Established cable operators (MSOs) must engage with a diverse landscape of partners, distributors, suppliers and intermediaries. TM Forum guide books, standards and frameworks provide a central location for collaboration among stakeholders who wish to consolidate and integrate information silos housing customer and service data.

It behooves cable operators/MSOs to keep an eye on what other service providers and partners are doing. The TM Forum is the meeting place for not only communications companies, but also content owners (i.e., media and entertainment companies), suppliers and systems integrators. Collaboration in a standard, open environment helps cable operators/MSOs to build business systems environments capable of accommodating changing customer and market demands. That enables services to be designed and deployed in hours rather than months.