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SystemsResearchandBehavioralScience Syst. Res.23,177 1̂90 (2006) PublishedonlineinWiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI:10.1002/sres.752

& ResearchPaper

Knowledge Management in OSS — an Enterprise Information System for the Telecommunications Industry

Jiayin Qi1*, Li Da Xu2, Huaying Shu1 and Huaizu Li3

1School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, China 2Department of Information Technology and Decision Sciences, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, USA 3School of Management, Xian Jiaotong University, Xian, China

Knowledge management in Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) has become one of the hottest research topics in the last few years. Operations Support Systems (OSS) is one kind of EIS, which is becoming increasingly popular in the telecommunications industry. However, the academic research on knowledge management in OSS is sparse. In this paper, a knowledge management system for OSS is proposed in the framework of systems theory. Knowledge, knowledge management, organization and information technology are the four main interactive elements in the knowledge management system. The paper proposes that each subsystem of the OSS is to be equipped with knowledge management capacity, and the knowledge management of the OSS is to be realized through its subsystems. Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords enterprise information systems; ERP; operations support systems; knowledge management; management information systems

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, the topic of knowledge economy has attracted much research interest. As a result, a substantial number of researches have been conducted on knowledge management from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. Studies show that effective knowledge manage- ment has a positive effect on enterprise perfor-

mance and competitive advantage (Ahn and Chang, 2004; Chuang, 2004; Joshi and Sharma, 2004; Tzokas and Saren, 2004; Badii and Sharif, 2003; Cavusgil et al., 2003; Choi and Lee, 2002). For this reason, more and more enterprises have emphasized the importance of knowledge man- agement. Most of them have acquired enterprise information systems (EIS) such as ERP as an integrated platform with intended applications in knowledge management.

Operations Support Systems (OSS) is a main- stream technology which supports large-scale network operation, maintenance and management.

* Correspondence to: Jiayin Qi, School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China. E-mail: [email protected]

It was put forward by TeleManagement Forum (TMF), an international organization that has been contributing to the information and com- munications services industry for over 15 years. So far OSS has been increasingly adopted by telecom industry with NGOSS (New Generation Operations and Software Systems) as its next generation product. If ERP systems are the EIS mainly help manufacturing industry achieve competitive edge in the global market, OSS plays a similar role in the telecom industry.

Telecommunications industry is a very specific high-tech service industry. The main feature of the telecommunications industry is its tight integration of business process and IT applica- tions; it is very important to use IT to promote its competitiveness. OSS is generally considered as a basic EIS which can also support knowledge management. OSS market and applications are growing. Taking the Asia Pacific market as an example, it generated $8.8 billion of revenues in 2002. Revenues show an increasing trend and the market for OSS is expected to grow at a steady pace. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of the revenues for the period 2001–2007 is forecasted to be 6.27 per cent. Industry reven- ues are forecasted to rise to $11.87 billion by the year 2007.

Although OSS has been acquired by many telecom companies, the shortage of scholastic research on OSS is obvious (Li et al., 2003a). IEEE Xplore provides full text access to IEEE transactions, journals, magazines and conference proceedings since 1998, plus select contents back to 1950, and all the current IEEE standards. Most of the academic publications in telecommuni- cations are included in IEEE Xplore. Using operations support systems as key word, our search matched 189 of 1043417 documents. In these 189 documents, there is only one paper related to the word knowledge. Searching other academic journals, such as Decision Support systems, Expert Systems with Application, Knowl- edge-Based Systems, Computers in Industry, Expert Systems, Data & Knowledge Engineering, Advanced Engineering Informatics, Logistic Information Man- agement, Information & Management, Telecommu- nications Policy from 2003 to 2005, no papers on OSS are found. There are some whitepapers

about OSS at www.tmforum.org, but they are not typical research papers.

Knowledge may not show its significant value until it is embedded in software products or business processes. Only then can its value be fully utilized. OSS is the basic software platform to support value chain management for the telecom industry. OSS should be the enabling tools to fulfil effective knowledge management. How could this objective be achieved? The purpose of this paper is to explore a possible answer to the question.

The paper is organized as follows. ‘Knowledge Management in Systems Perspectives’ section presents the implication of knowledge manage- ment in systems perspectives. The relationship among data, information and knowledge, as well as the relationship between knowledge manage- ment and EIS is discussed. In ‘Overview of OSS and Knowledge Management in OSS’ sections, an overview of OSS and the knowledge manage- ment in OSS is discussed. ‘Discussion and Conclusion’ section provides a summary of the paper and future research.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVES

A system is made up of a set of interacting elements sharing a particular purpose within a boundary. The interaction among elements forms the structure of a system. Depending on its boundary, a system can be an economic entity, an inventory system, or a business organization. Knowledge management is an element of the organizational management system (Warfield, 1989). From the point of view of the concept of whole, a knowledge management system pro- motes the effective use of knowledge assets of an enterprise as a whole over time, and is an impetus to the performance of the enterprise.

Data, Information and Knowledge

Prior to discussing knowledge management, the terms such as data, information and knowledge must be defined. The following is a summary of

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the distinction between data, information and knowledge:

Data are known facts that can be recorded and that have implicit meaning (Elmasri and Navathe, 2004). Information is data placed in a meaningful and useful context after that has been processed (O’Brien, 2005). Information is user- aimed, providing values and existing in the eyes of the beholder (Spiegler, 2003). Knowledge is information synthesized and contextualized to provide further value for human activities (Pearlson and Saunders, 2004).

The relationship among data, information and knowledge can be depicted as shown in Figure 1. Data is the abstract description of objects and is the raw material that is used to generate useful information and knowledge. Information is a flow of processed data after being processed. Knowledge involves the capacity of gathering and using information. Knowledge becomes information when it is articulated or commu- nicated to others in the form of text, computer outputs, speech or written words (Alavi and Leindner, 2001; Spiegler, 2003).

Data warehouse is a large-scale storage facility for data. Knowledge warehousing is an exten- sion of data warehousing to facilitate the captur- ing and coding of knowledge and to enhance the retrieval and sharing of knowledge across the organization (Nemati et al., 2002). Online Analy- tical Processing (OLAP) is a software application used to explore the data in ways that are decision oriented (Shi et al., 2005). Data mining (DM) tools

allow for the creation of well-defined transfer- able information (Li and Xu, 2001; Li et al., 2003b). Knowledge discovery (KD) process agglomerates information found by such techni- ques as DM in generating domain knowledge (Bendoly, 2003).

Implication of Knowledge Management in Systems Perspective

The implication of knowledge management has been studied by many authors (Warfield, 1989). Table 1 summarized the selected findings.

In this paper, knowledge management is studied in terms of systems theory and the perspectives listed in Table 1 will be synthe- sized. It is emphasized in this paper that knowledge management can be used to effec- tively manage corporate knowledge assets especially those knowledge in business pro- cesses. Therefore, the objective of knowledge management is considered to promote an enterprise’s core competency. Such an objective can be achieved with a systematic process of creating, maintaining, employing, sharing and renewing knowledge.

Knowledge Management Framework in Systems Point of View

Viewing knowledge management as a man- made system, the boundary of the system and

Data

Information

Knowledge

Data Processing: Organizing, storing,

calculating, Retrieving, Reporting

Information Processing: Reforming,

Quantification, Qualification, Clustering,

learning, Disseminating To be communicated

to others in the form

of text, computer

output, speech and

writing words etc.

Figure 1. Data, information and knowledge

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the elements of the system needs to be deter- mined. Obviously, the boundary of the knowl- edge management system is the corporate business environment, while the elements in the system include knowledge architecture, knowledge management process architecture, organization architecture and IT architecture (Kim et al., 2003). The other questions of interest include the interaction among these elements, the structure of the system, and the function of the system.

Main Factors Influence Knowledge Management Knowledge management system is a system to effectively manage knowledge within an enter- prise. Two main factors are considered influencing the needs of practicing knowledge management. The first factor is competition. If there is a tough competition in a certain industry sector, managing knowledge is generally in high demand. The other factor is the volume of data. If there is a huge volume of data that exist within an enterprise, the data resource is available which can help convert data into information as well as knowledge.

Elements of Knowledge Management System Knowledge architecture, knowledge manage- ment process architecture, organization architec- ture and IT architecture are the four elements of knowledge management system.

The so-called knowledge architecture is the result of classifying organizational knowledge by one or more dimensions. Fernandez et al. distin- guished knowledge into human knowledge, organizational knowledge, technological knowl- edge and relational knowledge (Fernandez et al.,

2000). Human knowledge refers to the knowl- edge acquired by a person that can increase productivity and the contribution to the organi- zation. It also includes other individual qualities such as experience, judgement and intelligence. A firm’s organizational knowledge includes its norms and business guidelines, corporate cul- ture, organizational procedures, as well as strate- gic alliance. Technological knowledge includes knowledge related to the access, use and innova- tion of production techniques and technology (Xu et al., 2005a,b). The relational knowledge consists of the potential derived from the intangible resources related to marketplace, such as brands, customer loyalty, long-term customer relationship, distribution channels, etc (Kanjanasanpetch and Igel, 2003).

The knowledge management process architec- ture defines a variety of processes involved in the life cycle of knowledge, from its creation to termination. Knowledge creation process, know- ledge maintenance process, knowledge distribu- tion process and knowledge review and revision process are the four steps in the entire knowledge management process (Bhatt et al., 2005). Creativ- ity refers to the ability to originate novel and useful ideas and solution (Marakas, 2003). An organization creates knowledge through its employees who are equipped with knowledge and generate new ideas by breaking down business thinking that is no longer viable (Argyris and Schon, 1996; Lynn et al., 1996). Knowledge maintenance refers to making use of existing ‘discovered’ knowledge (Bhatt et al., 2005). Knowledge distribution means the sharing of knowledge across the organization. Knowledge

Table 1. Existing research on the implication of knowledge management

Author Perspective Implication

Siemieniuch and Sinclair (2004) Process Systematic process of applying expertise Kwan and Balasubramanian (2003) Wang and Ariguzo (2004) Mesaric (2004) Fowler and Pryke (2003) Capability Building core competencies through know-how Badii and Sharif (2003) Tzokas and Saren (2004) Nemati et al. (2002) Relationship Converting information to knowledge

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review and revision is the modification and version management of knowledge.

The organization architecture designs organi- zational structure. Organizational structure defi- nes the role of each knowledge management team that is responsible for performing or supporting knowledge management process.

The IT architecture is a technical infrastructure for knowledge management. It defines compo- nents of knowledge management system and their relationships.

Interactions Among the Elements in Knowledge Management System The four elements in knowledge management system are interrelated to each other. Knowledge management system can not attain its purpose without any one of the elements.

The knowledge architecture is the base of the knowledge management process. The knowl- edge management process consists of the main activities in knowledge management. The orga- nization architecture is responsible for perform- ing or supporting knowledge management process. IT architecture is a facilitator for enhan- cing dynamic capabilities through knowledge management (Sher and Lee, 2004).

Structure of Knowledge Management System According to the interaction among the elements in knowledge management system, the structure of knowledge management system is shown in Figure 2.

Both theoretical and empirical researches have shown that knowledge management can play a key role in creating sustainable competi- tive advantages for corporations. In which, the organization architecture is the guarantee of knowledge architecture, knowledge manage- ment process architecture and IT architecture. Right organization architecture has positive effects on the other three elements. On the other hand, knowledge architecture, knowledge man- agement process, and IT architecture all have impacts on organization architecture. Organiza- tion architecture has to be adapted to meet the needs from the three elements too. Knowledge architecture is the base of knowledge manage- ment process. The fundamental function of the knowledge management system is to improve the business process and to achieve superior business performance through effective knowl- edge management process.

Enterprise Information Systems and Knowledge Management

Enterprise information system (EIS) is an inte- grated information system seeking to integrate every single business process and function in the enterprise to present a holistic view of the business with a single IT architecture. It is a powerful and integrated enterprise-level IT archi- tecture that is also designed to facilitate knowl- edge management within an enterprise. The

Knowledge Management system

Organization Architecture

Knowledge

Architecture

Knowledge

Management

Process

Corporation’s

business

operation

Corporation

with superior

performance

Input Output

IT Architecture

Figure 2. The framework of knowledge management system

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characteristics of EIS include (Ross and Vital, 2000):

An EIS is composed of a suite of different modules. Typical modules include accounting, human resource, manufacturing, logistics, custo- mer relationship management, etc. An enterprise can get its EIS solution through integrating a number of modules.

Each module is business process-specific. The use of EIS is associated with business process re- engineering to optimize business processes.

An EIS creates an enterprise-wide transaction structure by integrating modules, data storing/ retrieving processes, and management and ana- lysis functionality.

An EIS is not just a software system; it repre- sents a new kind of managerial thinking. A successful implementation of ERP is not only related to software selection, but also enterprise strategy, enterprise culture, business process reengineering (BPR), top management support, training and others.

Considering the relationship between knowl- edge architecture, knowledge process architec- ture, organization architecture, IT architecture, and enterprise operations, an EIS supports knowledge management that encompasses all types of knowledge in business operations. The support provided by an EIS to an enterprise’ knowledge management is embodied in each module for specific knowledge management. Each module associates with a specific type of business process, which corresponds to a specific knowledge management. The knowledge man- agement of the entire enterprise is realized through the integration of individual knowledge management module.

OVERVIEW OF OSS

Evolution of OSS

In the 1980s, the basic standard of OSS was determined. The main usage is to manage net- works. In the beginning of 1990s, OSS standard has placed emphasis on both network systems and network management. A substantial amount of work has been completed by the International

Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the Inter- national Organization for Standardization (ISO). The representative standards of OSS are Tele- communications Management Network (TMN) and Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). In recent years, the next generation network (NGN) is coming ever closer. NGN is a high speed multi-service packet data network capable of supporting the traditional functions of voice networks, data networks/internets and even mobility by providing quality-assured transmission, switching and services over IP and ATM cores. The competitiveness is in managing service, not managing network resources. Thus the OSS has shifted from network-oriented to service-oriented. During the process of develop- ing OSS standards, support has been provided by service providers (SP), network operation providers, equipment manufacturing enter- prises, and software suppliers.

Definition of OSS

OSS stands for Operations Support Systems. OSS is a common term for the collection of all the support systems required to run a telecom operator’s business. OSS is consisted of four subsystems: Operation Support System (OSS), Business Support System (BSS), Resource Sup- port System (RSS), and System Support System (SSS). The functions of OSS consist of activation, inventory management, fault management, and workforce management, etc. BSS includes custo- mer care, multi-service provisioning, service assurance, and billing, etc. RSS handles network resource management, operation information management, customer basic information man- agement and customer service information, etc. SSS deals with log file, system parameters, etc. Figure 3 provides a framework of OSS in which OSS and BSS are the main functions.

The main functions of OSS include,

* Customer care: provide an interface to the customers for all issues related to customer order, sales, billing, and problem handling.

* Multi-service provision: activate instances of service for particular customers.

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* Service assurance: monitor and uphold the quality of the delivered services.

* Billing: charge for the service. * Planning and administration: plan, design and

administer the services and infrastructures.

* EAI (Enterprise Application Integration): automate the exchange of data between inter- nal applications.

* Activation: execute a service in an optimal and well-defined order

Customer/Market

OSS BSS

Customer Care

Multiservice Provision

Service Assurance

Billing

& Planning Administration

Activation

Inventory Management

Fault Management

Workforce

Management

RSS

Network resource

management

informationOperation

management

basic Customer

information management

serviceCustomer

information management

SSS

User Management

System monitoring system parameters Versioning

Backuping Log file

EAI

Figure 3. OSS structure

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* Inventory management: keep track of the equipment such as where it is, how it is confi- gured, and its status.

* Fault management: handle alarms. * Workforce management: manage and sche-

dule teams of technicians, installers and engi- neers.

In this paper, a network operator is defined as a telecommunication service provider with a network infrastructure and provides multiple services. It could be a network, a fixed-line access network of any kind, or a mobile 2/2.5/3G mobile network. This type of network operator is named as telecom operator throughout the paper. Of course, the research is related to Ser- vice Provider (SP) and Content Provider (CP) with no infrastructure of their own although their tasks are simpler since they only manage services and IT infrastructure.

TOM and OSS

OSS is intended to cover TOM (Telecom Opera- tions Map) provided by the organization TMForum. TOM model focuses on the opera- tional processes within the telecommunication industry. It was designed as a blueprint for pro- cess direction and a starting point for developing and integrating OSS. The relationship between TOM and OSS is shown in Figure 4.

FAB (fulfilment, assurance and billing) is the core area of operations for telecom operators. FAB defines the process for fulfilling an order, assuring the defined level of performance and facilitating billing for the services provided. FAB is carried out through the following vertical processes:

Customer interface management process: It is responsible for the dialogue with customer.

Customer care process: It deals with the custo- mer needs, ways to identify the needs and how to achieve it.

Service/product development and operation process: It handles how the service is offered and how to achieve it.

Network and systems management process: It handles resources required for achieving the service offered to the customer.

Features of OSS

OSS is a kind of EIS, which is applied to tele- communications industry. Corresponding to the characteristics of EIS, OSS’ characteristics can be described as,

The key idea of OSS is the modularization of telecommunications operation management. Tel- ecom operators face a lot of uncertainty. The appearance of new services is very quick. The modular design of OSS is considered a necessity (Wade, 2000).

OSS realizes the end-to-end customer business operation processes. TOM is an important refer- ence function model for OSS planning. The TOM model contains a detailed description of the most important processes involved in running a telecom operator’s operation. Service fulfilment, service assurance, and billing are the three basic customer business operation processes. OSS implementation will inevitably consider business process reengi- neering (Wade, 2000; Huang et al., 2003).

OSS is a highly integrated software architec- ture. Integrating multi-sections’ businesses in a single software platform efficiently for improv- ing customer service is one of the aims of OSS. This task requires a high level of integration among each subsystem.

OSS is not just a software system, but also represents managerial thinking. Using TOM as an important reference model, OSS encourages telecom operators pay more attention to the customers rather than just do billing as in the past (Walsh, 1998).

Generally speaking, OSS can work not only for telecom operators, but also for those other enter- prises with characteristics resemble to that of telecom operators with special network resources, special service flow, and value chain based on these network resources and service flows; for example, large power plants (Feng et al., 2001), traffic management (Takahashi, 1998), and others (Miyamoto et al., 1997; Sherif and Ho, 2000).

Objectives of OSS

As for the motivation for OSS’ implementation, there are six main reasons (Schroter, 1998):

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(1) rapid development and deployment of new services (Everitt and Virgin, 1996); (2) cost reduc- tion through operation automation; (3) business process integration (Xia and Rao, 1997); (4) uniform software platform (Furley, 1996; Appel and Polosky, 1988); (5) customer service

level improvement (Giannelli et al., 1990); (6) efficient network resource and customer resource management (Appel and Polosky, 1988; Kittel et al., 2000).

The objective of OSS is to achieve superior performance, which is embodied in higher

TOM

Customer

Customer Interface Management process

Customer Care Process

Service/Product Development and Operations Process

Physical Network and Information

Technology

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average revenue per user (ARPU), better ser- vices, higher customer satisfaction, and improv- ed asset utilization, etc.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN OSS

Business Environment in Telecommunications Industry

The telecommunications environment can be characterized by its inherent distributive, contin- uous expansion in the size of network, and the particular importance of fault-tolerance requirement. These characteristics are reflected in the design of software systems. Software sys- tems in telecommunications have to cope with the universe of telecommunications protocols, numer- ous hardware platforms, and network architec- tures (Cselényi et al., 1998). The characteristics of telecommunications software systems include high software cost, concurrency, distributivity, reliability, diversity and complexity (Patel, 2002).

Except the above-mentioned industry charac- teristics, telecom operators are facing more and more challenges nowadays. Factors such as globalization and technology innovation repre- sent radical challenges to telecom operators. They must be more and more competitive to survive.

Today’s telecommunication market introduces more competitions; meanwhile offers more choi- ces for customers, lower price and the pressure to improve service quality for operators. As the previous monopoly situation is no longer exist, new entrants come into the market. In emerging economy, state-owned operators are fully or partially privatized in order to survive better (Stienstra et al., 2004).

Globalization promotes the domestic competi- tion. Global telecommunication market gives opportunities to some operators because of the economies of scale in telecommunication net- work, such as BT and Vodafone. It also brings radical domestic competition since more new entrants enter to the market.

Internet technology causes an extraordinary growth of the Internet and IP services and applications. Customers are increasingly free to choose different service components from

different vendors and assemble their own solu- tion (Li and Whalley 2004).

Industry deregulation, globalization, and IP make the telecommunication industry full of intensified competition. The telecommunication market involves a shift from a stable market to an increasingly user-driven market place. The suc- cess of a telecom operator will entirely depend on the operator’s ability to create services and applications that are embraced by the users.

Same as the success brought by knowledge management to the manufacturing sector, know- ledge management is increasingly helping the telecomm sector to keep sustainable competi- tiveness and competency.

Knowledge Management in BSS

BSS focuses on developing the core business by defining marketing and offering strategies, new products implementation and managing existing products. Customer interface management pro- cess and customer care process are the two major aspects involved in BSS. Dialogue carrying, ser- vice ordering, service activation, trouble admin- istration, and billing account review make up all the activities in BSS.

Staff knowledge, organizational knowledge, and relational knowledge form the know- ledge architecture of BSS. There is a plenty of staff knowledge involved such as sales staff’s experience. There are also rich organizational knowledge existing in the customer interface management process and customer care process. Deeper customer knowledge can give rise carriers an edge in developing pricing models (Limbach, 2004). In addition, relational knowledge exists in BSS such as reputation, brands, customer loyalty and distribution channel knowledge. Those are the important factors influencing CRM.

Successful sales experiences can be acquired and shared among the employees in the sales and marketing department. Replication, imitation, elicitation and innovation will be the main acti- vities for knowledge creation. Some knowledge on routine problems, success experience, standard business process, can be considered as existing ‘discovered’ knowledge to be maintained and reused. Sharing of existing knowledge distributes

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knowledge at the organizational level. Due to the fact that the telecommunications industry changes rapidly, new services, new regulation policies, new market environments, all require continual revision of existing knowledge.

BSS is at the front-end in serving customers for telecom operators. Due to the competition in telecommunications industry, organizational structures have increasingly been adjusted to customer-oriented. All of these request organi- zational knowledge process.

Telephone call centre, interactive voice response (IVR), computer telephone integration (CTI), predictive dialers, wireless agents, e-mail, web self service, text chat and web collaboration make up the technology to complete customer communication. IP based call centre, operational CRM and interactive CRM, billing system, and performance management are sets of software to support the business operation process. The integration of these technologies and sets of software forms the IT architecture of BSS.

Knowledge Management in OSS

OSS focuses on planning, developing and delivering services and products in operation domain. Service/product development and operation process are the operational processes. OSS deals with service generation and network resource planning.

Human knowledge, organizational knowledge, technological knowledge and relational knowl- edge are all involved in OSS. Those previous service cases, as well as proven cross-selling rules are human knowledge. How to organize service/ product development, operation process, and network, is considered as organizational knowl- edge. In addition, culture, regulations, and partnerships are considered as organizational knowledge as well. There are many innovative techniques and skills involved with these which are considered as technological knowledge. Inter- estingly, the greater the scope of services offered, and the greater the range of quality and price options, the more efficient (and cost efficient) the use of the network resources. Service innovation is a key factor for revenue growth of a telecom company. For designing a successful marketing

strategy, some intangible resources will inevitably be used. And a successful strategy will also create new intangible resources. These intangible resources are relational knowledge.

Knowledge can be created from studying previous successful service offering. The enligh- tening effect can create new types of human, organizational, technological and relational knowledge. All of the knowledge can be acquired and reused. Sharing such knowledge can further diffuse knowledge across the enterprise.

OSS is operated at the back end which provides decision support for BSS. Knowledge sharing and creating are essential to such deci- sion support function. For reducing ‘noise’ and eliminating barriers across sectors, smooth com- munication is required. Organizational structure, based on traditional command and control, must shift to an open and collaborative structure.

The analytical CRM is an outstanding compo- nent to support service/product development process. Decision support system (DSS) and expert system (ES) are both common tools.

Knowledge Management in RSS

RSS focuses on planning, developing and deli- vering resources needed to support services and products in the operations domain. Network and systems management process is the operational process in RSS.

Human knowledge, organizational knowledge and technological knowledge are the main types of knowledge. Those previous network resource planning cases and the accumulated network resource management strategy form the major human knowledge. Database, data marts and data warehouses about services and products represent the major organizational knowledge. Some inno- vation techniques are technological knowledge.

Organizational structure has influence on RSS, but the degree of influence is much weaker than that to OSS and BSS. Database, data mart and data warehouse are the three data storages in RSS.

Knowledge Management in SSS

SSS is of significance to OSS as an EIS. A variety of technological knowledge is involved with this

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system including operating systems methods and techniques. In general, organizational structure has relatively minor influence on it.

Summary

BSS, OSS, RSS and SSS are integrated into a single OSS through system integrator (SI) software. Knowledge management varies among different components in OSS. BSS and OSS involve with types of knowledge throughout the entire knowl-

edge management process, requiring organiza- tional learning, open organization structure and certain IT architecture. RSS involves human knowledge, organizational knowledge and tech- nological knowledge. Organizational structure has a less significant influence on it. Data mani- pulation tools are needed. Technological knowl- edge is the main type of knowledge involved in SSS for which organizational structure has minor effect on it. The summary of knowledge manage- ment in OSS is described in Table 2.

Table 2. Summary of knowledge management in OSS

OSS\ Knowledge Knowledge Organization IT Function KM Architecture Management Architecture Architecture

Process

BSS Human knowledge, Create, maintain, Team management, Call centre To provide organizational distribute and revise project manager, CTI, operational customer knowledge, knowledge to support communicate with CRM, interactive service relational customer interface knowledge management process software vender CRM, billing effectively

and customer care system, etc process

OSS Human knowledge, Create, maintain, Team management, Analytical CRM, To support the organizational distribute and revise project manager, DSS, etc. customer service knowledge, knowledge to support communicate with provision technological service/product software vender effectively knowledge, development and relational operation process knowledge

RSS Human knowledge, Create, maintain, Team management Database, data To support the organizational distribute knowledge mart, warehouse, above activities knowledge, to support network etc. effectively technological and systems knowledge management process

SSS Technological Revise knowledge to Team management OS, such as Unix To support the knowledge support OSS’ regular operation etc. above activities

effectively

OSS Human knowledge, Create, maintain, Team management, Enterprise To gain superior In knowledge, distribute and revise project manager, Information advantage general knowledge, knowledge to support communicate with Systems (EIS) through

organizational the horizontal business software effectively knowledge, process of fulfilment vendor providing technological assurance and billing end-to-end knowledge, (FAB) customer service relational knowledge

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

An integrated OSS is a combination of applica- tions that interact with each other to enable sup- port, administration and management of services for telecom industry. It includes systems that manage the networking infrastructure, planning tools, billing systems, customer care, trouble management tools and the like. It is the funda- mental integrated software platform for telecom operators. It is an EIS used in the telecommuni- cations industry.

Although there are some researches on the knowledge management in EIS, especially in ERP, there are only limited researches on knowledge management in OSS. In this paper, an overview of knowledge management in OSS and its frame- work is provided. Future research will be focusing on knowledge management in OSS implementa- tion, key knowledge management techniques in OSS (Liao, 2003; Sher and Lee, 2004), knowledge version management in OSS, etc.

In this paper, a knowledge management model in OSS with systems point of view is proposed. A knowledge management framework for OSS in systems perspectives is also developed.

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