tems and to provide centralised net- work inventory management. The benefits of this are now outlined. 10.2 The Business Case for Inventory Management This section is based on the approach taken by BoldTech to network inventory management. BoldTech is an OSS software vendor and service provider. The provisioning process must be efficient in order for telecommunications serv- ice providers to be able to deliver service to their customers quickly and at low cost. Inventory management is central to the provisioning process. The ultimate aim is to have a provisioning environment where orders can flow from inception to activation on the network with minimal manual intervention, or "zero touch provisioning". There are several issues with many providers that prevent this from happening. Among these, inventory inaccuracy most increases the chance that a provisioning cycle will be unsuccessful. Since multiple workgroups may be involved in provision- ing, either independently or interdependently, real-time accuracy of inventory is a worthwhile goal. An ROI-based business case exists for network inventory for incumbent and next-generation service providers. This works by quantifying the costs and benefits associated with a network inventory system, including economic valuation. The eco- nomic valuation includes: payback cash flow analysis benefit-to-cost ratio net present value internal rate of return payback period sensitivity analysis. The business case focuses on: 1. revenue recognition through acceleration of customer in-service dates through provisioning processes improvement 2. savings in operational expenses by increasing the productivity of provisioning personnel 3. capital expenditure offsets achieved by recovery of existing network asset inven- tory, and the correct and appropriate classification of the existing inventory state. BoldTech issued a whitepaper entitled "Network Inventory: a Critical Piece for Solving the Elusive Flow-through Provisioning Problem" that was helpful in quanti- fying the cost-benefit tra