Vertek Corporation Joins TM Forum

To Help Optimize the Performance & Operational Integration of Content-Based Partnership Relationships for Service Providers; Chairs Session on Managing Content-Based Services at Management World Orlando

Vertek Corporation, a leading provider of end to end business process outsourcing, business consulting, and managed business assurance offerings for the telecommunications industry, announced that it has joined the TM Forum. As an independent professional services firm, Vertek combines 20 years of telecommunications expertise in both legacy and next generation environments with leading edge information technology to immediately deliver significant value as an extension of the client team. Vertek will initially work with the TM Forum members in their efforts to optimize the Performance & Operational Integration of Content-based Partnerships.

Vertek also announced today that its President, Brad Soutiere, will present, along with Alice Harris, Director Billing Services at Qwest, a session on Managing Content-Based Services at Management World Orlando on Thursday, November 20th at 9 AM. In this session Mr. Soutiere will lead a discussion on the importance of partnerships in the communications space. He will also cover the need to track, manage, and insure that all key operational and revenue-affecting information is accurate to maximize operational efficiency and to ensure Sarbanes Oxley compliance. Vertek will also demo its Partnership Assurance program at booth 217 at the show.

"We are very pleased to become a member of the TM Forum, the world's leading trade association focused on management of information, communications and entertainment services," said Al Brisard, Vice President of Marketing at Vertek Corporation. "We look forward to working with their Top Tier service provider membership and other vendors to help advance the progress of the industry in our areas of expertise, which include rationalizing the performance of multiple partnerships, stopping revenue leakage, monetizing services, improving processes, reducing time to market, and improving overall service quality."

"The TM Forum is very pleased to welcome Vertek Corporation as a member," said Libbey Scheible, Vice President Member Services, TM Forum. "With their expertise in business process outsourcing and their 20 years of dedication to the telecommunications industry, we are confident they will make a positive contribution to the work of both the TM Forum and the industry."

Vertek offers business process outsourcing and professional services to communications service providers in the following areas:

Business Assurance

-- Vertek's Partnership Assurance (VPA) program is a hosted, managed service solution designed for network, media, and communications service providers partnering in a new digital convergent offering to maintain higher quality, lower cost back-office operations.

-- VPA was conceived as a clearinghouse -- staffed by billing specialists armed with robust data reconciliation tools -- to minimize the disruptive, expensive billing disputes that come up between companies teaming together in the delivery of a service offering.

-- Vertek's Financial Assurance (VFA) program is a unique solution that enables communications service providers the ability to transfer to Vertek portions or all of their day-to-day cost management, revenue assurance, and data management routines as a strategy for improving billing performance and reducing operating costs. The managed service validates and reconciles the accuracy of a company's monthly costs and billing on a highly scaleable data management platform capable of handling a variety of enterprise services.

-- Vertek's Quality Assurance (VQA) service delivers independent testing against business requirements. Whether you are implementing a new process, new software release, or even an operational modification, quality assurance is a necessary component in minimizing risk. Because communications service providers are constantly under market pressures to deliver new services, they often over look QA testing at a new service roll-out or upgrade. QoS and User acceptance testing is a critical step in getting to market faster with new services. Without QA testing service providers often end up with gaps in their systems that slow or stop deployment and use. The effective QA tester will be a bridge between operations and IT, speaking the language of both sides. QA involves the following steps:

--  Developing business requirements processing
--  Test planning
--  Test execution
--  On-going development of procedures, and
--  Ease of documentation and deployment
    

Engineering & Provisioning

Vertek provides a full range of provisioning, order management, project management, and complex IP provisioning services. Vertek's provisioning experts and customer engineers can manage and support all functions in the ordering and provisioning cycle. Service delivery Options include: Vertek On-Demand Engineering and Provisioning Services; Build, Operate, and Transfer, and Engineering and Provisioning Outsourcing.

Network Migrations

Vertek provides a full range of network migration services for networks of all size. From large globally deployed networks, to regional domestic networks, Vertek specializes in the project management, reconfiguration, and decommissioning of networks.

Business Analysis & Process Optimization

Vertek Business Analysts (BA's) and consultants have a broad range of Telecom experience: from sales and contract processes, operational service delivery and billing/revenue analysis, to systems design, testing and implementation. Vertek's Business & Process Consulting offerings support Vertek's five key offerings -- Financial Assurance, Managed Services, Advanced IP Project Management & Provisioning, Network Migration, and Business Analysis & Process Optimization, our BA's are skilled in process engineering and management, technical requirements gathering, and project management.

Contract Management

Vertek's Contract Management services help provide insight into lost dollars from having an unmanageable contracting process. Vertek and our skilled Business Analysts helps communications service providers reduce lost revenue caused by inefficient contracting processes.

About Vertek Corporation

Vertek Corporation, founded in 1988, is a leading provider of end to end business process outsourcing, business consulting, and managed business assurance offerings that allow communication providers to reduce costs, improve customer experiences, grow revenue, and ultimately improve profitability. Vertek specializes in Business Assurance, Financial Assurance and Partnership Assurance, Network Migration, Complex Order Management and Provisioning, Contract Management, and Process Design & Optimization. Located in Chatham, NJ and Colchester, VT, Vertek also provides communications service providers with flexible outsourced managed services that are highly customer focused and less expensive to deploy and operate than anything that could be accomplished internally. For additional information visit www.vertek.com