In my opinion, content is part of the “table stakes” offering. Creating compelling experiences that span multiple channels such as broadband, video and mobile will be a true differentiator. This is one of the reasons that we at Infosys have been investing in research projects for personal virtual libraries, products to easily port web content to video or mobile and enabling secure handoffs between network access modes. This involves getting closer to the connected home to enable easy transfer of content between those consumption mediums so current silos of content become transparent to the customer. It is taking the taking the talk of “anytime, anywhere” content and making it a simple reality or compelling experience for the end customer. One very good and simple example is the deployment of multi-room Digital Video Recorders. This is not cross-channel, but it is cross-location in the house and does not tie the user to a particular TV.  It is a great experience for the customer. The winners in the Triple Play race will build more experiences like this to differentiate their offering while using content to establish market parity.

There have been many announcements over the last year with Communications Service Providers providing access to popular social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and others. In the short run, this provides potential subscription revenue and data plan uplift to drive average revenue per user. However, I still have many concerns with this approach in that it does not create differentiation or enable one of the Service Provider’s key assets, customer information, since the social networking sites are essentially closed “black box” solutions. Orange has just announced a service to consolidate social networking sites to enable the display of “popular functions of each site side by side so they can be accessed with one click… to send messages, upload photos and check status updates without having to browse individual URLs or log into separate sites” which I feel is a terrific step forward. This not only creates differentiation, but also a new customer experience to ease the issues with managing multiple social networking sites and puts the Orange brand in the front of that access portal. Essentially, this is having the original network provider manage these new networks in an efficient manner.

While the efforts mentioned above are interesting, I feel they still fall short due to the fact that the value of the social network, the information on member interactions or social graph, is still hidden from the Service Provider. The information is not combined with the vast amount of customer information already resident within the Service Provider’s own databases. Gaining access to that social graph would provide insights to key influencers and support rich campaign targeting, particularly when combined with data from the mobile web or IPTV platforms. This is one of the reasons Infosys has created a white-label offering for Service Providers to launch their own social networking platforms that would be integrated into their own customer information systems and assets, in addition to providing lifestyle themes such as sports, to provide purpose to those community interactions. It is my opinion that this model will create the most value to the service provider due to the rich customer information generated, the creation of new commerce and advertising opportunities, and the establishment of a hub to promote other value added services. What are your thoughts on this approach? I welcome the discussion.

Being a pure play mobile operator in western markets seems to be getting harder each day. They already have to deal with considerable market penetration which impacts future growth, but now a few more pieces of news will further complicate matters. First, a new study by Multimedia Intelligence noted the teen market, a growth segment and consumer of data services, is nearing saturation in the US. Considering this is not a multiple handset customer segment, this is not good news for the operators. Second, Tariff Consultancy has a new report detailing the worldwide trend for unlimited bundles for voice and texts. These unlimited plans simply beg for cost undercutting and further put pressure on data services to make up the revenue. My last point has more implication for European operators where the EU regulator wants international roaming charges greatly reduced, currently a good revenue stream for the mobile operators. Saturated markets, supersized bundles and cheap roaming, not a good state of affairs.

All is not lost however, the forward looking operators are already tapping into emerging markets in the east (Vodafone), using new handsets to drive demand (ATT iPhone), consolidating competition (Verizon/Alltel), bundling landline (T-Mobile) or simply looking to drive new data services revenues with a portfolio approach. Pressure on the mobile operators is nothing new, what is the correct strategy? I welcome your comments.

This is one of the promises of new technology enabling the delivery of enterprise application user experiences to mobile devices.  Many front-of-house user experiences have been moving to web-based for PCs and mobile devices are now capable of adapting these interfaces based on device capabilities, user preferences and presence information.  I’m not going to delve into this topic now but full mobile browsers, content translation middleware and new mobile operating systems are all aspects of this enabling set of technologies.

So what are some of the implications for companies?  I have a couple of scenarios I would like to explore.

Scenario 1 – Selling a new handset and mobile service in a bar -

Many of you will be familiar with the concept of viral marketing for consumption products such as the cute girl at the bar who convinces you to try the latest mixed drink offering and offers to buy you one. 

Now imagine you see the same girl at a bar with a great looking phone and you comment on it.  They turn around and start telling you how good the phone is, show you how they watch TV on it, tell you all about the fantastic coverage, etc.  She says there is a deal now and you can sign up online, in fact you can use her phone.  She starts the process for you and talks you through it.  She asks if you use a phone much for work.  You do.  She upgrades you to a business plan.  You go through the last steps to confirm your purchase and pay for it.  Five minutes later the girl has moved on and a few days later the phone arrives via post at your nominated address.

What enabled this scenario?

• The girl was registered as virtual marketer for a phone company.  She receives training online at home and receives commission on every sale.  There are no direct costs to the phone operator.
• The phone companies CRM system had a mobile user experience with the basic necessary process for sign up and ability to suggest up-sell offers.
• Order was fulfilled and billing triggered the same as orders through the call centre.

Scenario – Crowd-sourcing field force for support -

The crowd sourcing concept has been around for a while, particularly in the area of IT and home entertainment support.  But the crowd-sourcing concept is primarily a hand-off concept.

In this scenario, a customer having support problems with their internet connection can use their mobile phone to ask for assistance.  Based on their location information, a list of registered, available helpers are provided.  The customer can initiate an SMS, voice or IM conversation with these crowd-sourced helpers based upon preferences.  The helper can agree an appointment to come and check out their on premises equipment.  Based upon their registration details, level of completed training and reputation with the provider, they have access to a restricted set of enterprise application functions.  They assist the customer with problem resolution, making incident notes on their mobile device into the provider systems.  They are able to see that the provider service in that area has scheduled maintenance which is due to finish in an hour.  The helper returns to their home and updates the incident with further details via a richer PC based experience.  He sends a notification to the customer when the maintenance work is completed to check if the internet is available again.  It is.  The customer problem is resolved, the registered helper charges an agreed fee for the service.

How was this scenario achieved?

• Helper registered on a crowd-sourcing site from the provider and proceeding through appropriate training for levels of certification.
• Availability information and preferences of helper were registered with the provider.
• Diagnostic and support ticketing systems were exposed as a mobile based on helper’s role and privileges

Extension scenarios

These are just some basic ideas for how the traditional notion of fixed, large call centres can be broken down through mobilisation of enterprise applications.  Large investment and operating costs can be moved to flexible, demand based cost.  These scenarios can be carried further with some minor extensions including;

• Reverse auction sites to bid for available crowd-sourced opportunities;
• Leverage advertising models to offset the cost to enterprises and crowd-sourced helpers; and
• Combination of wireless access and near-field communications devices to enhance the customer experience in stores or entertainment venues.

Hopefully companies can take advantage of these possibilities to deliver benefit to both shareholders and customers without being sold something every time we chat to a stranger in a bar.

To illustrate some of the concepts, I will be using mapping/location applications as an example.  Ever since one of our ancestors stood up straight and started looking down to a 2-d surface, maps have been a concept we all "get" and have tended to be suitable for early adopters..be they Norse Vikings, Chinese Astronomers or Generation Y looking for the nearest pizza.

The first widely adopted incarnation of the "World Wide Web" - remember when you had to use the full name? - was premised on the ability to render content to a screen and use hyperlinks to navigate between different sets of content.   The key aspect of this was that human's had to choose associations between data and navigate a path based on their interpretation.   And it was people who had to draw the connections between two sets of content to come up with useful information.

To apply this to the mapping context, a person used to do something like the following;

Go to a directory listing site;
Choose the link for the category they were looking for;
If they were lucky, search for a name  or, often the case back then, scroll through big long lists;
Select a listing, write down address.
Go to different site where images of maps were kept;
Search, or look up index, for street name to find out which map page it was on;
Select map page;
Use the map coordinates to find the street on the image and then work and, if they were lucky, roughly where the number would be; and
If you wanted directions, link through several pages of map images trying to trace back to your place.
Wow - did we really do all that once?

The key aspects of this are that humans provided the ability to correlate information, resolve location information and persist results.  Computers and the internet merely served to store and serve content and links to content.

Some people reading this will never even have experienced that process, for them Web 2.0 style interaction is all they have known.  But what is different about Web 2.0 from this perspective of human, computer and network interaction.    I'm not going to talk about AJAX, JSON and a myriad of other technology labels - see here if you want that - or even about definitions of Web 2.0 - everyone seems to have agreed O'Reilly nailed that one. 

There has been much written on this generational gap and what it means for employers, governments and society.However, I just wanted to post some thoughts on what this means to the Digital Migrant(DMs) parents of a Digital Native(DN).

These parents are outside their comfort zone, they have no frame of reference to their own childhood, they struggle to understand the technology and advice from their own parents is likely to be wildly off the mark.

The first instinct of parents is to protect, from all the well-documented threats of online predators, cyber bullying, scam artists etc. In addition to this natural reaction, DMs will refer back to their own childhood activities, encouraging their DN to play outside, go for a bikeride, have friends over, etc. And it all seem like sensible, responsible parenting.

However, these actions neglect one of the principle obligations of a parent, to nurture and develop their offspring into a functioning, contributing individuals as adults. And here the DMs are hamstrung. Their legacy concept of identity is no longer adequate.

People are constantly impressed by the ever increasing complexity, sophistication and capability of mobile phones.  The introduction of the iPhone and whispers/shouts on the grapevine of the gPhone are  redefining people's expectations.  But is this next stage of development the beginning of the end in innovation or just the end of the beginning?

To answer that question we only have to look at the trajectory of innovation in that truly revolutionary device, the PC.  During their history, PCs have undergone several periods of consumerisation and attempts at diversity - Newton, the NetPC, even good old Wang, all spring to mind.  However, the PC is now universally defined in terms of a set of numbers - Memory, HD capacity, processor power, battery life, etc.  These numbers are all that is important on a device.  In addition to these numbers you have a keyboard, a mouse and a screen.

1.       Increased availability and adoption of high-speed broadband across tethered and un-tethered access technologies;
2.       Increased access to and adoption of technology to empower individual users to create, manage and distribute digital content; and
3.       Increasing sophistication and heightened expectations in relation to the Internet experience.

This is born out by a brief overview of two Gartner Hype Cycle reports;

• "Hype Cycle for Carrier Network Operations, 2006" : in this report, IMS is positioned at the peak of inflated expectations.  Given that we are one year later, it is reasonable to expect that IMS is rapidly sliding down into the trough of disillusionment; and
• "Hype Cycle for Web and User Interaction Technologies, 2007" : which positions expectations around Web 2.0 and related technologies (AJAX, RSS, etc) as bottoming out and starting to move up the Slope of Enlightenment.

So everyone agrees that the expectations and  maturity of understanding around IMS and Web 2.0 are at different stages, but these are fundamentally different technologies and concepts.  So why are people discussing Web 2.0 as an alternate strategy to IMS?

It is important to understand these technologies individually before they can be compared;

• The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is an architectural framework for delivering services based on internet protocol (IP) multimedia to users over multiple access technologies and devices.  It is generally implemented as a defined set of network management functions.
• Web 2.0 is the set of business concepts and technology which enable the delivery of highly interactive user applications, utilizing the internet as an integration and delivery platform.  Applications commonly associated with Web 2.0 include blogs, wikis, mash-ups, social networks, etc.

In order to achieve this desired differentiation and develop customer experience leadership, telcos must revisit their customer business process strategy through various phases of acquisition, retention and cross/up-sell. Telcos must adopt sound discipline around business process management and look at various business processes that interact with the customer and process attributes that impact the end customer experience.

The impact to the end customer experience can be defined by analyzing following four process attributes

1. Usability
2. Timeliness
3. Completeness
4. Adaptability

Usability stresses on the user friendliness of the process. This goes on to analyze user experience design and minimizing number of interfaces to get to the relevant information. Timeliness is dictated by customer needs. Too early or too late has adverse impact on customer experience. Completeness requires the solution to be complete and fit for the purpose and customer. Adaptability means that processes must be repeatable yet flexible to accommodate unexpected events.

Business process management has been around for a long time but largely confined to the engineering world and more focussed on improving operational cost efficiencies.  There is a need for a fresh approach to process redesign with focus on prioritizing key customer impacting business processes and improving customer experience attributes for these processes. Such process analysis should also be supplemented by identifying the intended customer behaviour across various customer micro segments and touch-points. Having a consistent process base yet differentiated for customer segments will propel Telco’s operational agility to the next level and improve business performance by attracting and retaining most profitable customers.

Just because something is new, or sexy, doesn't make it a killer app or the "next big thing".  A company needs a way of assessing the value of their communication services offerings and opportunities for innovation without resulting in costly duplication.

Value of the consumer communication experience can be defined in reference to the following three aspects;

• Presence - is the combination of the current user identity/role, their location, the time and their level of mobility;
• Experience - defines the consumer experience in leveraging communications including the service(s), application(s), device(s) and quality of service provided; and
• Content - is the value contributed from a consumer's capacity to find, generate and consume relevant content.

A consumer in assessing a providers value will look at each of these aspects and ask themselves relevant questions;

• Does my provider give me service anywhere I am likely to be - home, office, overseas, rural communities?
• Can I get my favorite tv/sport/stock information anywhere and anytime?
• Does the quality of service justify expensive convergence devices/services?
• Etc.

Often the answers to these questions present a fractured picture.  A consumer can access some of the content, some of the time and sometimes its easy.  Much like providers themselves the industry is still very siloed in the value they provide - cable operators have better sport, telco carriers provide better quality of service for telephony, media operators have stronger content ecosystems.  Customers are refusing the triple/quad-play path simply because the value to the consumer is not provided.

How can operators/providers improve the consumer value of their offerings.  Consider each of the aspects of consumer value - Presence, Experience and Content - as circles whose size is determined by maturity and breadth;

• For service offerings where all three intersect, this is an integrated offering which can be leveraged (e.g voice telephony for carriers) to provide improved service;
• For service offerings where only two of the three aspects are mature/broad (e.g internet providers with broad content ecosystems) this is an opportunity to enhance the offering to be an integrated capability (i.e by broadening coverage of the presence aspect); and
• For offerings with only one aspect (i.e a content generator only) this is a gap which must be addressed through development of a new service line or partnering to deliver higher value to the customer.

This framework for understanding consumer value is a start for operators and providers to consistently evaluate their value proposition and asses the impact of market strategy on that  value proposition.  The broader and more mature your services are in these aspects, the more concrete and compelling is the value to each consumer.

Having conceptualized and assessed the consumer value proposition, the next challenge comes in developing a platform which enables a competitive value chain to optimize cost, provide personalized/differentiated offers and support the rapid innovation demanded by today's customers.

But that's a subject for another day, another blog.