idelines. 8.3.4.1 eTOM The TM Forum has defined a business process framework for the telecom industry commonly known as eTOM. The Enhanced Telecom Operations Map is considered as the heart of the of TM Forum's NGOSS. The eTOM provides a "common language" of business processes that are used in the telecom operations. It serves as the blue print for process direction and the starting point for development and integration of NGOSS. It enables service providers and their suppliers to work together to understand the current state of their business activities, identify improvements, and define new processes to streamline the business [28-30]. The eTOM process map has multiple levels of notion that covers three main areas as shown in Figure 8.19. At the overall conceptual level, the eTOM can be viewed as having the following three major (Level 0) process areas: Strategy, Infrastructure and Product (SIP): It focuses on the processes that support the development of new strategies for marketing, services development and management, resource development and management and supply chain development and management. Enterprise Management: This domain includes those basic business processes that are required to run and manage an enterprise. The process areas such as R&D, technology acquisition, HR management, financial and asset management, and SO on. Operations: It covers the core operational management areas. eTOM defines business processes in a hierarchal manner that begins at the Level 0 that captures process descriptions, inputs and outputs, as well as other key elements for each process at each subsequent level (Level 1, 2, etc.). The business process framework constitutes of both vertical and horizontal processes. The vertical process group constitutes end-to-end process flow-through while the hori- zontal process grouping represents a value chain functional grouping and will often share the same information. The eTOM contains seven end-to-end vertical Level 1 process groupings across operations and SIP, representing the 