US: The market for third-party order-management (OM) software that addresses many of the inefficiencies in a CSP's ordering processes has attracted the attention of all the major players in the communications market, including Tier 1 and 2 CSPs, large independent software vendors, and systems integrators. A new Yankee Group report, "Order-Management Software Addresses Inefficiencies in the Order-to-Cash Life Cycle," explores three major trends in this market.

"All of the large communications focused software vendors (Amdocs, AMS, CSG, Convergys, Siebel, and Telcordia) have either acquired OM product companies or recently introduced more comprehensive OM solutions," says Sharon Ballard, Yankee Group Telecom Software Strategies analyst. "These large vendors are now squarely focused on capturing order-management market share. As a result, many pure-play OM vendors that have lowered their profile in the marketplace will either go out of business or be acquired by larger software vendors in the next 12 months."

Today approximately 75 percent of CSP's OM spending is for custom-built OM solutions (new solutions or maintenance of installed OM solutions), but this trend is changing. Capital constraints as well as a maturing market for COTS OM solutions will prompt CSPs to increase spending on standards-based OM product solutions.

Key reasons for the interest in the order-management market include:

Software vendors see an opportunity to sell CSPs order-management systems for new service offerings, including IP data, long distance, VoIP, and 2.5G and 3G wireless data services.

CSPs will invest in OM solutions to address manual or semi-automated ordering processes that increase order fallout and raise operating costs.

No ISV dominates the OM software market, making order management an attractive target market for many vendors.