Catalogue

One of the major problems in putting together a SOA system is that there needs to be reference data to allow the components to work seamlessly together.
 
The "Catalogue" is one of the key enablers, as it maps the thing that the customer buys (the "commercial offer"), which in turn gets provisioned on the network ("fulfilment") and then charged for ("billing"). In this way, the catalogue ties three domains (CRM/Fulfillment and Billing) together:

• CRM gets the commercial view of the offer: The description, the price, the discount terms, the offer compatibility with other offerings the customer has etc. These are the things that the Customer Service Representative or self care site presents the customer.
• Fulfilment gets the technical view of the offer: The things that need to be provisioned on the network, the work flow that needs to be enforced to ensure that a fully functioning system results at the end
• Billing gets the billing view of the offer: The billing products that must be placed on the account, in order to correctly map the terms of the offer (e.g. that the subscription will be charged for monthly in advance). The catalogue works together with the BPM component to manage the three components.