Livewire: The Communications, Media and Entertainment Blog

Regaining the trust is a key theme that is emerging from today's Understanding the Customer experience seminar at Glaziers Hall London.

Building trust and advocacy from their customers is still a major challenge for Communication providers, resisting the desire to focus on short term profit rather than the life time value of a customer is a difficult habit to break, especially in a downturn. The rise and growth of online channels has meant "listening to the voice of the customer" as a vital ingredient to a successfull customer experience...

Posted by Paul Saunders at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kantar Worldpanel in this morning session reinforced some key trends and data points in understanding the consumer and what do consumers they really want?  One in two consumers in the UK now own a Smartphone and all major countries Europe are seeing strong demand, with Apple and Blackberry leading the way.

However, more consideration is being placed on the supporting Operating System (OS), for 18% of consumers in the UK market the OS is a vital component of the decision making process. Interestingly Android is leading the way outstripping Apple and other OS platforms and the majority of customer switching is also funnelling towards Android's platform.

Posted by Paul Saunders at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What is Rationalization or Application Modernization?

Rationalize is an oft used word in mathematical parlance. And what it means is that it removes radicals (remember square roots 3, 5, etc in the denominators), such as from denominator, without changing the value (of an expression).

Mapping this definition from mathematical to Business application system context, we can say that Rationalization of Applications is nothing but the removal of specific parts in the application ecosystem which will make the ecosystem leaner and efficient, nevertheless, will not have any impact on the functionality delivered by it.

For IT Systems/Applications, what to rationalize?

In Mathematics, when we see a fraction, with say square root 3 in denominator, we know to Rationalize, it we have to multiply the fraction by the same radical. Unfortunately, this is not very easy when we try to map the analogy to IT Applications. So the question of what to rationalize can be answered by the business application designers by identifying the radicals in the system.

The rule of thumb should be that, if removing an application from the stack, keeps the functionality intact, then it is prudent to remove the application from the stack.

Evaluating an application for Rationalization:

The problem which large organizations face is that over a period of time, the number of IT applications reaches a stage or are so huge in number, it becomes difficult to calculate the utility of all the applications and the result is inefficient use of IT Applications.

But, how to evaluate an application for Rationalization?

These are the general guidelines:

-          The application is legacy.

-          The application is tactical, that is historically, and it was perceived to fulfill the tactical requirements of business.

-          The data elements in an application bear similarity with other applications, which covers more functionality. (This is an application which has more number of functionality compared to the application to be rationalized.)

-          The functionality provided by this application can be fulfilled by any other application with little impact.

-          The removal of this functionality from the stack, does not impact the business in anyway.

The success of rationalization will depend on this.

Posted by Akshay Joshi at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

There is a stiff competition among telcos especially in global enterprise space to capture the market. Gone are the days when telcos use to launch frequent network based services to capture the market. These network based services on technologies like MPLS, ATM, Frame etc have become mature and saturated.  To launch a new flavor or a new variant of these services does not take long time.  Having said that, there is always a need to tweak these services based on customer requirement but it does not impact the launch process too much. The reason being is that operations, supplier contracts, business processes and OSS do not undergo much change. Apart from this, there are new and new network based services arriving especially in Ethernet and fiber space which might have major impacts on the OSS and process.

To create the differentiation, telcos are exploring to capture more of managed outsourcing deals and that too in the space of value address services. The example of these services would be launching and managing the contact center services or building and managing data center services for a big enterprise. Telcos have experience in dealing with these services for long time at small scale. The challenge they are facing is that launch of these services as a standard service takes very long time and needless to say, they lag behind their competitors. I was talking to head of the product and marketing of a big telco in South East Asia and he resonated with me and confirmed these challenges. It takes almost a year to launch these services which they cannot afford. The reason for such a long delay is the current product/service launch process practiced in the organization is not capable enough to take these new kinds of services. These processes were defined to launch network based services. Because of the market pressure, product managers would attempt to launch new services using the existing process or without any process. As a result of this, there would not only be huge delay in product launch but also the faulty product launch which impacts the customer experience. This is a visible trend in all telcos especially telcos who are new in launching value added services. There is a huge demand in this space. Telcos are looking towards business process consulting companies for the help in not only defining their product launch process but also establish the product/service launch center which will manage the roll out multiple parallel products in the market.

We are currently working on the solutions in this space which can be taken to multiple telcos to launch their value added services. Please share your views if you have also came across similar challenges with your client.

Posted by Anupam Agarwal at 5:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It is an ever going debate whether B/OSS should be based on business processes or business process should be defined based on functionality provided by B/OSS. Most of the business process consultants support the "process based system" school of thought. According to them, operators should first define the hierarchy of business processes based on the business strategy and then develop or buy the systems to realize these processes. This way, Business processes and systems would be in alignment with business goals. This at least holds good for green field operator. On the other side, many operators (especially brown field operator), under the time pressure to launch new service or respond to a big client request, adopt the "system based process" approach. They would first modify the system and then tweak the process accordingly. Sometimes, process design and system design goes hand in hand.  There are times when process design and system design conflict with each other. Based on my experience, during these conflicts, process needs to be compromised based on system capability.

Telecom industry especially wireless is undergoing tremendous changes. Wireless operators not only have to compete with other wireless operators but also with new animal named OTP (over the top). Players like goggle, skype, and yahoo are eating their pie more and more every day. For the top players, customer acquisition is going up but ARPU is flat or marginally going down especially in India. CIOs are struggling to control the opex and squeeze time to market to launch new services. In this scenario, this debate of "Process based system" Vs "System based processes" takes the new meaning. It is no more the academic discussion. This has become very critical to the business. These days, most of the CIO wants low cost strategic IT solution. Cost is the number one priority with no compromise on extensibility and flexibility of the solution. They want solution which does not need customization and can be implemented with minimum configuration/customizations. They don't want to invest money in first designing the business process and then customize the system to realize the processes. Their wish is to use the process defined and implemented by the COTS vendor in their solution. I interacted with two senior executive from CIO office of two wireless operator last month and both resonated this approach. They believe that this is the best cost effective approach in the current frame of time. The key issue in this approach is the integration of different solutions from different vendors to achieve seamless operation. Without any defined process hierarchy, common information model, crisp interfaces, this integration will be nightmare. Luckily frameworks like TMFs frameworx (eTOM, SID and TAM) have rescued the situation. TMF has defined the process elements and business entities, which can be readily used by COTs vendor to define the solution. This way solution would be extensible, integratable and readily deployable. On top of this, TMF also provides the conformance framework, to evaluate the COTS package against the 7 level of conformance levels. Around 10 COTS vendors have published their conformance against the framework which makes it easy for operator to select the right COTs vendor. We will talk about challenges in the conformance some other time.

Posted by Anupam Agarwal at 8:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

...there are just different screens.

Networks will be replaced by the Internet, and TV will just be another connected screen.

Video will just be a spade of the offerings, with gaming, social interactions, T-commerce, interactive adverts and convergence being at the forefront. That is when the likes of Apple, Microsoft and Google will compete with the cable guys - Time Warner, Comcast and Cablevision.

The importance of connected TVs to has already been stamped by Korean TV maker Samsung spending $70m on marketing its Internet TV apps in 2010. The magic has already started - with remotes controlling TV, and consumers able to play and watch content seamlessly across TV, PC and their smartphones and tablets. These emerging trends point to the increasing user demand to access content, services and entertainment from any location, any device, on the user's terms.

A growing numbers of television viewers are simultaneously online while watching television, most of them using a laptop or an Internet enabled smartphone. With the advent of social networks, this multitasking means that people are discussing the TV shows at the same time as they are watching them. These real-time conversations enable consumers to socially engage with TV programming even more. This holds enormous significance for service providers, as viewers can discuss shows via the TV set and influence each other's viewing. This interaction also enhances the whole lean-back-on-the-couch TV experience for viewers, as they can actively converse with each other, around any programming and content.

How social networks affect broadcasters:

Interaction with TV through social networking has enormous significance for broadcasters.Facebook 'Like's & comments and Twitter 'trending's influence TV ratings. The likes of Facebook and Twitter know in real-time how viewers are reacting to TV programmes. These social networks own valuable, detailed information about people's behavior, such as discussing TV shows and sharing links to videos. This futuristic vision of social viewing is one in which all major partners in the television industry ecosystem - IPTV, cable operators, satellite operators, middleware technology firms, device manufacturers, advertisers, broadcasters and studios - must build new relationships, negotiate new terms and resolve the next set of challenges in order to seize revenue opportunities.

Essentially, lifestyles are unfolding, and they are unfolding fast.

• TVs are becoming much more than just entertainment devices and service providers must tap the trend to make the idiot box smart and intelligent
• Consumers will readily inculcate apps to their TV viewing behavior after having experienced it on their mobiles
• Service providers should not view app stores as new revenue channels but as retention tools that keep consumers engaged

So get ready to post your next status update, order a pizza, ask a Honda dealer to contact you, vote for your favorite character of that reality show and continue watching that favorite movie of yours on your mobile while you leave the couch to go out for a stroll in the park - all of these on your TV right there in the living room!

Posted by Mrinal Somani at 5:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Today, I received the wedding invitation of one of my colleagues, over e-mail. The e-mail message had a wedding invite attached to it that sparked a series of thoughts....

'What if there was a solution that could help appize the wedding invitation to a mobile application'. The application download URL with customized text/audio/video message can then be readily distributed to friends and relatives over SMS/MMS.

The recipient upon opening the mobile wedding invitation sees the wedding invite or an audio invite by the would be bride/groom, interactive maps that provide direction and route guidance to the venue, save the date in the calendar, schedule congratulatory SMS to be sent on the D-day and subsequent anniversaries, guest book which allows the recipient to confirm their presence and itinerary for the wedding, etc. This is an illustrative feature list, I am sure the readers of this post will have many more creative inputs.

This solution is not entirely new. There are online portals (http://www.didmo.com) which help lay users create mobile applications without any knowledge of programming, however a free version is usually ad supported and we don't want ads in our wedding invitation! The fact that a free version is an ad supported model, the idea does not lend to consumer (B2C) model (however it does if you are willing to shell out $'s) as a pure play business, especially if the mobile application in question is a wedding invitation!

In Indian context I see it as a business to business (B2B) model, as a services business, wherein the card print shop provides an option of creating a mobile wedding invitation to the buyer. If the buyer wants, the card print shop logs on to the online terminal application provided by the appizer to create a mobile wedding invite. Appizer charges a fixed amount to the card print shop, which in turn charges monies to the buyer. Since the same card print shop is also associated with the creative design/layout/physical print, of the wedding invite, it helps the card print shop to extend its bouquet of services and the buyer gets both physical print and mobile solution under one roof.

In India and elsewhere in the world, match making also happens by volunteering aunts/uncles/friends/neighbors (social matrimony - check out http://www.youpid.in or the MatrimonyMaster facebook application). The Appizer can extend the B2B model to marriage bureaus/brick'n'mortar presence of online matrimonial portals, for the creation of mobile bio-data's for people who register with them. The parents of would be bride/groom can then share the mobile bio data's of their son/daughter to social acquaintances thus spreading the viral! Apart from text the mobile bio data's can have elements of graphics and video.

Print media power houses that have presence in the space of internet and mobile applications are ideally suited to offer the buyers of print matrimonial classified space an option to create mobile bio data's and put the download URL in the print classified ad.

Internet penetration and the fact that India has over 10 million marriages annually, has positively impacted the business of online matrimony portals, it's time to take it to the next frontier of mobile devices.

Posted by Himanshu Agarwal at 5:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

After over 60 years of color television, hundreds of channels (or is it thousands), innovations like HD and 3D we still can't seem to get enough TV.

"America's Love Affair with TV," Retrevo's awesome blog on TV viewing habits reveals that there are "more TVs than viewers to watch them."

The TV phenomenon isn't confined to the US, of course - the world loves its television entertainment and loves the simplicity of the user interface. Don't like what's on? Switch from the ever-increasing array of channels. Up and down. Child's play.

So why hasn't the Internet happened to television yet? Why aren't most of us online on our TVs, tweeting or texting or chatting?

Well, for one, convergence has been slow in coming, despite rosy predictions of the past. Technically it's feasible now at price points we couldn't have imagined before, now that we have converged "pipes" running to most homes--communications networks that can carry video, voice, and data to our growing collection of shiny digital gizmos.

But perhaps more importantly, television is what's called a "lean-back experience," one where we can unabashedly cater to our likes and dislikes. Sit back. Relax. See what's on.

Recently we've been doing more. See what's next. Time-shift it. Get video on demand. See it on your mobile. Or favorite tablet.

There's more to come. Developers and innovators around the world are busy working on the next set of uber-cool applications and services that will work right on your TV set - or set top box. Giving you control - with the same ease of use - up, down, left and right buttons on the same remote control. These powerful new apps and services will bring the best of the Internet to your TV--but in a way that you don't have to re-learn your TV browsing experience completely. Not one or two but hundreds--(and soon thousands) of applications are being developed for every imaginable lifestyle need.  And yes, they are on their way to your living room in Kentucky and even (en français) in Paris.

You won't have to get off that comfortable couch either :) Stay tuned!

Posted by Deepak Swamy at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Akshay Joshi at 5:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

At the beginning of May 11, the penetration level of mobile connection stands at 111% in urban areas and with cut throat competition in voice and reaching saturation in 2G data & high prices of 3G plans- the telecom operators are not looking at revenue from urban areas - rather they just want  to retain the existing subscribers.

The penetration level in rural area is only 23% and huge opportunities of revenue from services like selling and procurement information and support for farm commodities, educating farmer community on best practices, delivery of healthcare and education to remote village using mobile connections - has made all the telecom operators join the bandwagon by investing millions of dollars for building required infrastructure and ecosystem. Government is also not behind - SBI, the country's largest public sector bank, with the complete back up of RBI, is currently piloting two initiatives for financial inclusion that are based on the mobile platform - targeted at rural and semi-urban areas to tackle with infrastructure issues at remote rural areas - to enable farmers and villagers to enjoy benefits of banking using their mobiles.

Now the question arises that what kind of services will be successful in rural areas - definitely not the gaming and social networking sites J. With competitive voice plans - operators can focus on services focused on agriculture and healthcare followed by education - as these are the priorities of a villager. Information about the latest prices of commodities like seeds, pesticides, fertilizers at nearest mandies, real time whether forecast along with soil requirements and best optimized technique of irrigation and benefits of crop rotation depending on the farmer location. By providing accurate demand forecasting of different commodities and by comparing the availability of such commodities at national and local level and suggesting cultivating such commodities for maximum profits, will attract farmers for using such services. Health Care is an issue in rural areas - by providing them doctor over the phone at reasonable cost will help farmers to avoid travelling to near cities for sickness which can be taken care at doctor advise over the phone and will also get expert advice on which nearby hospital for curing the disease hence helping the villagers to avoid travelling to different hospitals. Health Insurance can also play pivotal role in providing health benefits in rural areas. Consumers are also looking for diverse vernacular content at affordable prices -- this would enable proliferation of 3G services across the country especially in rural and semi urban areas.

These services can be offered as an applications or IVR methods. IVR will be more successful if offered in local language as compared to apps or SMS based services as the literacy level is less in rural and semi-urban areas.

Telecom Operator should concentrate on providing value added services as per the local requirements in local language to tap the huge market pie. Its matter of time that operator will be making theirs road maps based on the rural market.

Posted by Sumeet Hanspal at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)