
Banks
Selling
Media
Provider
Creative Services
Sourcing
Fulfillment
Payment and
Settlement
Credit
Billing
Settlement
IBM B2B and Commerce Solutions
portfolio for communications
IBM ordering solutions:
IBM• ®
Sterling Configurator
IBM• ®
Sterling Configure, Price, Quote
IBM• ®
Sterling Order Management

3. CommunicationsIBM Software
3
Optimizing time to market
A North American digital TV provider relied on a manual
process to manage offer updates across multiple, disjointed
systems. The result was a data migration that took up to three
weeks to complete, costing the provider rework, brand equity
and customer churn. Using existing infrastructure and
partnerships, the IBM B2B and Commerce Solution was
deployed to provide a single and centralized offer catalog and
order capture rules for their sales channel systems resulting in
faster time to market, higher customer satisfaction, and an
increase in sales and profitability.
Issue Capability Potential benefits
Improve time
to market for
implementing new
offers across virtually
all sales channels
• Import and utilize product and price rules from
internal and external sources in centralized offer
modeling
• Enables re-use of product and pricing data eliminating rework
and speeding time to market with offer
• Web-based offer modeling environment for
business users to construct offers
• Eliminates the need for IT to lead offer management efforts,
thus cutting the cost of offer introduction and time to market
• Structure and rules for users to create multiple
bundle and package options
• Drives new revenue by enabling marketing and product
management to be creative in structuring offers for the
marketplace
• Advanced pricing, promotion, and discount models
including volume and terms plans
• Improves responsiveness by providing automated tools to
introduce new offers more quickly
• Segmentation and personalization capabilities
support granular target marketplace offer models
• Drives new revenue by providing marketing with the tools to
segment offers by customers channels, and target market
The IIBM B2B and Commerce
Solutions portfolio for
communications (continued)
IBM business-to-business integration
solutions:
IBM• ®
IBM Sterling B2B Integration
IBM• ®
Sterling File Gateway
IBM• ®
Sterling Managed File Transfer
IBM• ®
Sterling Collaboration Network
Transforming the sales experience
A provider of triple-play voice, video, and data services
covering 24 states in the U.S. relied on multiple regional
selling and ordering systems. The provider consolidated its
systems and processes using IBM B2B and Commerce
Solutions to reduce the average cost per sale, and training
time from three months to a few days.

4. CommunicationsIBM Software
4
Issue Capability Potential benefits
Create a unified and
compelling sales and
order environment
across virtually all
sales channels.
• Presentation and execution of complex order
rules (e.g., compatibility and exclusivity rules)
are designed to be available at the point of
sale
• Helps ensure order accuracy without over-complicating ordering,
which reduces costly order rework and speeds revenue recognition
by reducing delays in order completion
• Open architecture supports the integration of
data and rules, including product rules and
customer data, from practically any source
• Helps maximize reuse of customer and product data from existing
systems and data stores, thus minimizing deployment costs and
risks.
• Value-added sales capabilities including offer
search, discovery, and guided selling
• Helps increase sales closing rates and the average revenue per sale
• Service contracts provide process and rules
for managing practically any customer change
scenario
• Improves customer satisfaction and reduces churn through
enhanced customer experience.
• Multi-channel and cross-channel architecture • Improves revenue and market share through greater marketplace
presence
Optimizing order orchestration
A U.S. broadband provider needed to upgrade its order
management infrastructure to speed time to fulfillment as well
as eliminate costly order errors. The provider turned to
IBM B2B and Commerce Solutions to provide a one-stop
“promising” engine across virtually all customer channels
(call-center, Web, reseller) to support the fulfillment of
broadband (xDSL) offers while enabling triple-play offers
with wireless and video partners.
Issue Capability Potential benefits
Support an
increasingly diverse
set of provisioning
and fulfillment points
while reducing
operational costs
and fulfillment errors
• Decomposes the order building service-to-service, and
service-to-product dependencies. Helps ensure virtually all
products/services/features in a bundle are linked
• Helps ensure bundle order integrity is maintained across
virtually all order types including move, add, change,
disconnect, suspend and resume
• Provides one seamless product view to the customer,
by linking the system on the back end with virtually all
fulfillment and provisioning channels
• Improves customer satisfaction by providing
comprehensive visibility into order status across virtually
all transactions and systems.
• Orchestration services automatically create alerts for user
exceptions such as errors and in-jeopardy tasks. The
system or users can quickly resolve the exception
• Reduces delays caused by processing errors, thus
increasing the ability to recognize revenue on schedule
• Open APIs and services provide a common face to front-
office systems and back-office OSS, provisioning, billing,
and partners’ systems
• Enables one solution to operate as a centralized
solution to manage and orchestrate virtually all orders
and eliminates the cost of managing multiple order
management systems

5. CommunicationsIBM Software
5
Issue Capability Potential benefits
Enable a faster
and cost-effective
implementation
and management
of partners and
suppliers
• Allows community management support for the rapid
onboarding of new partners and partner connections. Provides
self-service onboarding capabilities
• Speeds time to implementation and reduces costs
for supporting new partners and suppliers by
simplifying onboarding through one view
• Supports communication with partners using a variety of
standards. Large files can be exchanged via a security-rich
environment called Connect:Direct, billing information can
come in via EDI over AS2, and sales documents can arrive
through e-mail, Web services or Web extensions
• Enables providers to build a diverse and security-
rich global partner and supplier base by supporting
multiple methods, protocols, and formats for smooth
integration with virtually all partners and suppliers
• Automates business processes and process/system
connectivity inside and outside the enterprise with capabilities
such as document routing, business rule validation, exception
handling, alerts and archiving
• Enables IT to rely on a business integration solution
that improves operational efficiency by replacing
costly manual processes with comprehensive
automation
Transforming business-to-partner
integration
One of the world’s largest wireless telecommunications
companies needed a business-to-business integration platform
to collaborate with hundreds of digital content providers,
value-added service providers, equipment suppliers, and sales
and distribution channels. The provider deployed business-to-
business integration capabilities from IBM B2B and
Commerce Solutions to support the transaction and file based
exchange of data with external partners. The provider reduced
new partner integration from several months to a few weeks.

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