What Are BSSs and OSSs and Why Are They Important?

As telecommunications companies explore digital transformation’s role in improving efficiency and service delivery, they’re turning their attention to business support systems and operations support systems. Often referred to as BSSs and OSSs, these complementary software packages are proving popular. According to Grand View Research, the global OSS and BSS market is anticipated to reach $132.43 billion by 2030, up from $57.5 billion in 2023—a compound annual growth rate of 13.3%.

And it’s no wonder these systems are becoming more prevalent in the telecom industry. As networks become increasingly complex amid the rise of 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT), companies benefit from a converged view of operations and business processes that lets them better manage their assets and demonstrate their value to customers. Integrating BSS and OSS solutions positions telecom businesses to automate provisioning, present personalized customer offers, and proactively resolve issues, such as network congestion or service interruptions—all of which helps keep customers happy.

What Are BSSs and OSSs?

BSSs are software tools that help telecom companies manage customer-related activities, such as marketing, billing, fulfillment, and outreach. As the name implies, business professionals in sales, marketing, or customer service roles typically manage BSSs in a telecom setting. OSSs, on the other hand, are the hardware components and software applications that monitor, manage, and maintain telecom networks. Engineers, software developers, and other employees with technical backgrounds use OSSs to oversee network planning, inventory, and configuration.

Key Takeaways

• BSSs handle the business side of telecom, including order fulfillment and customer outreach, while OSSs manage network planning and configuration.
• While BSSs and OSSs have different objectives, integrating the two lets companies oversee business and operations as an end-to-end process.
• Key benefits of BSSs include better customer service, improved revenue management, and faster time to market for new offerings.
• Advantages of OSSs include more efficient network operations, keener service quality, and greater agility in managing and deploying network resources.
• Telecom companies evaluating BSS and OSS partners should consider software scalability and vendor support.

BSSs and OSSs Explained

Simply put, BSSs help manage the customer-facing functions that support a telecom provider’s ability to sell and get paid for its products and services. These typically include order management (processing new service requests and upgrades), billing (generating invoices, tracking usage, collecting payments), and customer care (handling inquiries and resolving issues). Meanwhile, OSSs handle the technical operations behind the scenes—network inventory, provisioning, fault detection, and performance monitoring. Together, BSSs and OSSs provide the service orchestration necessary to keep a network humming and customers connected.

How Do BSSs and OSSs Support Telecom Companies?

In an ideal scenario, BSSs and OSSs complement each other. Integrating these systems unifies business and operational data sources and workflows by eliminating silos, allowing companies to manage previously disparate functions as an end-to-end process. This helps telecom companies adapt their business more quickly to meet evolving technology trends. Examples include the act of upgrading network infrastructure to 5G or rolling out capabilities to support IoT devices, then adopting pricing or bundling strategies to help customers take advantage of new services.

What’s the Difference Between BSSs and OSSs?

The differences between BSSs and OSSs come down to who uses the software and for what purpose. Sales, marketing, and customer support professionals use BSSs to manage relationships with a telecom company’s customers, whereas engineers and other technical professionals manage OSSs to make sure networks are working properly.

BSSs vs. OSSs

	BSSs	OSSs
Focus	Business activities	Network Management
Functions	CRM, order management, billing fulfillment, product management	Network planning and configuration, inventory management, fault management
Users	Sales, marketing, and customer service	Technical development and engineering

Examples of BSSs

The tools most commonly included in BSSs are:

• CRM software that contains customers’ demographic information, along with their sales and billing history and a record of marketing outreach.
• Service and support features that help customers find product documentation, file service requests, and communicate with service representatives via live chat.
• Product management tools that maintain product catalogs, develop pricing structures, and oversee inventory in response to customer demand.
• Billing software that handles multiple pricing plans, generates invoices, and accepts real-time payments.
• Order management tools that track order placement, fulfillment, activation, and provisioning.
• Revenue tracking features that monitor revenue as it pertains to pricing, past and current discounts, and active promotions.
• Analytics tools that automatically generate reports on usage patterns, revenue trends, and customer behavior.

Examples of OSSs

Key tools that are typically elements of OSSs include:

• Network inventory management tools that track the physical assets a service provider is responsible for maintaining.
• Configuration management features that make sure device settings, software versions, and security patches are up to date.
• Planning and optimization tools that help maximize network capacity and coverage to accommodate traffic growth and that proactively address potential service issues.
• Performance management software that monitors latency, loss, network speed, and other real-time indicators of network performance.
• Fault management capabilities that detect outages or other failures.
• Security management tools that allow firewalls, virtual private networks, and threat detection and response systems to function as needed to defend against the latest kinds of cybersecurity threats.
• Service provisioning and fulfillment features that configure and deploy new services.

How Do BSSs and OSSs Work Together?

BSSs and OSSs work together to strengthen the link between network performance and customer satisfaction. In short, unreliable service leads to unhappy customers. When business teams can access real-time insights into where, when, and how connectivity has been interrupted, they can better communicate with customers about getting issues resolved. Similarly, operations teams that can see which customers are canceling contracts can investigate potential causes and recommend solutions to reduce customer churn, such as infrastructure upgrades or new service offerings.

Taking a broader view, the integration of BSSs and OSSs breaks down the data and workflow silos that have traditionally forced business and operations teams to function separately. This paves the way for the adoption of AI and automation at scale so that telecom providers can work more efficiently and improve service delivery. Take service provisioning, for example: Once a customer places an order through a BSS, network services can be automatically reconfigured by an OSS. Or, consider an OSS identifying network congestion and triggering a BSS to offer a service upgrade or send a support message before customers notice a drop in performance.

Benefits of Business Support Systems

BSSs help telecom companies improve their connection with customers and understand their needs. These systems provide CRM software for customer outreach, product tools for creating custom service offerings, and billing features to automatically generate invoices. Mature BSSs can include self-service portals to help customers find information, request changes to their contract, or inquire about issues at their convenience. Benefits of BSSs include:

• Better customer service: BSSs improve customer service by providing an integrated experience. When customers can seamlessly transition from support forums to online chat services for issue resolution, or from marketing messages to mobile apps to reply to offers, they’re more likely to be satisfied and loyal to the company.
• Stronger revenue: BSSs offer insights into projected and actual revenue. Business staff can see which pricing models are most effective, which promotions bring in new business, or which discounts contribute to higher retention rates. This helps increase revenue and provides important context for decision-making related to pricing for new products and services.
• Automated tasks: Workflow automation can improve a range of business processes, from generating customer bills to managing requests for routine service upgrades. When this work can be done without human intervention, sales and service staff can focus on tasks that benefit from their attention, such as speaking with customers at risk of cancellation.
• Faster time to market: A better understanding of customer preferences, coupled with the flexibility and scalability of process automation, can help telecom companies roll out new products and services quickly. This can include large-scale upgrades (such as 5G infrastructure across a geographic area) or specific offerings for individual customers (such as increased broadband coverage on a corporate campus).

Picking the Right Business Support Systems for Your Telecom Business

Selecting the right BSS partner isn’t critical only for customer service and product development. Having the right software in place can position a telecom provider to succeed in an industry where projected revenue growth for the next three years is just 2.9%—lower than the expected rate of inflation. Here are five steps for choosing the right BSS partner for your telecom business:

1. Define integration needs: While there are clear advantages to integrating BSSs and OSSs, telecom companies also benefit from integrating BSSs with other enterprise applications, such as CRM, ERP, network management, logistics, and financial planning. This facilitates the flow of data across the enterprise and supports the creation of automated workflows.
2. Determine scalability and flexibility needs: BSSs should be equipped to support a company as it expands its customer base and product portfolio—along with the growth in data that comes with it. Likewise, BSSs must adapt as business needs change, technology evolves, and markets shift (whether from increased competition or stricter regulatory environments).
3. Consider end user support: Since telecom companies typically operate 24/7, around-the-clock technical support is an important consideration. So, too, are software updates and security patches that are applied automatically, as these let staff focus on the work they do best, not on managing the software they use.
4. Identify the capabilities that matter most: The real power of BSSs shows up when the systems work well with OSSs. For example, integrated systems can automatically provision a customer’s order and confirm when a new service is ready—or detect and resolve network issues before customers even notice. Look for a BSS partner that offers these kinds of automation capabilities, since they directly reduce manual work and improve the customer experience.
5. Prioritize features that strengthen customer support: Beyond aggregating customer data, BSSs with strong CRM capabilities automatically create support tickets to make sure issues are addressed smoothly and logged for future reference. Leading systems offer self-service capabilities, enabling savvy customers to submit their own requests and alleviating customer service teams from the burden of managing routine interactions.

How NetSuite ERP Supports Telecom Business Management

In an ultra-competitive business environment, today’s telecom companies need technology tools that improve efficiency, meet customer expectations for service availability, provide reliable support, and track revenue with an eye toward growth. NetSuite ERP provides the functionality necessary to give business professionals visibility into precious customer data: what products they use, what issues they report, what contract terms bring in the most revenue, and so on. In addition, NetSuite ERP’s unified view of business and operational data sets the stage for automating processes from fulfillment to billing to issue resolution, helping telecom providers deliver what customers need, when they need it.

As technology continues to transform the telecom industry, leading companies are turning to integrated BSSs and OSSs to connect customers to the right services and verify that network infrastructure is up to the task. With a centralized repository of business and operational data in place, providers can improve customer service, increase visibility into revenue, and bring new products and services to market quickly.

BSS and OSS FAQs

What’s the purpose of BSSs?

Business support systems (BSSs) help telecom companies manage interactions with customers, including billing, service fulfillment, marketing, and outreach. Having the right BSSs in place lets providers monitor service quality more effectively, gain insights into customer behavior, and resolve common issues to improve customer experience and reduce churn.

What’s BSS and OSS testing?

For business support systems (BSSs), software testing entails making sure billing, ordering, and CRM workflows are both efficient and accurate. For operations support systems (OSSs), testing is a matter of assessing reliability and scalability for core network operations, including service provisioning and fault management.

What’s a BSS tool?

Business support systems (BSSs) assist sales, marketing, and other professional staff in managing and supporting relationships with customers. They integrate a range of data sources to enable automated workflows for communicating with customers, provisioning new services, sending bills, and processing payments, which alleviates the burden of skilled workers having to perform routine tasks.

What’s the role of BSSs in revenue management?

Using business support systems (BSSs), telecom companies gain insights into projected and actual revenue. Teams can see which pricing models work best, which marketing promotions contribute to new business, and which discounts boost retention rates the most.