Kurmi Software - BCOM for the Core and an Extensive Service Brokerage Platform

7 Jul 2015

This article is part of a series where UCStrategies examines BCOM vendors

The category of products and solutions defined as Business Communications Operations Management (BCOM) systems is increasingly being seen as the critical component of delivering a successful Unified Communications (UC) environment. BCOM enables organizations, both enterprises and service providers, to automate and optimize the configuration and operation of the range of components within a UC system. However, BCOM can be part of a larger capability to manage all of the aspects of provisioning in the IT environment.

Today, UCStrategies examines Kurmi Software, a leading Paris-based BCOM vendor. Kurmi has a differentiated view of the UC landscape, as well as unique capabilities focused on UC as both an IT application and as a User Experience.

According to Abdel Kander, CEO of Kurmi, "The modern CIO sees UC and advanced Business Communications as another application in their arsenal. They are looking for management tools that operate similarly to other IT applications, not as telephony systems." This concept has led Kurmi to a user-centric model, rather than a device/line/port-centric model for their BCOM solutions. The Kurmi solution starts with Kurmi Unified Provisioning tailored for ongoing operations, especially for complexities of enterprises. It also includes Kurmi Sunrise, focused on service activation, which is of great value to service providers and integrators who need to streamline and automate the initial customer deployments. With Kurmi Unified Selfcare, the focus moves directly to the user, enabling individual users to activate and provision parts of their services directly.

Kurmi has had significant success with service providers, especially those managing cloud services to enterprises. For example, NTT Communications uses Kurmi Unified Provisioning to manage a large multi-customer UCaaS deployment. Marc Ossart, of NTT Communications said, "Using BCOM is critical to meeting our goals for profitability in our cloud operations. If we were using more traditional configuration methods, our costs would explode. I think enterprises that are, in effect, operating a private cloud can learn from our experience and see that BCOM is critical to their success." Kurmi believes that using these BCOM solutions for services providers is critical to deliver the platforms that enterprises need to manage their UC and advanced business Communications deployments.

In working with Service Providers, Kurmi Software complements UC vendor solutions when used as the enabling technology platform for a UCaaS solution. Eric Penisson, General Manager of the Communications Business Unit at Alcatel Lucent Enterprise, commented on their use of Kurmi: "In the context of OpenTouch Enterprise Cloud, there is a strong demand from our Business Partners to securely delegate to local managers and users several ancillary tasks, such as moves/adds/changes, and provisioning a prepackaged set of services. With Kurmi UP, we're leveraging a partnership initiated almost a decade ago with Kurmi Software, to offer a comprehensive and flexible web provisioning solution to our customers."

While Kurmi has a significant focus on service providers and integrators, the company also sees opportunity with enterprises looking to manage cloud services to complement their internal applications. Gartner has referred to the management of cloud services as a Service Brokerage, defined as the function of provisioning and configuring the multiple cloud services. Kurmi has focused on enhancing their products to enable just this level of capability. For example, if an organization has chosen "best of breed" vendors, they may have their UC solution from one vendor, messaging from another, and Contact Center from a third. Kurmi enables the organization to automate the process of provisioning a new user across all three cloud instances with a single input, eliminating the need to deal with multiple interfaces and provisioning issues.

In looking to the future, Abdel indicated that he sees this as a major growth area, "While BCOM focuses on the communications platforms, our customers are asking us to extend to other applications like Salesforce and email. They want single action provisioning of the multiple cloud elements that make up the modern IT environment." This focus makes Kurmi a good option as a common Service Brokerage hub for organizations open to enriching their service portfolios with other Cloud services. Kurmi has extended their provisioning beyond traditional UC systems to include other platforms like Salesforce, Box.com, Zuora, etc., enabling a single change to be migrated across a range of cloud options. Jean-Christophe Majchrzak, UC Architect and Project Manager of a major Swiss Private Bank, is commenting about this common Service Brokerage hub concept: "Kurmi UP has allowed us to streamline and simplify our daily UC management for years. Bringing the power of Kurmi beyond UC is a real opportunity for us to further optimize our operations. We are really looking forward to expanding the scope of Kurmi within our organization."

Kurmi has engineered its products to be integrated into the ITIL V3-compliant operations frameworks, enabling adherents to this IT management process to use their products as part of the overall practice. By integrating into the ITIL operations framework, organizations can use Kurmi as part of a structured approach to managing the complexity that modern multi-vendor and cloud based-IT solutions bring.

For organizations looking to optimize their UC and business communications operations, BCOM is a critical component in improving the overall operations and effectiveness of the solution. For organizations looking for a BCOM solution, Kurmi is one of the vendors that should be considered.

This paper is sponsored by Kurmi Software.