Tecnotree Blog

Personalised User Experience - It's a Mind Game

2012-01-20T08:14:00.000-08:00

By Timo Ahomäki, VP, Product Management

When a service provider wants to offer a personalised experience they need to look at the technology available, the processes required and, above all the attitude they project.

The most important ingredient in personalising the user experience is the service provider’s attitude manifested in the day-to-day interactions with customers. No matter how sophisticated the process or how modern the technology, if the customer feels that various rules are preventing them receiving the expected level of service, they will walk away dissatisfied. A smooth and flexible experience does not have to mean yielding to any and all customer wishes, but instead be prepared to discuss their needs or problems and pinpoint the most valuable solutions to them.

As we all are more than aware, customer care can prove to be a very hectic environment. To relieve this pressure – as well as to cut costs, of course – service providers are increasingly directing customers to web based self-care. This is mostly fine, as long as the customer actually gets what they were looking for from the website.

If not then they will need to go back to talking to a customer service representative, which is not ideal. At this stage we often find the process and information flow is broken and the problem solving has to start from square one. Worse still, the offers and services available through self-care are often not available for purchase via call centers, even if the information of the failed transaction was available. It is here where the process needs to be flexible enough to allow a customer service representative or a point-of-sale representative to finish the transaction started in self-care, or vice versa.

From a simplistic point of view, all of this is achievable by pushing out the offerings from the various lines of business across all delivery channels, and ensuring that all personnel are flexible in dealing with customers. The downside of this approach, however, is proliferation of random product and service combinations leading to increased complexity across service provider operations and, eventually lost revenue from subscribers then cherry picking only the most compelling offers. In order to prevent these pitfalls, the service provider must ensure all customer service channels share the same guidelines on the customer themselves and also around the service, including any recommendations or things to avoid.

A unified product catalogue consolidates all products and services for multiple lines of businesses, initially originating from disparate and fragmented product repositories. Such a consolidated overlay provides a single view to all product information such as price, distribution channel and product specifications as well as a flexible set of recommendation and exclusion rules for in-house and third party products and services alike. A unified product catalogue can be introduced as a big bang, replacing all the disparate product catalogues in one blow. Just as well, if not better, a unified product catalogue can be taken into use as an overlay to existing product catalogues where separate product catalogues continue to exist over a period of time and they merge into one only over a longer transition period. In the end of the day, unified product catalogue must facilitate faster time-to-market.

Unfortunately, faster is not always better if it does not also mean becoming smarter. Moving from paper to practise, the true test of any service provider’s ability to execute any given plan will be at the customer touch point, were it in point-of-sale, customer care or online. In order to make sure all the relevant information is available where it matters the most, service providers should be able to offer a full customer view and real-time service availability informa- tion to all customer touch points in equal measure, and apply this insight spiced up with predictive analytics also in real time, in any given customer touch point.

It is only at this point, when we start to see the possibilities of what it means to understand a customer for the benefit of personalisation and improved customer experience.

Anatomy of Classical Stovepipes

2011-12-05T05:56:00.001-08:00

By Amol Kulkarni, Product Portfolio Manager, Tecnotree corporation

Volatility in the communications industry, especially in the last decade, has thrown in a myriad of prophesies around the future of traditional Communications Services Providers (CSPs). On one hand, the technology of conveniently staying connected has reached masses. On the other, the demand-driven, subscriptions-based business models of CSPs were taken to task by rapidly evolving alternate communication media. Then, there came the advent of social-and-ever-so-powerful consumer. This has entailed a paradigm shift for CSPs with the demands of future-driven operational constructs, which are lean, well lubricated and always on-their-toes.

Those who have to manage it often take the adage ‘Change is good’ with a pinch of salt. For the breath of fresh air and the prospective future it promises, it also brings the upheaval and tribulations should you struggle to manage that change. Just ask any CSP executive about changes they have faced over last few years in the way they do business. They would say they have seen it all. On the business front, they have come through monopoly, regulation, de-regulation, privatization, competition, globalization, liberalization, diversification, consolidation et al. The other key factor in their lifecycle flux being the evolution of communications technologies and its proliferation to the masses. The needs and expectations from the industry have evolved from convenience of a chosen few to irreplaceable necessity of one and all. The blurring lines among the communications, commerce and technology businesses then further compounded this. The motley of challenges and their resilience to fire fighting on multiple fronts has been such that you would most likely be rewarded for lending them a sympathetic ear.

The separation of the network-related organization (which powered the products and services) from the business and customer-facing set-up was an easy and convenient strategy CSPs had for a long time. This served them well as the BSS (Business Support Systems) and OSS (Operations Support Systems) in terms of technology stacks to run the businesses developed almost hand-in-glove. But as the communications technologies evolved to extend the proliferation and reach of services, customer-bases swelled and services bundling opportunities exploded. The priorities required putting the customers first in the value chain as it wasn’t a demand-driven market anymore.

A fast-forward to where the industry is today. With the evolution, complexities in terms of managing the business have grown exponentially. And in contrast, the slow pace of strategic, operational and systemic infrastructure development required to handle these complexities gave rise to some of the major silos. Industry jargons may classify them as silos, stovepipes, incidental or accidental architectures, or just the need-of-the-hour and just in time constructs as illustrated by this graphic:

They essentially represent the known restrictions CSPs have had in modelling and managing their business information and structuring the operations during the evolution.

Typical Silo	Highlights	Organizational Constructs
Customer	Segregation of business operations to cater to Retail (B2C), Business/ Corporate (B2B) and Wholesale (volume and virtual business) segments	Organizational processes to serve various customer segments are modelled as distinct business units
Services	Business operations are organized around the various services that these CSPs offer and the way they are delivered across customers	Business units typically represent the various service lines and delivery
Functions	Well-defined separation of functions, for example, strategy, customer-facing units, back-office units, network operations	Business units represent the classical BSS & OSS ecosystem, with strategy and management units influencing their integration
Operations	Represents the operational realities in the form of multi-geographical presence of CSPs, the ongoing M&A scenarios, intra and inter-operational partnerships	The core business units drive the geographical operations, merged entities, partnerships and logistical alignments
Channels	Provides a view of operations where efforts are made to reach the customer through a combination of channels	Business units perform cross-functional operations for each of the channels
Buzz	Typical overlay based on any of the above silos to cash-in on the new-age advents of operational and technology paradigms	The traditional business units get a make-over with an overlay based on the strategy adopted by the particular CSP

As it’s said, you learn forward and grow wise in the retrospect. Tecnotree’s experience of working through such stovepipes with our global customers has helped us envision our futuristic solutions portfolio. Through our Tecnotree Agility^TM solutions platform, we endeavour to empower the CSPs to successfully navigate through these silos and avoid the pitfalls of getting stuck into one. Our convergent Customer Lifecycle Management solution helps the CSPs put their customers in the forefront of the strategy as the evolution demands it.

We continue to strive hard and devise effective ways to enable CSPs to respond to the market demands and transition to the future.

Tapping on Customer Data

2011-08-29T06:23:00.000-07:00

By Syeda Afjalina Wasi, Tecnotree CRM Business Analyst

In the competitive Telecom industry, innovation is an immaculate articulation of art and science. Needs today go beyond the traditional realms of solution scope and offering; focused and individually relevant offerings matter more and more. To create these offerings businesses rely on huge customer information sets maintained in large databases. Effectively managing and using such information has proved to be a challenge though.

In the dealings with our service provider customers, we’ve often heard problems of the following sort:

“Our profitability hasn’t improved, although we have been acquiring new customers”
“We had an extremely good product launch, initial adoptions were great, yet, customers didn’t stick to our products in long run”
“We want to bring back our old customers, but not sure how”
“We understand losing a customer is expensive, yet we’ve not been able to check the churn”

Addressing such critical issues needs a much deeper penetration of customer information in the business processes. Such strong integration of customer information requires providing a unique view of customer to all the functions of business, commonly referred to as, 360 degrees view of customer. 360 degree view of customer allows the customer element to be part of the end to end process design of a business.

Strategy – How well is the customer made a part of the corporate strategy? Conceptually, every business makes the customer central to the strategy of business. However, capturing the real essence of customer needs, and aligning the business processes around it is challenging. The old techniques of planning for customer-oriented design are obsolete; customer needs today are rapidly changing due to advent of new technologies. New communication devices, such as the modern mobile phones or tablet PCs are converging world around a person in one device. The thin line between professional and personal data is slowly diluting. Our previous blog on attitudinal analysis describes the aspect of reading customer behaviour and attitude in this new world. Attitudinal analysis can provide clues to creation of a sustainable strategy for CSPs.

Marketing – Sending the right brand message through the most relevant means is fundamental to an effective acquisition or retention of customers.

Marketing Insights – Customer data can provide valuable insights on how well a brand is received by customers. Providing deeper view into creation of the most relevant offers and promotions for the customers. In addition, good customer data analysis can also be determinant of what channels could be most effective means to promote the products and services.
Build Loyalty – Customers’ demands are rapidly changing due to the new communication technologies, such as new generation mobile phones, tablet PCs etc. Current adoption of such technologies is also in the process changing the customer behaviour and demands. Building loyalty in such rapidly changing market is walking on thin ice. The only way to create loyalty in such market is to create offers pertinent to the current customer needs.
Efficient Marketing – Analysing customer information can help in narrowing down the choices to the most effective segment and medium of conducting a marketing event. Hence, with targeted marketing, a company can perform the business with a much higher operational efficiency.

Sales – Selling effectively is fundamental to creating a long-term sales strategy. Rapidly changing market is forcing sales teams to sell products and services efficiently before the market renders them obsolete. In order to create a sales strategy, which sustains longer in the market, sales groups need to consistently innovate their sales practices.

Sell More effectively – Sell Smarter is the new slogan. Rapidly adapting sales strategy to changing needs of market, higher collaboration across the teams and immaculate execution are key to selling today.
Eliminate Surprises – Good analysis of customer data can help look into future, and hence prepare for the adversities and eliminate the surprises during the sales cycles.

Products – Creating right product mix is more than just looking at existing services and bundle them to create an extensive offering. Customers today do not want to see products, which are not relevant for them. They expect the CSPs to understand their needs and recommend the most effective product for them. This requires CSPs to design products with the flexibility to adopt to the market needs.

Services – Services are key to retention of customers, more often than not customer churn due to ineffective services.

Improve Customer Satisfaction – Give customers what they really need, and customer satisfaction index would improve automatically. Being proactive towards offering the right services could keep customer satisfied, which in turn also ensure loyalty.

Increase Service Effectiveness – Creating focused areas which effectively offers customers the most optimal services can not only elevate customer satisfaction but also dramatically bring down operational costs.

Pricing – Product and Service designers are always face this dilemma, if they price them too low, it would immediately affect profitability, if they price them too high customers could potentially move to competitors. Analysing customer data could provide the answer to this dilemma. Offerings can be optimally priced at the most convenient range for customers without affecting the profitability.

In conclusion, in order to create an effective business, the customer data must run through the entire system playing a decisive role in each decision. Only by deeply integrating customer information in the system, a sustainable business model can be created.

Venturing into customer attitudinal analysis for effective customer segmentation

2011-07-26T04:48:00.000-07:00

– By Bhavna Appayya, Tecnotree CLM Product Analyst

The telecom market has become intensely competitive, thus, driving down margins while demanding constant innovations from the Communications Service Providers (CSPs). Now players in the market have to make a sincere effort to understand their customer base better, and, ensure the service given is not only satisfactory but also optimum, hence safe-guarding the interests of the network.

A “typical” telecom customer can differ depending on his/her region and culture. While markets of Europe, North America and parts of Asia have matured, the BRIC economies have shown consistent and high rates of growth. Nonetheless, despite the explosive subscriber and revenue growth in many parts of the world, the rapidly falling average revenue per unit (ARPU) has been a reason for concern. It goes without saying then, that CSPs need not just an intimate understanding of the USPs of their products and competition in the market, but also need to ‘know’ their potential customer.

CSPs primarily use segmentation techniques to determine their targeted customer – there being many established approaches to this for different business environments such as based on purchase history data, occupation, web-tracking data and division of the customer base into rural and urban. However, once a CSP has broadly established who the potential customers are, it is also essential to determine how they respond and react and what their motivations are in the context of the products and services on offer.

The question, that arises here is - are these means adequate in the rapidly evolving telecom environment? Signs from the market probably point to a need for more, CSPs need to look deeper and further at ‘profiling’ to find that increasingly elusive ‘perfect’ customer. Basic demographics are important, but, CSPs can’t afford to ignore factors such as customer attitude, behaviour and motivation. They should know who/what their customers associate with, what technologies they use, online interests they have, and anything that can pretty much be linked to the benefits of the services being offered. Effective positioning powered by such related attitudinal analysis and actions can improve customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and thereby boost the revenue.

CSPs would most definitely benefit from keeping up with customer interests and trends they are glued to. An example would be the popularity of smart-phones and web/mobile applications in the lives of consumers. Thus, application stores and offerings stand to become brand differentiators, though; one should identify the patterns in the demand for innovative applications and enhanced user experiences. A sophisticated business user might want an app giving information on new restaurant openings or the latest stock tips while the rural customer might want a low-cost app providing crop and weather alerts, or e-learning through video and other multi lingual applications. Another interesting approach would be to minutely study the behavioural differences in how two demographically similar consumers perceive the features/benefits of a service and tapping into the vast pool of information available through various open channels such as social networking.

While all this strategizing takes place for acquiring new customers, CSPs should not lose focus from retaining existing customers. Say I am an existing customer, should I not expect equal if not better renewal privileges than a potential or new customer? If not, then “I” the customer would begin to feel cheated and, undoubtedly, look around for options. This, in turn, would punch a hole in the CSP’s already existing revenue base and market share. The key here is to design or extend tariff plans and campaigns keeping the profiles of all types of customers in mind – New or Existing. Taking cue from the airline or banking industry, CSPs should define “customer driven programs” - using telecom value scores to be billed against different customer profiles.

With the explosion of hyper-connectivity through social networks and increasing information access penetration, a typical generic subscriber base is a massive ‘melting-pot’ of varied experiences. Thus, it is vital that CSPs adapt to the modern and empowered customer by formulating a robust and intuitive customer strategy.

In a nutshell - CSPs need to look beyond the existing means of customer segmentation for effective targeting and for staying relevant!

Creating Value through Cloud Computing

2011-06-22T02:15:00.000-07:00

by Biswajit Deva Sharma, Product Architect, CLM

CRM on cloud is now a well established concept in the market, and almost every industry is looking to take the advantage of the benefits of cloud computing. However the burning question CIOs of Telecom companies ask is, how relevant is cloud computing for the Telecom industry? Or More specifically how relevant is Cloud computing for their company?

The following parameters primarily drive the decision of IT spending and technology choices for Telecom Operators in the current market scenario.

User Base:
Extremely cost sensitive markets are also forcing the Telecom operators to be extremely innovative in their market offerings. The challenge today is to offer high value with low investments to the customers. The growing competition is further pushing the Telecom Operators to be effective and efficient in their operations.

Average revenue per user (ARPU):
The Telecom industry is going through one of the toughest times in terms of the market dynamics. Recently Bharti Airtel, India’s lar¬gest telecom services com¬pany by revenue and subs¬cribers announced a 33 per cent fall in net profit to Rs 60.47 millions for the year ended March 31, 2011, from Rs 8,9.69 millions in FY10, th¬o¬ugh revenue grew 42 per cent to Rs 59.47 millions from Rs 41.85 millions. One strong reason, Bharti Airtel’s average revenue per user (ARPU) in India continued to fall to Rs 194 in the fourth quarter from Rs 198 ($4.3) in the third quarter.
The above story of Airtel pretty much represents the global picture. The narrowing revenue margin is increasingly prevalent trend of the Telecom industry. Additionally, the competition is forcing the telecom operators to offer more value at a lower cost, thereby impacting the revenue per user.

IT Spending:
Decreasing revenue margins is forcing the Telecom operators to control the Operational cost. The growing demand of the customers for better services at limited cost poses a challenge for Telecom operators to deliver value with limited investment. The leading research reports points out that the IT Spending in the telecom domain has in fact slashed down in 2009-2010. Furthermore, prediction is that the IT Spending will only improve marginally in the major markets until 2013.

Telecom Industry Technology Demands:
The Changing needs of the Telecom operators are also pushing the Software vendors to deliver Customer Management solutions that enable Telecom operators to handle the market constraints. The increasing pressure to control the Operating Cost, point towards moving from a CapEx to an OpEx mode of IT investment. Cloud Computing offers exactly the solution for the Telecom Operators.

The market scenario poses following important challenges for software product design:

Flexible Operating Cost – Depending on the demands of the markets, the Telecom operators must be able to vary their cost. Hence, the operating cost must comprise primarily of Variable cost, and very minimal fixed cost.
Customizability – Varying customer need means, Telecom operators must be able to customize their solutions to cater to their business needs.
Lower Adoption/Exit Time – Customers need highly agile systems, which can be adapted to the business needs with efficacy and provide an option for a smooth exit when needed.

Tecnotree leverages on the above needs and is currently conceptualizing to offer it’s solutions through two key delivery models:

SaaS – Software as a Service. This consists of standard functionalities with standardized business processes specific to Telecom domain, which allows Tecnotree to address standard business needs of the customers.
PaaS – Platform as a Service. This is to enable the customers and independent software operators to innovate using the Tecnotree application platform. Customers can leverage on the platform to create customized solutions to meet specific business needs.

Tecnotree is on a quest to serve its customers, by changing the marketplace with innovations that really matter.

In the coming months, we will publish more blog posts on topics related to technology, delivery & deployment platforms. We believe these are really relevant when it comes to delivering value in the true business sense.

Stay tuned!

BLUE SKY & CUMULUS CLOUDS

2011-06-08T07:09:00.000-07:00

By Tatu Tahkokallio, Group Marketing Director

This Monday people woke up with lots of excitement in the air. It was time to turn our eyes and ears towards California and hear what Steve Jobs had to present. No surprise, sky was blue and clouds were expected to appear at the center stage! And they did, amongst many other game changing services and solutions.

But California is not the only place where we see lots of innovation, progress, and development. Already for several months, Tecnotree has been promoting three solutions suits of which ‘Bundle Services for Every Taste’ is the first one. For this suite, the idea and message behind has just become timelier than ever, and Apple is a great example of a player following the same philosophy. I believe a golden opportunity truly exists if different demand from customers is met by packaging services individually, pricing them attractively and offering the bundles out through channels relevant to buyers. I call this opportunity the blue-sky business for tomorrow’s communications service provider!

So what did Steve announce then? Well, as expected the iCloud came out. It is the current (and soon to be closed) MobileMe service extended with a set of new features such as Photo Stream, App Store, iTunes, and storage and it offers a full integration and synchronization between all Apple platforms (iOS and MacOS), products, and applications. iCloud is able to store the pictures you take, device settings, and apps and make them available via all your devices. However, iCould is intended to be a sharing cloud, not a permanent full storage. For this reason, it for example stores only the most recent 1,000 photographs, and albums for 30 days. On the music side iTunes is expanded with a new iCloud service called iTunes Match, which at an extra annual cost of USD 24.99 gives cloud access to songs purchased and ripped from previously owned CDs.

No doubt, the iCloud offers a great set of services for end-users but the impact for mobile operators is less attractive. The system will heavily utilize existing networks, both Wi-Fi and 3G, to connect and signal between applications and services, and as such leave the operator as a bit pipe.

An other new interesting service launched by Apple was iMessaging. It will enable iOS5 users to communicate with each other free of charge by utilizing Apple’s own messaging infrastructure. This system sends notifications over SMS and MMS but uses data connection for actual messaging. As the service and user experience is integrated into the same iOS Messaging application now used to send and receive SMS and MMS messages, there should be no question about its success. What’s the impact for service providers then? A mobile operator will most likely see an increase in data traffic but at the same time a decrease in SMS/MMS revenues.

These new services from Apple are important and there is a lot to learn both from the packaging but also from the pricing point of view. Needless to say, they may also act as precursors on what to expect from the other ecosystem ‘owners’ such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft/Nokia in their future service offerings.

I bet the question pondering in many of the mobile operator’s minds is: “how should a service provider act upon these news?” Are they true cumulus clouds just ahead of rain and thunder? Or is there a way to keep diving in the blue sky? I think there is, and it begins from keeping in mind that there are several ecosystems at play, there are many consumers with various needs and wants, and an operator must be able to locally pull of a similar show – creating the positive service buzz – as what Apple often does. This means, that service provider’s business owners, technologists, and sales & marketing professionals must be working hand-in-hand towards an operator controlled digital marketplace bundling best in breed offerings for subscribers to enjoy!

Yours,

Tatu T

p.s. Talking about clouds, if you haven’t seen the latest Tecnotree press release about private cloud deployment go read it here!

BUSINESS OR PLEASURE?

2011-05-06T05:02:00.000-07:00

By Tatu Tahkokallio, Group Marketing Director

Some 15+ years ago when I began my career in the telecoms industry PC laptops were getting small enough to carry around wherever you went. However, connectivity was still very much in its infancy. Typically you needed a dial-up connection to read your emails and if you were on the move, wireless data was available only at the speed of 9.6kbit/s. At the time, only the true visionaries amongst us could have dreamt about broadband dongles. But hey, as Web sites and other digital content were only taking their first baby steps back then, what would you have even needed more speed?

No big surprise, everything has changed since then. And I mean really everything.

Today, we take for granted the ability to consume content, use services, be social, download applications, have connectivity, organize daily routines using cloud based digital experiences, and make monetary transactions of different kind anywhere, anytime. And what’s more, we no longer distinguish or categorize our actions and tools as being either business or pleasure. They are both of those and in one nice mesh!

This is exactly where the opportunity lies for the forward looking industry players – our customers – who we consult, serve and power with solutions for tomorrow’s digital marketplaces. Our vision and actions help communication service providers serve the needs of consumers and businesses alike, by making the above-mentioned offerings available, affordable and easy to enjoy.

As the line between our work and private life is so blurred, an increasing number of operators need to look at their offering with marketing goggles on; understand the changing faces of the target segments (e.g. depending on the time of day or location), have a systematic way of measuring and analyzing adjustments in their marketing mix and quickly react on the rising or falling market trends. Furthermore, it is crucial to offer so much more than before; be able to bundle products and services from 3^rd parties, including big and small Internet players, and to manage rapid service lifecycles.

All this change will provide more benefits too for all parties involved. As those in the past so inflexible OSS/BSS systems are replaced or transformed into agile business solutions, providing real-time views to customer and service activity, you can conduct your business by sitting in front of your corporate PC, or by giving a quick lunch presentation using a tablet PC, or by checking sales status with your smartphone on a boat deck. With this advancement, the solutions that were delivered previously to back office staff will now get proliferated also to armpits of business managers and palms of business owners. Now that’s a big change for business.

And how do I know that? Well, I am a walking example of a businessman who moves between all these three canvases; PC-tablet-smartphone, and utilize the same devices, applications and solutions to both my business and private benefit. Let me just quickly highlight three solutions that have really changed my life:

The first one has to do with international videoconferencing. In the old days you either booked a video room or had to be in front of your PC. Today, I use WebEx, which allows me to decide the device I want to use and where. All works seamlessly whether I prefer PC, tablet or mobile.

The second was a surprise to me. I suddenly realized how much a great notes solution could increase my productivity. I took Evernote in use and now all my notes are fully integrated and synchronized between all my devices and canvases. And those notes can be all kinds of content; text, pictures, voice, location, etc.

The third example has to do with music consumption. My habits turned completely around after the introduction of Spotify, the streaming music service. I have completely quit buying CDs. Today, I both discover and listen to music using all kinds of devices and in different occasions than I did before.

What’s common to all these examples then? Well, they all consume data and they all have pricing of their own and my consumption habits vary from day to day, from hour to hour. What’s more interesting, either my employer or I have to pay for all those services separately. In fact, it’s very challenging, if not impossible, to find a shop, like Amazon on the web, that could offer these services in one neat package. After all, they are all business critical to me.

So, my cry goes out to all communication service providers around the world to start taking action about this opportunity. When can your customers enjoy the great services I do, but from one booth? And when can they get it all on one single bill?

Telco customer management - a two-way street

2011-04-04T05:22:00.000-07:00

by Amol Kurkarni, Product Manager

There is a classical paradox in the services industry about the perceived front-runners of the customer centricity bandwagon. Have you, as a customer of a Communication Service Provider (CSP), ever noticed the promises of putting you at the center of their business strategy? Did these promises even last as long as it took you to queue on the phone before hearing a human voice on the other side or find a relevant menu item on the web portal? Unfortunately many CSPs continue to treat their customer relationships in a product-centric way.

Doomsday prophecies have long been voiced for the traditional communication services business. Often, being termed as dumb data carriers/pipes, CSPs are blamed for not recognizing the value of the influence, reach and information they carry. Popular communication services now turn into commodities at a faster rate than the race for distinction the CSPs are engaged in. The eternal search for that Killer App has rather made this battle for relevance worse. The collaborative world of googles, facebooks and skypes that CSPs thought would bring them distinction is now considered a reason for their potential defeat.

Long gone are the monopolistic times when CSPs dictated the terms to hapless customers who had to choose between staying connected or facing obsolescence. Maybe their focus was more on thriving on newer technological advances. Nonetheless and for all good reasons, customers today are spoilt for choice in selecting the CSP to satisfy their insatiable needs for communication, richer content and newer and cooler applications. With services spectrum based on similar technologies and pricing wars turning destructive, the customers’ convenience has never mattered more.

The unidirectional nature of driving customer relationships, the all-encompassing CRM programs by the CSPs seem to have run the full circle. It might take just one viral tweet to make or break a new service campaign that you, as CSP, are betting your future on. The empowered customers of this changed era have shown a keen eagerness to exercise their right for driving value through social relationships. With the advent of everything social the other party, the customer, of these relationships is forcing the CSPs to walk the talk.

Historically, CSPs never lacked in terms of initiatives to leverage customer relationships as an asset. The message, though, may have been lost in translation when the relevant strategies were being executed through monolithic CRM IT programs. In a way, the change in customer intentions may actually have brought the obvious to the surface. With market penetration reaching its zenith, the customer acquisition rates have been saturating and retention initiatives are facing challenges on multiple fronts. It is not for nothing that the differentiated and enhanced customer experience is being pegged as the panacea for the CSPs’ woes.

The sustainable killer app may be just that, the customer experience. Whether you run a wireless service business or a fixed line one, run it on 3G or optical broadband, target at B2B or B2C customer segments, it is the biggest common denominator of the two-way relationship street between the provider and the consumer. We recognize that it is powered through enhanced customer lifecycle management.

In the coming months we are bringing in for discussion some of the most critical topics around customer lifecycle management. The theme is to search for a clear win-win alignment of the aspirations of CSPs toward their own customers.

Gardens of "good and evil"

2011-03-10T07:01:00.000-08:00

by Timo Laaksonen, VP Strategy & Business Development

Some ten years ago operators across the world hurried to set up their own content portals, so called walled gardens of content and services. Ecosystems branded, managed, revenue shared and controlled by the operator. Content services - especially ones related to messaging - did quite well and some operators managed to attract lots of popular services onto their portals, recruit a long tail of thousands of content and service providers, and generate good money in the process.

Rich media services never really took off due to several inhibitors, such as slow data networks and somewhat awkward user experience of handsets and applications. Developers were not too keen either to work with complex tools available for creating mobile applications. Operator content portals in some countries did very well, and still do especially in countries with lower fixed internet penetration, but in most markets growth figures turned to single digit figures much faster than expected and hoped for.

Enter the iPhone, enter faster data networks; Boom! To put it mildly, the world hasn't exactly revolved around operator portals anymore after 2008. Another walled garden has emerged: The one controlled by Apple. Apple now does effectively the same as operators were doing ten years earlier and, funnily enough, operators have partially helped them get to that position by promoting the iPhone. As logical as it is to promote a phone which is a killer product in the consumer market, then that is exactly what it may turn out to be for the operator: a product leading to the death of the operator content and service portals. For some time operators were tuning down their content portals and focusing on a shorter tail of best sellers and must haves.

Since the emergence of the iPhone and iTunes AppStore operators started setting up their own app stores to respond to the popular demand. So it's back to the long tail.

Enter Google, Android OS and Android Market. In 2010 Android phones passed Apple iPhones in popularity and the rate of Android application development is impressive. Ok, so now it's not only Apple but also Google who is vying for consumers' eyeballs and wallets. Furthermore, Android Market is just as walled a garden as iTunes AppStore. What is even worse from operator point of view is that they are outside of those blossoming gardens. To finish the trio, Microsoft and Nokia are trying to get their ducks in a row to battle for the same market where Apple and Google already have a two to four years' head start. Maybe Ovi becomes yet another booming garden where operators have little or no interest.

Operators are now working to (re-)establish a strong position in the mobile content, apps and services market. Their assets are a wide customer base and existing billing/charging relationships, trust as a local company, brand awareness, local business networks, local voice and data networks, and more. Which route should the operators now choose? Another try at an operator walled garden independent of Apple and Google? An open garden where all flowers can blossom and operator control on content, revenue share and services is less apparent? Cooperation with Apple and/or Google and focus on boosting the use of voice and data services?

Sorry, I don't know the right answer to those questions. However, I can think of a couple wrong answers: Walled operator gardens with a loooong tail of content, apps and services - operators have hardly enough critical customer mass or pull to make it a success; Leaving the apps and content business to Apple and Google and focusing on communication services - operators will be left with commodity products under ultra-competed pricing terms.

These times should be about open gardens. Fair revenue share with content and apps providers. Operator's own offerings spiced up with local content and apps, complemented by global hit products. Customers having control over their personal data. Supporting local businesses. Predictable service levels. What comes to operator portals and offering I personally believe more in a rich set of local products complemented by shorter tail of popular, global brand products. All wrapped in a neat subscription, delivery and bill by the party I'm accustomed to trusting. What do you believe in?

Takeaways from Mobile World Congress 2011

2011-02-18T07:17:00.000-08:00

by Timo Laaksonen, VP Strategy & Business Development

Four intensive days of Mobile World Congress 2011 in Barcelona - what were the key takeaways?

1) Smartphones and apps stole the center stage. Nokia partnership with Microsoft was the talk of the town. There were certainly enough people following Microsoft demos for Windows 7 to clog the main aisle of Hall 1. Maybe I only imagined but I could have sworn that some of them were also eyeing across the aisle towards "demos" in typical CBOSS style, i.e. gorgeous ladies on a catwalk. Android was present with a very large and definitely cool stand showcasing all their supported phone models out in the market as well as loads of application and service partners.

2) Financial sentiment appears to be "business as usual" in telecom and communications business. A member of the MWC sales team told me that they broke the all time attendance level on Tuesday, close to 60 000 people through the doors. Operators are considering serious investments in all areas: infrastructure, service platforms, customer experience, business support and customer care. There seemed to be considerably less hype around the show this year than in some of the previous years and more heads-down type business talk.

3) Major communication service providers are not going to watch from the sidelines how Apple and Google make all the money on their customers. Heads of Vodafone and Telefónica, among others, announced that they will not hand their customers on a silver plate over to the Internet giants. Major operator groups are working together to develop application, service and content ecosystems where their customer control, overall revenue and cut of advertising proceeds will be more prominent than in Apple or Google dominated scenarios. Operators will need to move fast to make a difference as the mobile Internet train is already picking up considerable speed.

4) Tecnotree's strategic value proposition to power the digital marketplace was welcomed by operators, press and analysts alike. As stated above, operators realize that they need to make concrete moves right now to develop a meaningful role for themselves as the underlying dynamics of the communications and media market are going through profound change. Our three step solution approach to becoming a digital marketplace was considered a clear path to short and long term success. As a result of MWC 2011 we have a lot of leads to follow up with both existing and new customers. This will be an exciting year of working with communication services providers the world over to extend and renew their current capabilities and to build new business critical solutions on their way to becoming flourishing digital marketplaces.

Introducing the all new Tecnotree web, and more

2011-02-14T09:22:00.000-08:00

by Timo Laaksonen, VP Strategy & Business Development, Tecnotree Corporation

We launched the new Tecnotree web site last weekend after busy preparations in the past two months. The first thing that will strike you is the new look and feel. We pushed the company’s visual identity a bit further to transmit innovation, strength and clarity. Our aim was also to create a new freshness and simplicity to the way a company operating in the telecom IT market presents itself – both in terms of visuals and content.

All our core collateral and web content has been completely re-written to convey the same strength, freshness and clarity as what we were looking for in the visuals. We have always been known for technology excellence. Oftentimes the technology and solutions that we work with can get quite complex. The messages related to such solutions can be very difficult to digest for people who are more into business than technology. So we have given a serious shot at talking the language that not only technologists can relate to, but also business professionals can appreciate. This is all part of a shift where we want Tecnotree to shine every bit as bright in technology savvy as before, while presenting a new angle into our offering which derives from addressing business critical opportunities and challenges in the Communication Service Provider (CSP) market.

The starting point to re-writing our collateral was the renewed corporate strategy. You can read more about this subject in a separate press release today. The very first thing that we re-coined was the company’s tagline: Powering the Digital Marketplace. It came about as a result of a staff brainstorming competition we organized in December and perfectly builds on the new strategy. Our Irish colleagues are to thank for this concise caption of what we represent; The partner of choice to CSPs around the world wanting to develop a meaningful role for themselves in the digital marketplace for products and services, be they virtual services or tangible products.

Next, we took on to re-grouping our products into a clearer structure, all under one single product suite, Tecnotree AgilityTM, grouped into three product lines: Revenue, Customer and Value. Every single one of our products has been included into the Tecnotree AgilityTM product suite with the addition of two new members. You can learn more about those on the web site and in a press release due tomorrow. The easiest way to learn about our products – now hopefully in an easier-to-digest format - is by downloading data sheets from our web site.

Furthermore, we have launched a whole host of solutions, each of which builds on combining two or more Tecnotree products to address a topical business opportunity or challenge. These solutions are what represents closest our business proposition to Tecnotree customers, the CSPs. Most of these solutions are well proven to reap significant business benefits in real customer environments. There are others which introduce totally new capabilities, building partially on some of our more recently launched products, and on innovative combinations of both new and existing products. Just one example of a novel business solution is called Unifying Product Offering. Learn more about that and other Tecnotree solutions on our web, grouped under three solution areas: Bundle Services for Every Taste, Build Customer Lifetime Value and Create Digital Marketplaces. We trust that there are solutions in this portfolio that are be topical to any given CSP around the world.

Finally, I want to encourage you to download a brand new white paper, exclusively available on the Tecnotree web site. It is authored by Karl Whitelock of Stratecast (a division of Frost & Sullivan) and is entitled “Meeting Customer Needs – Service Offer Personalization and Partner Collaboration”. Thanks to Karl’s extensive experience and his exceptional knowledge of the market the world over, he has succeeded in capturing how the changing dynamics in the telecom and communications industry are affecting the role of CSPs. Even more importantly, he provides plenty of ideas and examples of how CSPs can address these challenges and opportunities to develop a meaningful role for themselves and keep growing their business, yet more in tune with the real needs of their end customers, in an engaging and balanced relationship.

I do hope you enjoy the web site and its content. We are excited about it and can assure you that this is only the beginning as there is a whole host of new ideas waiting to be realized in the months to come. More about those in upcoming blog posts and tweets. For those of you participating the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week – see you at the Tecnotree stand in Hall 1.

From bitpipes to digital marketplaces

2011-02-11T09:53:00.000-08:00

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