The Capacity Forum is at the centre of the whole capacity management process, while the Capacity Report is at the centre of the data collection and analysis. The Capacity Forum is the co-ordinating team that keeps the issues and methods under constant review. It recognises that focusing the reporting into one work area is efficient, economical and effective. It takes the statistical reporting task away from separate business units, which contributes to local morale. It puts the task under the control of a dedicated individual who is free to develop the skills required to produce a very high quality report. The motivation for this emphasis on capacity and performance is 'customer satisfaction', but capacity and performance engineering is also about minimising costs. The aim, therefore, is to prime the business with the network information required to achieve customer satisfaction at minimum cost. Covering both systems and services, each new issue of the Capacity Report builds on the picture established in previous months, and projects this picture into the future. Managers use the report, primarily, for managing engineering intervention necessitated by forthcoming special events, system changes, new services and market trends. In addition, account managers of major customers appreciate the information delivered through the Capacity Report, because it puts them in a position of real knowledge to discuss issues that their customers may not fully, or correctly, understand. It also enables them to discuss new services, and how to create better business solutions from the current and future product range. The TeleMarketing Services Capacity Report has been in production every month for several years. It was a very successful innovation that has grown and evolved in a way that could never have been envisaged at the outset. A web of links now reaches out to the business, giving the kind of coherence and structure that encourages objective discussion among otherwise disjoint communities. With its comprehensive and flexible coverage, straightforward and consistent format, simple graphs and tables, together with its emphasis on end-to-end performance and focus on customer satisfaction, the TeleMarketing Services Capacity Report stands as a prime example of how to monitor a complex, evolving system, and plan its progress towards providing the yet more sophisticated services of the future.

Inspec keywords: customer satisfaction; telecommunication network management; marketing; capacity management (computers); channel capacity; innovation management; telecommunication services; data analysis

Other keywords: in-life capacity management; customer satisfaction; disjoint communities; telemarketing services capacity report; performance engineering; capacity forum; data collection; innovation; market trends; network information; performance monitoring; data analysis

Subjects: Network management