By Kaj Hagros, President & CEO, Tecnotree Corporation
Ten years from now, you will have forgotten that the operator used to be just the place where to get your connection activated. The operator will be like your personal Ebay: You know you can find anything you imagine there, for instance exactly the one Dinosaur King collection card that your son is missing. But you don’t shop with Ebay that often. Maybe the operator will be like your personal Wal-Mart: You fill your shopping cart with everything you need for the next week or so, because it’s all there conveniently in one stop. But I think the future operator will be even more than Ebay or Wal-Mart. It will be your preferred digital services aggregator. And you don’t need to drive to their parking lot, it’s all right there in front of your door, or on your smartphone, every time and always. They don’t necessarily bring milk and bread (although that may also happen), but you will get all your fixed, mobile, broadband connections, entertainment bundles, music & video subscriptions and other premium services from a single partner if you like. And you pay less compared to going direct to each service or content provider. That’s the value of the bundle.
How many user id’s and passwords do you currently need to maintain to manage your service preferences and to shop online? One for mobile prepaid topup, one for Skype, one for Spotify, one for iTunes, one for Ebay, one for Wall Street Journal, one for Facebook, one for… My personal password list contains over 100 entries. Wouldn’t it be easier if all my typical, daily digital services came thru a single pipe. And it’s not just the convenience of single sign-on, it would be also cheaper. I pay $9.99 a month for this, $5.99 for that, $7.99 for something else and so on. What if my local long-term-trusted Vodafone or Claro gave me all this at a single flat-rate bundle of $19.99 a month, with all my mobile, broadband and entertainment needs? That’s the value and simplicity of the bundle.
As an SME enterprise customer, why would I want to sign up separately with a telecom provider, a web hosting provider, a storage and backup provider, a PBX provider, a VPN provider, and on top of that pay monthly fees to Salesforce.com and four other cloud services. Could my operator distribute all this conveniently at a flat rate per employee per month? That’s the value and simplicity of the bundle.
We’ve spoken about the smart vs. dumb bitpipes for years. And it was only with the proliferation of appstores that operators noticed that something critical was missing. If they have the billing relationship with their consumer and enterprise customers, and all kinds of service platforms for managing bundles, tariffs and rates, subscriptions, personal options, self-care, customer service, CRM, you name it – why not use this merchandising machine for something else than just kilobytes and minutes? I think they will. Ten years from now operators have transformed from a utility bitpipe provider into broad digital marketplaces. At least the ones with ambition and insight.
- Kaj Hagros
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Happy to see the new look.
ReplyDeleteVery insightful post. I can imagine what the future would look like with these kinds of innovation. I believe Tecnotree is strategically positioned to provide innovative solutions like these to our new and existing clients and invariably, the world at large.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work, Sir.