Loved brands have a range of advantages over other businesses, which over time creates significant commercial benefits.
Simon Best, experienced telco marketing strategist, gives us his take on how telcos can achieve this goal — and which telcos are achieving it.
In this report we update our initial model of the potential financial value of adding analytics, AI and automation (A3) into a telco’s processes. Our bottom up assessment of 150+ processes across networks and operations, customer channels, sales and marketing shows telcos can achieve financial benefits amounting to more than 8% of annual revenues.
Improving customer experience has been a focus for telcos for almost 20 years, but there is still some way to go. This research looks at how A3 is helping telcos today and how it can address key challenges in future.
Telcos were quick to respond to changing customer needs as the COVID pandemic forced all kinds of businesses to shift to remote working almost overnight. Now we outline a six-point plan for telcos to evolve their initial WFH propositions into best-in-class services that address a range of security, reliability and performance needs.
We consider the potential financial value of adding analytics, AI and automation (A3) into a telco’s processes. Our modelling assesses the value of A3 in more than 150 processes across core network operations, customer care channels, and sales and marketing.
Achieving greater customer loyalty is important for telecoms operators, but often difficult to realise. We look at operators that have proved successful in achieving low levels of customer churn including O2, Telstra and TELUS, and identify practices that have played a key part in their success.
M&A is a key tool in building digital businesses, but is the telco sector investing enough? We examine the key drivers and barriers to telco digital M&A strategies, comparing investment levels to other verticals, and compare and contrast M&A activity with our previous findings.
Online entertainment is increasingly dominated by 5 big platforms but 6 forces are likely to shape the market going forward and could have profound effects on the dominant platforms. We analyse the relative strengths and weaknesses of each player and explore the potential opportunities for telcos to compete and collaborate.
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?
This report will help digital commerce players assess some tough technology and strategy choices in the on-going mobile marketing and commerce battle. E.g. Will bricks and mortar merchants embrace NFC or Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) or cloud-based solutions? If NFC does take off, will SIM cards or trusted execution environments be used to secure services? Should digital commerce brokers use SMS, in-app notifications or IP-based messaging services to interact with consumers? What are the big players backing, and what will be the key indicators that a specific technology is likely to win?
Amazon, Google, Apple, eBay/PayPal and Facebook are the big five brokers of digital commerce. But the disruption caused by the rise of mass-market smartphones, and the personal data they generate, means the medium-term leadership of these California-based companies is not assured. Each of them has weaknesses that could hinder their progress towards securing a strong strategic position in the new Digital Commerce 2.0 marketplace, and render them potentially vulnerable to competition from telcos, banks and/or start-ups. (October 2013, Executive Briefing Service, Dealing with Disruption Stream.) Digital Commerce 2.0 Gap
Telcos, Internet and technology players, banks and payment networks have disruptive $billion opportunities to act as intermediaries / enablers in mobile commerce and personal cloud services, based on the appropriate use of customer data. This report is a unique and comprehensive strategic guide for success in these roles. It analyses the strategies of the main and cutting-edge players, and outlines key success factors in designing and delivering customer propositions, technology, organisation and value network strategies. It also includes evaluations of the related strategic opportunities of ‘raw big data’, professional data services, and internal data use, and a business model showing how one type of candidate for the intermediary role, a telco, could grow profitable new revenues equivalent to c.$50Bn (5% of existing core revenues) within five years. (October 2013, Dealing with Dsiruption Stream). Telco 2.0 Transformation Index Small
The ‘Mobile/Digital Wallet’ needs to evolve to support authentication, search and discovery, as well as payments, vouchers, tickets and loyalty programmes. Moreover, consumers will want to be able to tailor the functionality of this “commerce assistant” or “commerce agent” to fit with their own interests and preferences. Our report and analysis of the Digital Commerce 2.0 Executive Brainstorm, 20 March 2013, part of the New Digital Economics Silicon Valley event. (April 2013, Executive Briefing Service, Dealing with Disruption Stream.)
Who is best placed to win in local commerce April 2013
Many companies are struggling to build a mobile commerce business case that generates significant incremental revenues in the next five years. But some will ultimately use digital wallets to create a valuable platform that bolsters customer loyalty and produces substantial revenues from location-based marketing, advertising and the management of personal data. What are the barriers, how can they be overcome, and what are the key actions for telcos, major internet players, banks and payment networks?
In the next 10 years, many industries face the ‘Great Compression’ in which, in addition to the pressures of ongoing global economic uncertainty, there is also a major digital transformation that is destroying traditional value and moving it ‘disruptively’ to new areas and geographies. For the incumbent industry players we call the near-term results of this disruption ‘The Digital Hunger Gap’ – the widening deficit between past and projected revenues. This is our analysis of the top-level findings of the Silicon Valley Executive Brainstorm. (March 2013, Executive Briefing Service, Transformation Stream.)
10 Year Hunger Gap Mar 2013
From SMS, through Smartphone and browser Apps, the potential of mobile marketing has long been understood and yet unfulfilled. This new report gives our forecasts, plus how Telcos can make the most of the powerful assets available to them to take a valuable role in this market before it is too late. Report extract included here. (April 2010, Executive Briefing Service, Dealing with Disruption Stream).
The limitations of the “Triple Play” (and other “N-Plays”) in a multi-media, multi-mode delivery game. (November 2007)