Open APIs

Hi everyone,

I have multiple channels to which I have to expose my product catalog and the offers therein.
The current scheme per TMF 620, is that I have to create an offer and indicate the channel(s) that it is applicable for.

But say, if I wish to sell a particular offer at different price points on different channels. Does this mean I create different offers for the same product spec (different offer prices)? If yes, I would end up creating a large set of redundant (sort of) offer sets. There could be other parameters (like char values of prod specs / segment / attachments) that I may want to differentiate my base offer by channel.

Is there a better way to handle this, given the current schema structures? 


------------------------------
Sandeep Munde
------------------------------

Hi Sandeep,

Just few cents here....TMF experts can validate though..

ProductOffering has 0..* relationship to ProductOfferingPriceRef. And further ProductOfferingPrice also has relationship to ProductSpecifictionCharacteristicValueUse, which can drive certain pricing constraints like for examples your mentioned above.

So, a single ProductOffering can have multiple POPs associated with it, where each POP can offer a price for different channel/segment for example.

------------------------------
Sweety Nagpal
Oracle Corporation
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Feb 17, 2020 09:51
From: Sandeep Munde
Subject: TMF 620 - Modelling Offers - by channel

Hi everyone,

I have multiple channels to which I have to expose my product catalog and the offers therein.
The current scheme per TMF 620, is that I have to create an offer and indicate the channel(s) that it is applicable for.

But say, if I wish to sell a particular offer at different price points on different channels. Does this mean I create different offers for the same product spec (different offer prices)? If yes, I would end up creating a large set of redundant (sort of) offer sets. There could be other parameters (like char values of prod specs / segment / attachments) that I may want to differentiate my base offer by channel.

Is there a better way to handle this, given the current schema structures?


------------------------------
Sandeep Munde
------------------------------

Original Message------

Hi everyone,

I have multiple channels to which I have to expose my product catalog and the offers therein.
The current scheme per TMF 620, is that I have to create an offer and indicate the channel(s) that it is applicable for.

But say, if I wish to sell a particular offer at different price points on different channels. Does this mean I create different offers for the same product spec (different offer prices)? If yes, I would end up creating a large set of redundant (sort of) offer sets. There could be other parameters (like char values of prod specs / segment / attachments) that I may want to differentiate my base offer by channel.

Is there a better way to handle this, given the current schema structures? 


------------------------------
Sandeep Munde
------------------------------

Thanks for the response. 

My query is related to other parameters as well (like characteristic values of prod specs / segment / attachments) that I may want to differentiate by channel. How can I define channel specific characteristic values for same offering (without creating new offerings). For online channel, characteristic value is 'xyz' and for retail channel, value is 'abc' for example. 
This can be achieved if I create two offerings for different channels, but my main goal is to reduce number of offerings.

------------------------------
Sandeep Munde
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Feb 18, 2020 04:08
From: Sri Jagadish Baddukonda
Subject: TMF 620 - Modelling Offers - by channel

HI,

 

This is more relevant to SID than open APIs.

The way to implement this is to have differential pricing logic for the same Product entity based on the POP definition with Price event  based on criterion like Channel etc.

 

Regards,

Sri Jagadish

This email communication is CONFIDENTIAL AND LEGALLY PRIVILEGED. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify me at the telephone number shown above or by return email and delete this communication and any copy immediately. Thank you

Original Message------

Hi everyone,

I have multiple channels to which I have to expose my product catalog and the offers therein.
The current scheme per TMF 620, is that I have to create an offer and indicate the channel(s) that it is applicable for.

But say, if I wish to sell a particular offer at different price points on different channels. Does this mean I create different offers for the same product spec (different offer prices)? If yes, I would end up creating a large set of redundant (sort of) offer sets. There could be other parameters (like char values of prod specs / segment / attachments) that I may want to differentiate my base offer by channel.

Is there a better way to handle this, given the current schema structures?


------------------------------
Sandeep Munde
------------------------------

Hi Sandeep, 

I agree with the previous comment that this is, in some respects,  a SID question and you may wish to pose question in the Frameworx Community.

In my opinion, the relevant question to ask is "Does the Offer represent the same value proposition across channels?".  I'm not talking about EXACT values, say $50/month vs $52/month but rather is the selection of Product capabilities and price point sufficiently similar that a reasonable person would view them as the same Offers?  IF the answer is yes, then the it is worth some, but not a lot, of effort to model a single Offer with contextual variations.

If the Offers truly represent different value propositions: higher bandwidth or significantly more free minutes, very different pricing or additional included features for one channel vs another, then I would propose that these are indeed different Offers.  

One acid test I like to use: will Sales Reporting, Revenue Assurance, and other analytics systems downstream from Order Capture wish to report on these sales separately? If so, then having a separate Offer for each combination may be useful.  Another test: will the downstream billing system be able to determine the pricing and included features from one Offer with many variations vs many Offers with few variations?  Still another test: is it reasonable to assume that the Offers will have the same name and marketing collateral across the choices or will the marketing message vary by specific configurations?

This is not a black and white subject area.  "It depends".  Keeping the cardinality of the Offer Catalogue low is a good goal to have but should not be the primary driver for Offer Model design - hopefully your Offer Authoring tool has features to allow you to quickly identify and work with similar Offerings as a group to minimize manual editing effort.  Creating fewer Offers with more complex policies, conditions, qualification criteria is not necessarily more maintainable than a Catalogue with more Offers that are structural simpler (and similar).

------------------------------
Greg Herringer
IBM Corporation
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Feb 18, 2020 06:58
From: Sandeep Munde
Subject: TMF 620 - Modelling Offers - by channel

Thanks for the response.

My query is related to other parameters as well (like characteristic values of prod specs / segment / attachments) that I may want to differentiate by channel. How can I define channel specific characteristic values for same offering (without creating new offerings). For online channel, characteristic value is 'xyz' and for retail channel, value is 'abc' for example.
This can be achieved if I create two offerings for different channels, but my main goal is to reduce number of offerings.

------------------------------
Sandeep Munde

Original Message:
Sent: Feb 18, 2020 04:08
From: Sri Jagadish Baddukonda
Subject: TMF 620 - Modelling Offers - by channel

HI,

 

This is more relevant to SID than open APIs.

The way to implement this is to have differential pricing logic for the same Product entity based on the POP definition with Price event  based on criterion like Channel etc.

 

Regards,

Sri Jagadish

This email communication is CONFIDENTIAL AND LEGALLY PRIVILEGED. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify me at the telephone number shown above or by return email and delete this communication and any copy immediately. Thank you

Original Message------

Hi everyone,

I have multiple channels to which I have to expose my product catalog and the offers therein.
The current scheme per TMF 620, is that I have to create an offer and indicate the channel(s) that it is applicable for.

But say, if I wish to sell a particular offer at different price points on different channels. Does this mean I create different offers for the same product spec (different offer prices)? If yes, I would end up creating a large set of redundant (sort of) offer sets. There could be other parameters (like char values of prod specs / segment / attachments) that I may want to differentiate my base offer by channel.

Is there a better way to handle this, given the current schema structures?


------------------------------
Sandeep Munde
------------------------------

Hi Sandeep.   I agree with Greg comments. If the offer features and capabilities have some distinctive features by channels and therefore the differential pricing suggestions, logically these are different offers.  This will also lend itself better to business performance (marketing, finance and RA) comparative analysis.

------------------------------
Augustine Vaz
Ericsson Inc.
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Feb 18, 2020 06:58
From: Sandeep Munde
Subject: TMF 620 - Modelling Offers - by channel

Thanks for the response.

My query is related to other parameters as well (like characteristic values of prod specs / segment / attachments) that I may want to differentiate by channel. How can I define channel specific characteristic values for same offering (without creating new offerings). For online channel, characteristic value is 'xyz' and for retail channel, value is 'abc' for example.
This can be achieved if I create two offerings for different channels, but my main goal is to reduce number of offerings.

------------------------------
Sandeep Munde

Original Message:
Sent: Feb 18, 2020 04:08
From: Sri Jagadish Baddukonda
Subject: TMF 620 - Modelling Offers - by channel

HI,

 

This is more relevant to SID than open APIs.

The way to implement this is to have differential pricing logic for the same Product entity based on the POP definition with Price event  based on criterion like Channel etc.

 

Regards,

Sri Jagadish

This email communication is CONFIDENTIAL AND LEGALLY PRIVILEGED. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify me at the telephone number shown above or by return email and delete this communication and any copy immediately. Thank you

Original Message------

Hi everyone,

I have multiple channels to which I have to expose my product catalog and the offers therein.
The current scheme per TMF 620, is that I have to create an offer and indicate the channel(s) that it is applicable for.

But say, if I wish to sell a particular offer at different price points on different channels. Does this mean I create different offers for the same product spec (different offer prices)? If yes, I would end up creating a large set of redundant (sort of) offer sets. There could be other parameters (like char values of prod specs / segment / attachments) that I may want to differentiate my base offer by channel.

Is there a better way to handle this, given the current schema structures?


------------------------------
Sandeep Munde
------------------------------