bbned is the Dutch subsidiary of Telecom Italia, set up in 2000 to take advantage of Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) to provide broadband services to the Dutch market through Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technology. At its launch in 2000, its ambition was to become the no.2 provider and profitable within 3 years.

Business Challenges
There was a limited window of opportunity and bbned needed to launch the service quickly, i.e. within 100 days, in order to gain a competitive advantage in the market. They also wanted to achieve an ultra-low cost of ownership for both business and operational systems and processes. This meant that they needed a strong partner to define, develop and maintain an end-to-end IT solution that would enable:

• Full business process automation including the effective management of inherently complex and ever changing business processes
• The rapid introduction of new products and service functionality 
• A customer centric approach to enhance quality and differentiate bbned in the market place

Solution
Atos Origin was approached and designed and implemented a framework architecture based around TIBCO middleware and best of breed applications. This allowed bbned to introduce automation in a phased manner (reducing risk) and also new products and services, quickly and cheaply.

We implemented a scalable and flexible OSS/BSS platform and used a Solution Architect driven approach, and joint design workshops, for top-down control of E2E design including operational process maps and effective component re-use. Furthermore, we provided 24x7 Application Management and on-going tuning and development.

Benefits
The platform was successfully launched in 100 days in January 2001 and the ambition to become no. 2 in market and profitable achieved a year ahead of schedule. The introduction of extensive business process automation, web-based customer self-care, and re-useable B2B interfaces have enabled ‘zero touch’ process automation from front to back office. 95% of orders require no manual intervention from bbned and orders are fulfilled 15 days faster than the competition. The Total Cost of Ownership remains significantly below that of the competition and bbned have experienced enhanced speed to market and greater operational transparency.

“We wanted a partner who would give us speed and flexibility, as well as the most advanced technology. The real benefit of Atos Origin’s DSL solution is that it is customized to fit our individual requirements.”
Hans Rietkerk, CEO bbned