Facebook has changed substantially since we first analysed the company in 2011. In our latest major report we explore the accuracy of our 2011 predictions regarding users, revenue and strategy. We also examine Facebook’s current aspirations and challenges and explain why, where and how operators should be working with Facebook to build value.
Digital initiatives are an important part of the telecoms growth story. However, because they are so different to the traditional telecoms business, they require different performance metrics: a digital dashboard. In this report, we examine the importance of metrics in shaping business performance, explore the contribution of metrics to 3 telco digital success stories, and reveal how a cutting-edge approach to metrics is driving digital execution at Telkom Indonesia.
STL Partners’ industry transformation analysis, including a recent global survey of telco executives, suggests operators’ digital ambitions are rising fast but, given 9 substantial implementation challenges, too little is currently being done to engender successful industry-wide business model transformation. We also look at the lessons from NTT DoCoMo, one of the operators that has made the most overall progress towards a ‘digital’ model.
Although telcos aren’t generally associated with disruption, many operators around the world have attempted to disrupt adjacent markets, such as digital commerce, entertainment and financial services. In some cases, telcos have even disrupted their core broadband and communications markets. While many of these moves have fizzled out or have flown below investors’ radar screens, several have had a major impact on both the telco’s revenues and relevance. These include SK Planet, M-Pesa, Au Smart Pass and BT Sport. Why do some disruptive moves by telcos succeed and others fail?
Apple is weakening Samsung Electronics’ grip in the high-end of the handset market, lowering the Korean company’s profitability and capacity to compete effectively. After a series of largely unsuccessful attempts to break into software and services, a daring option for Samsung is to seek a strong, strategic alliance with Google to enable both companies to mount a serious challenge to Apple’s dominance in the affluent demographic. Telcos could back such an alliance in return for a profitable role in the service layer. This report analyses the strategic rationale for such an approach.
A small and surprising set of national operators are delivering outstanding performance in the challenging European market. Our analysis shows how they’re achieving differentiation with smart strategies that target the hottest customer need, and the considerable ramifications for the rest of the market.
The unveiling of Apple Pay and unravelling of Weve (the UK operators’ payments venture) looked like bad news for telcos’ ambitions in mobile payments in some markets, and highlighted challenges to Google and others’ models. Yet there are already successful telco models and favourable market trends that telcos should exploit. So what are the opportunities now?
Connected cars are set to revolutionise the automotive industry as we know it, turning the car into the ‘ultimate mobile device’ and driving the growth of M2M in a big way. With Apple, Google, telcos and many others in the chase, we analyse the growth drivers, value chain, and key battles for control of this increasingly complex ecosystem, and outline a new connected car services framework.
Free’s shock bid for T-Mobile USA will stretch its finances and management capacity to the limit. Can Free’s package of tactics, technology, and procedures work in the US context?
Since Google acquired Nest for $3.2bn, Apple and Samsung have also entered the complex battle for the connected home. We analyse in-depth why Google wanted Nest, the players’ goals and strategies, and what should telcos and others do to stay in the game?
Facing lockout from a growing chunk of the Internet and mounting competition from the Facebook-Microsoft alliance and Amazon, Google’s core business is under intense pressure. The search giant’s response is to innovate, offering consumers proactive recommendations, as well as reactive search results. Once an interesting sideline, Google Now has become fundamental to the Mountain View company’s future. Is the suggestion service good enough to maintain Google’s position as the world’s leading big data company?
A launcher is a customizable home screen for an Android device that allows users to reorganize, customize and interact with their device. Launchers are gaining popularity, with Facebook, Google, Twitter and Yahoo all having either acquired or developed their own versions, but the market is fragmented with different launchers providing different functionality, services and monetization methods. Our latest analysis shows how telcos should seek to explore this area to help them establish more relevance in the digital ecosystem.
Digital transformation is now impacting every industry, and one of the hardest organisational challenges is developing small-scale innovations fast and managing them in large and mature organisations. Here are our recommendations and key findings from the OnFuture EMEA 2014 cross-industry brainstorm, including a summary of Facebook’s internal recipe for speedy success. (June 2014, Executive Briefing Service, Transformation Stream.)
Existing Business remains the biggest obstacle to innovation
Our new global research among enterprises and telcos shows that many telcos are ideally positioned, but underprepared, to exploit the fast emerging and evolving $50bn Enterprise Mobility opportunity. How can telcos address this gap?
In this new report based on Telco 2.0 Transformation Index analysis we compare Vodafone’s competitive positioning with another European-centric multi-national, Telefonica. The results are surprising and instructive, showing that Vodafone faces substantial challenges if it is to grow in the foreseeable future.
We see five major trends leading towards the overall picture of the ‘software defined operator’ – an operator whose boundaries and structure can be set and controlled through software. This presents threats as well as opportunities for industry players selling and wanting to sell to telcos.
Albeit pioneering, Telefonica’s Digital business unit as was lacked focus and combined too many clashing cultures and incompatible businesses. Our latest analysis sees the change as ‘the end of the beginning’ for Telefonica’s Telco 2.0 services, and summarises lessons for all players implementing strategic transformation.