What will you do when you are down and you don’t see a right solution to take you out of the gloomy situation? It’s Simple, you innovate.

Fanatic  Telco’s, instead of giving 70% - 80% of revenue shares to VAS partner companies and media companies they think in the crunch time they will increase the VAS Revenues by reducing the share of the vendor. Instead of reacting in similar way should reverse the policies, some thoughts which are helpful for Telco’s.  

• Stop thinking you own the consumer
• Let the media companies and VAS vendors take up the marketing.
• Reduce your Product marketing team size at all levels.
• Save your marketing budget.
• Let your Customer service be your customer service, for all VAS let consumer go to the media and other VAS companies.
• Cut Costs at all levels of VAS become a pipe where not important.

You will see innovation much more that what comes out of the operator NPD factories. The reality today is that Operator innovation is based in revenues as the prime factor whereas the service provider’s innovation is based on consumer delight and user insights.

Once Telco’s hand over the marketing, they will let consumers decide what is of the best service and best interest to them and as a result they will see –

• Innovative marketing strategies by media companies and VAS companies.
• New and better products
• Increased revenues and service penetration at all levels.

The Telco’s should focus their core strength, the network and the voice services.  

Some points which defines a leader.. came accross this from my old collection of Quotataions and values and publishing this for everyone. I see this as the basic necessities when it comes to defining  leadership. The tribute of course goes to orginial author.

Leadership — the Role Models who see the possibilities for the future.
Strategies are put into place because leaders can envision a bright future and identify opportunities that can pave the path to success. Engaging the hearts of people and providing the necessary support are imperative to make the vision reality.

People — the Source of innovation.
Of course, nothing happens without people. Every organization has a “personality” that comes from its collective and shared beliefs, attitudes, behaviors and most of all, from the relationships among its people.

Basic Values — the Backbone that defines an organization.
Basic values such as Learning, Commitment, Inclusiveness, and Contribution are the kinds of principles that help an organization hold its shape in the frantic pace of global business. They provide the backbone for decisions and the foundation for shaping strategic alliances.

Innovation Values — the Mindset that makes the impossible possible.
Beyond Basic Values, there are some drivers that can transform the mundane into the compelling and an ordinary project into a stellar new business. Freedom, Intuition and Synergy are just a few of the ideals that create the “magic” in innovative

It was when I was working with Hutch, my sales head told that the handsets in any market follow the technology available in the market. Telecom companies came and Handsets followed, initially basic, then after advent of 2G, 2G handsets followed. With 2.5G GPRS Handsets were out in the market with 3G it turn for 3G handsets and with 4G handsets will again follow suite.

But market is not only about Technology and Handsets it is how people use these services in daily lives. Video calling is dead and may not happen great deal in any market especially if the market is price sensitive. The real use of 3G will be enabling broadband for the retail users or general public.

So net net in few months from now 3G will be all about what speed and how much data available for browsing on handsets and computers. If you are thinking people will Download and what services it will be then it may lead to Online Gaming, Music, Mobile TV, you tube and social networks. The only billing service from a Telco perspective will be Mobile TV, the rest is consumable data with plans.
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So Mobile Operators need to look at their portals and check how much integrated it is with the internet world or it doesn’t make sense, customers may use the same like they use Google. They come and move on to separate sites and when they need they come back. Telco will have to sooner or later have to leave control of the customers on directing them to their particular walled garden. The Moment they drop the wall consumers will have choices and that will bring in revenues.
My strategy below 10 points if I am the product manager for Data services –

1.Browsing revenues is the key, this will generate your 50% of revenues
2.Lucrative Data plans is the key, rentals will generate another 30% of revenues.
3.Target specific phones and O/S like Android, I- phones as they will generate 90% of revenues
4.All downloadable content to be outside the home portal will contribute 20% of revenues.
5.Make portal easy to browse as much as possible, Keep Google search on Top.
6.Apps like you tube, Facebook, Twitter, Maps, Music, Images and Yahoo on the first page.
7.Adult services at bottom of the page( Don’t shy as this will generate at least 70%- 80% of your revenues)
8.Apps on E- Mails at the end of the page or may be at second.
9.All your content should be on second page/third page.
10.Make your site in tabular format since customer discovers more on such sites.

As a Content providers if you are big enough a regional players you might have to worry a little in the next few years but if you are a integrator and buying and supplying content, trust that 80% of such ventures will either loose out to bigger and better players or close down as they will not be able to scale up.

Scale up to what people with look forward to. Look at the future or desktops/laptops; there will be no portable media transfer like Disc very soon on laptops. Music, images, videos, movies will soon is never to be sold on discs and move up to Data drives and internet. So what next, have a look at the Stat below –

Percentage of mobile Web users who never or infrequently use the desktop Web
Country %mobile-only Country % mobile-only
Egypt 70% Indonesia 44%
India 59% Thailand 32%
South Africa 57% China 30%
Ghana 55% US 25%
Kenya 54% UK 22%
Nigeria 50% Russia 19%
Source: On Device Research (December 2010)
Survey group: 15,204 via: mobiThinking

These figures haven’t change much since last collected, Replicate Desktop internet on mobile and offer your services. What service it will be is a challenge.
If you think the above prediction was scary there is the second one, if you are offering Voice based services, proposed extinction date will be from three to five years from now if it is not a killer service. For a killer one take an extra one year. Below is snapshot of the population of the world you are a part of –

Age structure

0-14 years: 26.3% (male 944,987,919/female 884,268,378)
15-64 years: 65.9% (male 2,234,860,865/female 2,187,838,153)
65 years and over: 7.9% (male 227,164,176/female 289,048,221) (2011 est.)

Median age

Total: 28.4 years
male: 27.7 years
female: 29 years (2009 est.)

The world is young and India is Younger. Look at India Snapshot

Age structure
0–14 years: 30.8%, male: 188,208,196, female: 171,356,024
15–64 years: 64.3%, male: 386,432,921, female: 364,215,759
65+ years: 4.9%, male: 27,258,259, female: 30,031,289 (2007 est.)

Median age
25.1 years

Rural Population
72.2%, male: 381,668,992, female: 360,948,755 (2001 Census)

30% of less than 15years population is yet to grow they have not known a life without internet. In next 5-7 years this will be a huge population which will be tremendous user of internet and web based services. The Existing population is fast migrating to internet and web based services. The question is what services Voice will play as I don’t see the future in it. All services of Voice will also migrate to web and mobile web to let customer choose. It is the world of internet and internet alone… and customer is a king before Content.

Do you think Music and Movies will remain the services you pay for….…Think few years from now and you will get conflicting answers….Movies we will debate later however let’s discuss Music.

My Take —

As far as mobile service are concerned urban consumer will stop paying to a great extent in the next 2 years and rural will follow the same in the next 5 years. All this is excluding RBT. RBT is the service which customer will still like to pay for however the question is how many subscribers will stick to RBT.
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So what will lead to the non payments of music services —

1. Penetration of smart phones.
2. Mobile Phone evolution into a music player
3. FM on Mobile/Penetration of FM in rural areas.
4. Penetration of computers
5. Convenience/ full track transfers from computers.

Handset manufactures in a year or at best two years from now will stop selling any feature phones and people will also slowly move towards getting the music sync from computers/SD cards/disk drives and free online sites. Music distribution will change in future completely and will be only available online and compatible with the music devices available. DVD/CD will die its own death.

One can drive people to still pay for this and drive people to the site; however this will be completely impulsive buying behaviour.

How in these scenarios one will keep them hooked on to the mobile downloads.

1. Keep it extremely cheap (Consumer won’t mind )
2. Huge library ( options to consumers)
3. Easy search ( Two clicks and I am able to download the song I need)
4. Give it free ( at least 50% of the library)
5. Charge the Data transfer. ( consumers are Willing to pay for this)