ion 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 bill for- matting application in most cases act as a COTS (commercial off the shelf) product that easily integrates with the billing system. This way the records and customer information can be properly formatted as per requirements of the service provider and the customer. 3. Fraud management: There are several types of fraud that the telecom service provider may want to monitor. Postpaid customers who don't pay the bill and key switching SIM cards, blocking of a stolen mobile and its SIM card, and cal