Eli Novershten from Canaan Israel office was at GSMA last month, and has shared his takeouts from the conference. I hope it is useful. Please use the fullscreen mode at bottom right of the widget for clarity.
It seems that cell phones are beginning to come across as a shock to mobile telecom companies! The manner in which non-telecom companies are able to stretch the envelope on an essentially telecom device has made them sit up and watch. Be it the iPhone, or other areasin entertainment, advertising, and so on (typically not within a telco competence set.) There is a catchup play here. Equally strong is the shift away from newer infrastructure, especially as many telcos, especially in Europe, have struggled to reap gains from their cutting edge infra investments over past few years.
Enjoy!
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Telecom has a huge market. In fact these days even Indian authors are launching books on mobile. For instance Happionaire’s Cash The Crash – Yogesh Chabria/CNBC is planning to launch a book with the service provider I am working with. Of course we don’t know how such a model will work, what do you feel?
The current trend is an expected one. Telecom companies worldwide have tried to everything : from running multiple network types to managing the hardware/software/handset ecosystem to engaging the customer not to forget branding. These are just too many hats to wear and its time that big players in India realize also that. Forget about the best, you cant even be good at everything.
Airtel did start the trend ( and others have followed suit) of outsourcing some of these components. Identifying and engaging different customer segments is tough when you have 70 million+ users and focus is solely on outstanding growth. This is why innovations come from non-telcos in the form of hardware or software (Blackberry , iPhone)
In a market like India, there is huge scope for innovation in data services , tariff plan management, mobile marketing models and customer service. Telcos need to wake up to these possibilities before growth reaches a plateau.