. Others: While most applications fall under one of the categories listed above, there are some applications like integration tools, process management, sup- plier management, transportation management, and retailer management that does not strictly fall in a specific category. In most cases, some of the features in these applications will either be part of business management or enterprise management. Applications are discussed in this chapter with regard to the functionality sup- ported by the application rather than category to which the application belongs. 23.2 Overview of Applications 1. Inventory management: This application is intended to maintain the active list of inventory or assets in the service provider space. It is also referred to as asset management application. Before provisioning a service, the provi- sioning module queries the inventory module to identify the set of resources that can be allocated for provisioning the service. The inventory module also performs the function of allocating resources and keeping track of the allo- cated resources. This application is also linked with taking key decisions of when new inventory is to be procured and provides insight on possible asset capacity to meet the requirements of a new service. Inventory management applications are no longer linked with keeping the data of static assets that can be put to use. Current inventory management applications perform auto discovery and dynamically updates asset status information. 2. Bill formatting: There are many vendors currently in the telecom industry that provide a solution for bill formatting. With new value added services Management Applications and practice of converged billing, the information content in a bill is quite complex. There is a need for proper bill formatting applications that can abstract relevant information based on the services subscribed by the cus- tomer. The actual bill format and the way information is arranged may vary from customer to customer based on their individual preference. The