rface application needs to be secure and should have a solid authentication and authorization mechanism. These applications provide fully assisted automated service over various customers touch points. The customer self-management application interacts with the customer relationship management modules and performs the oper- ations that was previously done by a support desk professional. 27. Customer problem management: This application is intended to handle cus- tomer problems. It is closely linked with trouble ticketing. When a customer calls with a service or billing problem, the customer information and prob- lem details are collected using problem management application. When the reported problem cannot be fixed immediately, a trouble ticket is raised SO that customer can refer to the ticket number for tracking the status of the problem resolution. The trouble ticket is assigned to the appropriate team in service or network support department and the problem management module continuously tracks the status of the ticket. Customer problem resolution applications are mainly concerned with how the problem would affect the relationship between the customer and service Management Applications provider. It is quite common to integrate customer problem management with service problem management and resource/network problem manage- ment applications. 28. Partner management: The service provider offering maximum value for the money and has the maximum number of services are the best choice for most customers. To be competitive in the telecom market, most service providers offer a lot of services from partners to add to their service portfolio. This gives the customers the flexibility to choose from a wide variety of services. Service providers can also form channel partners to offer their products to other markets where they are not direct players. Revenue from the customer for service packages needs to be shared among these value chain entities based on predefined agreements. Partner management applications handle al