New Trade Body Seeks to Improve Telecoms Logistics

RosettaNet, the technology industry's e-business standards consortium, has announced the formation of a Telecommunications Industry (TC) Council. BT, Cisco, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia and Siemens are among the first to join as founding member companies with the goal of promoting RosettaNet to streamline the exchange of information throughout the global telecommunications trading network.

The TC Council, which is comprised of global network operators and equipment suppliers, will take a leadership role in driving adoption of the standard within the telecommunications industry sector and related supply chain ecosystems. Building on the past standards integration success realized by the high tech industry, the TC Council is slated to work closely with established RosettaNet Supply Chain Managing Boards to support development activities while also engaging in implementation program initiatives and deployment projects.

"Over the past few years, telecommunications companies have been heavily involved in RosettaNet as a result of the synergies that exist between the technology and telecommunications industries, including their shared supply networks," said Jennifer Hamilton, CEO of RosettaNet. "Our goal in establishing a formal Telecommunications Industry Council is to ensure more cohesive relationships between key players in the respective industry supply chains. On behalf of RosettaNet and the greater business community, we look forward to the extended collaboration, leadership and expertise that this esteemed group will bring."

In forming the TC Council, leaders in the telecommunications industry have acknowledged that the RosettaNet model addresses many of the business process issues facing companies today. For example, the acceleration of product lifecycles is impacting business-to-business communication between trading partners more than ever before. Adoption of RosettaNet can, in effect, build-in critical success factors by helping to streamline communications linkages between suppliers and customers, including real-time data exchanges in the areas of design, product information, forecast, order and inventory management and logistics.

Leading the RosettaNet Telecommunications Industry Council effort is Stefan Langkamp of Siemens Information and Communication Networks (ICN), who has been named chairman and spokesperson. "Members of the TC Council share a strong, common vision around RosettaNet's proven e-business process standards and their ability to transcend industries," said Langkamp. "The future collaboration by this group will serve to enhance system-to-system integration within the telecom sector, thereby creating opportunities for automation and extreme operational efficiencies at any given point in the value chain."

It is expected that RosettaNet's TC Council will grow to include additional founding member companies representing the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific regions over the next several months. Currently, active discussions are underway with prospective manufacturer and operators candidates, including Vodafone, one of the world's largest mobile telecommunications network companies."

Posted to the site on 12th June 2003