"Humanics” : The mantra for the next-gen Telcos
The world of Telecom seems to be at an inflection point today.
Historically, Telcos have always viewed themselves as the “network guys” – being obsessed with QoS. The assumption being that if they got QoS right – almost nothing else mattered. It was not important to intimately know the customer. The business model seemed to be pretty much a “utilities business model” – turn on the connectivity, setup a billing address and run the billing meter!
Also, the face of competition is changing fast. Industries are colliding – Telcos, Cable, Google etc – all want a piece of your quad-play action. “Walled gardens” are disappearing – there seem to be no set boundaries anymore. Approach points are different. Approach paths are different. But point-of-arrivals are colliding. So a Telco is building content delivery mechanisms and a Cable MSO is building calling mechanisms. And there are the “over the top” players – who do not own any significant network infrastructure but who can still ride along.
So given the changing demographics of the customer, their perception of value, the changing face of competition and a steady decline of ARPU from existing connectivity services, it seems like Telcos today need to answer a fundamental question:Are we in the business of managing networks to provide ubiquitous connectivity backed with solid QoS (which is predominantly the “mechanics” of the business.)
OR
Are we in the business of creating and managing customer experiences leveraging our solid networks and QoS? (Which is predominantly the “humanics” of the business but also leveraging the existing “mechanics” of the business)I believe that the way existing Telcos answer this question will determine their destiny. The new-gen Telcos will be those who will be as sharply focused on the “humanics” of their business as much as on the “mechanics” of their business. It will be imperative for the new-gen Telcos to start creating a robust and exciting applications ecosystem (rapidly – before others start occupying this space) and also focus on customer intimacy to identify, engage, excite and co-create personalized and “wow!” experiences for/with their customers!
There is a lesson to be learnt from the computer business. In the early days the guys who made boxes were at a premium – and it was all about competing for computing power. Then a certain Microsoft came along and changed the rules of business. While the “ARPU” on computing power kept decreasing steadily, the premium on applications kept increasing. Applications were all about generating “customer experience” by leveraging the underlying computing power. Today Microsoft, Oracle, Google are some of the power-houses of the “humanics” of the business, while the likes of Apple, IBM & HP have shown how “humanics” and “mechanics” can be blended to create a very successful business model. Today, it is hard to find a successful computer company who just focused on the “boxes” (mechanics) and is very profitable and is growing fast. I believe that the next-gen Telcos will do well to learn from the computer industry – because history seems to have a penchant for repeating itselfWhat do you think?
