Like most other industries, communications was weighed down by the worldwide recession in 2010. But 2011 looks quite promising for telecom. The stellar growth of mobile broadband, the rapid business adoption of wireless, and the rise of cloud computing all present tantalizing opportunities.

But the communications industry can only move forward if service ordering – with customers and partners – is managed smoothly behind the scenes.

At Sterling Commerce (an IBM Company), we know something about order management. It’s our specialty. And throughout 2011 we plan to write a few columns in this B/OSS forum to help educate you on developments in the order-management field.

For starters – and in tune with the New Year’s theme – we thought we’d offer our view of some communications industry trends that will drive the need for greater order management dexterity in 2011.

1. Expanding Channels of Distribution

Communications is the currency of 21^st century life. Telecoms have so many products and their potential to add value is vast, but their own distribution is limited by the customers they can directly touch.

So an expanding network of resellers and business partners is absolutely necessary to spark higher growth. Yet, managing thousands of configuration options across hundreds of telecom partners is not something that the table-driven and hardcoded ordering systems are good at.

To be truly nimble, service providers will opt for rules-driven system that enable themselves – and their partners – to manage and change things on the fly.

2. Enabling Partners to Make Money