Save the tigers

A recent documentary on animal planet and a campaign awareness program got me gripping and hence I promoting this one...

Video copyrights: WWF

Telecom analytics continue to play a major role in determining company performance

Indian Telecom is the fastest growing industry next only to the IT industry. Investment in the Indian telecom sector is forecasted to peak at $40 billion during the current fiscal as the country presses on to build a network of one billion mobile phones over the next two years, the Telecom Equipment and Services Export Promotion Council has said. Much of these positive effects and growth of the industry were driven by numerous regulatory and policy changes in the country over the last two decades.

The presence of 15 operators scattered around 22 circles, competing for the pie of the customer market share (CMS) and revenue market share (RMS), is currently driving continual change in the telecom industry. The market is already experiencing high pressure on profit margins and slower revenue growth. In addition to this, the market is already battering major issues in regulation and policy stemming from a possible probe into the 2G spectrum scam that a government audit says was awarded too cheaply losing out a mind boggling figure of Rs. 1.76 lakh crore. While the Public Accounts Committee takes care of the spectrum scam, one can only hope that justice prevails and those found guilty are dragged to the court.

In the meanwhile, operator must continue to focus on new business models and bringing radical changes to the products to improve profitability. Given the nature of the competition, mergers and acquisitions in this industry is inevitable. As market penetration reaches a saturation point, competition for existing customer increases. Further the introduction of the mobile number portability (MNP) and 3G services creates challenges for the operators to retain existing customer, while simultaneously focus on bring on new customers. While the 3G service roll outs would depend on the handset penetration, quality of service and network performances in each of the 22 circles, MNP is here to stay and play a huge part in driving the business operations and services of the operators. 

Telecom analytics will continue to play a major driver in understanding the customer base. Understanding prior customer behavior helps a company provide offers that are more personalized and attractive, thus increasing customer loyalty. As the market evolves and new products are launched, analysis becomes critical to understand the tariffs, product and service migrations, customer profitability and loyalty. Telecom data is complex. Companies sweat it out to make sense of data from legacy systems, customer service applications, and thousands of product and activity codes. Further, the complexity is added when drilling down to features, add-on tariffs, bundles and packages. Operators, who are focused on analyzing these trends either through self-managed teams or through outsourced analytics group, would benefit the most in understanding the trends in the market.

The foundation for performing complex analysis is thus based on accurate subscriber metrics. Statistical and predictive behavior modeling form the cornerstone for these data analysis. And the factors that one needs to focus to ensure continuous analysis during the new business launch, joint ventures or acquisitions are flexibility to adjust market changes, scalability to handle large volumes and accommodate growth, compatibility to integrate seamlessly, audit ability and vendor knowledge. The proper understanding of these factors and the appropriate means of addressing them will be critical in determining the winners and losers in the marketplace.

Image Source: Telecomtalk.info, transpromo-live.com

Cash Connections - Who invested in Social Networking??

Overview of the current strategy consulting landscape

The consulting industry has evolved significantly over the last few months. In view of the figures sourced from Kennedy Vanguard of Strategy Consulting Firms and Practices, the revenue/ degree of strategic capability figures provides a way to map some of the biggest names in the strategy consulting landscape. Today, consulting firms are experimenting with different delivery models to supply their skills and resources – new markets, talent war, forging alliances, joint ventures etc.

Source: Kennedy Vanguard of Strategy Consulting Firms & Practices, consultancy.nl

Earlier in 2010, AON went about acquiring Hewitt Associates for about $4.9 billion to strengthen its human resource base. Consultancy firms - Booz & Co. and AT Kearney were involved in merger talks, which eventually collapsed. Going by the annual revenues of these two firms the merger would have placed them third in strategy consulting - behind McKinsey & Co. and BCG. After a successful deal structure with Bearing Point’s North American arm, Deloitte were most recently involved in advanced merger talks with Germany’s Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. This deal fell apart on Wednesday 23rd Nov, sighting Roland Berger’s plan to remain independent – gaining a close to 100% majority voting from its partners, as reported by Financial Times. A successful deal between these two firms would have challenged some of the big names in the strategy consulting landscape, clearing creating a global strategy leadership with annual revenues close to $3 billion.

A traditional forecast model cannot predict the future M&A’s as consulting firms are slowly, but steadily coming out of recession. It would however be interesting to see how firms will be looking to adapt from focusing on deals to enjoying a more transformational relationship. For some consulting firms, this means to return to their traditional consulting roots; while for others, the challenge would be to focus on diversification without compromising their reputation and cost base. Success for consulting firms lies in understanding their position within the bubble chart, and the specific threats and opportunities this brings.

Sources: Financial Times, Kennedy Research

Convergence of TV and Internet Services

Its 8 pm, you are on your way home after a hectic day at office. You are anxiously waiting for the bus to show up, so that you do not miss that crucial world cup match. Chances are - either the bus is overly packed with commuters and you wait your turn for the next one, or the buses are not on time for the umpteenth time. In either case you have no choice but to miss your game. Yet another time, you end up catching the highlights and missing those exciting moments of watching a live match with your friends. Now picture this scenario - yet another match, and you are at the bus stop. This time you do not worry about the bus being packed or being late. You simply take out your Smartphone, get the Wi-Fi in place and connect to your favourite sports channel. Voila - Game on! Hang – on – while some technologically leading markets have already developed this service, we have not yet reached there.

Despite the crisis that swept the entire media & entertainment industry, and especially the television industry, since it draws majority of the revenues from advertising models than subscription models, the Pay-TV segment is enjoying a relatively stable position in the market. The marketability of content today is done in ways to create a new value proposition and to differentiate content offerings. Competition, mainly from the internet world, is slowly, but steadily opening up. Television viewing is undergoing a major change where it is characterized by migration to the Internet. The rapidly changing consumption patterns such as mobile or pay-per-view pose a real threat to the Pay TV operators.

Today, as the laptops, Smartphone’s and tablets become a common place, the viewing habits of consumers have shifted drastically. In what seems to be an unavoidable trend, the TV content is opening up to the web interfaces. Google TV, Apple TV etc. are perfect examples of products involved in merging TV and internet into a single screen and experience (Not to forget Roku, Boxee, and Vudu). Google and Apple are global phenomena with a hell lot of eyeballs, more than any of the Pay TV operating services. With just a click of a button, you can seamlessly search for your TV contents, easily switch between TV and web without actually having to change any input channels and access a vast catalog of contents.

So what makes a good digital content a great content? What gives the consumers the incentive to reach out to their web or the television set each time? The key to understand here would be to see how companies can unlock these questions to come with compelling strategies to compete with vast content libraries, compelling on-demand services and the relatively low pricing offers. No doubt that the underlying drivers behind these opportunity lay the network transformation and other market opportunities - OS-based Smartphone’s, Diversity of communications (p2p, smart grids etc.), trend towards flatter networks, next generation services (analytics, content, security, e-commerce etc.) and new monetization methods. The evolution of new consumption patterns and the freely available contents pose a major threat to the Pay TV segments, and sooner or later they will have to adapt their strategic positioning to strengthen their brand image and attractiveness to consumers. The way we are watching TV today is evolving, and so must Pay TV operators...

Teach A B C the new generation way

Cheers - "They who drink beer will think beer" - Washington Irving

Just a month ago I was in a sports bar watching this high profile match between Atletico Madrid and Barcelona in Madrid, Spain. The bar tender was very friendly and he opened up the tap, couple of hours even before the match could start. You see, soccer and beer are two things that go hand in hand. Then, be it a Champions League night or a La Liga or a Serie A – bars are always full and the kegs keep getting empty. I was with random people chanting and trying to match them with Spanish songs. I couldn’t stop noticing how fast the bar tenders were re-fuelling the kegs. So I went upto the bar tender looking for Tapas and asking him about his beer business in general. While I started with his beer business in general, during the conversation, I was made aware about the value of beer industry in Europe, and as I held my pint, I realized that it had tremendous potential post 2010 particularly in the emerging market, as companies look to divest to re-capture their debts while acquiring and partnering with firms.

Everywhere in Europe I couldn’t fail noticing the top brands like Ab-Inbev, Heineken, SAB Miller, Carlsberg, Asahi, Molson Coors, Diageo, and couple of Indian brands. I just was curious to understand the market, and was quiet astonished that the global beer market was valued approximately at around USD 510 Billion in 2008-2009. Europe accounted for 49.1% of the global beer market, followed by APAC – 22.9%, South and Central America – 8.6%, and MEA – 1.8%. Consolidation in the beer industry has changed the leading company, with AB-InBev becoming the market leader based on sales in 2008, followed by Heineken, pushing SAB Miller down to the third rank. A recent report by market business insights, show that the largest alcohol category will continue to be beer, cider and flavoured alcoholic beverages category, which is projected to reach USD 393 Billion in Europe & US by end of 2010 resulting in an increase of 5% from 2006 to 2010.

Image Source: Stealingshare.com

However, like any industry, the beer industry has its own concerns and issues. Beer is losing market share to wine and spirits, in part due to perceived health benefits from wine and high levels of innovation and premiumization in the spirits market. Growth in beer consumption volumes will be driven primarily by the increase in rising disposable income and beer-consuming population in emerging markets. The alcoholic drinks industry is being increasingly scrutinized by governments who are demanding stricter controls on advertising, and there are also concerns regarding the rising level of obesity in Europe and US. Also rising raw material prices have led global beer companies to increase the price of beer, especially in Europe. The beer brewing process is a very precise and therefore heavily controlled process where the exact amount of ingredients and heat as well as the right timing are crucial to its success. As enormous amounts of waste water and vast energy consumption are main concerns for a brewery, the following seven focus areas provide excellent examples of sustainable process implementation – energy usage, water conservation, recycling, heat recovery, CO2 recovery, transportation, and emissions reduction. A differentiated value proposition and meeting the triple bottom line  is something the industry players must look to build on to. Today, there is a greater demand towards ethical products – go green and recyclable are the mantra’s that these companies need to use in their supply chain.

And while I was thinking green, and I was awakened by the roaring Atletico fans as the ball saw the back of the net. Some of the regulars there got free beers, as their bar tender friend was a die-hard Atletico fan. Now I know why this industry is still booming…and as the old saying goes..."Beer needs Soccer and Soccer needs Beer...that's how life goes...". Cheers to that!

Image Source: images.allposters.com

Exercising your fingers through Mobile Social Networking

Gone are the days, when a simple telephony system used to exist, and a single dial would take more than couple of minutes to connect to the other side of the world. I vividly remember getting my maiden mobile phone when I was in my super early 20's. Those were the days, I could afford the bills on my own. Today, technology has improved immensely, and times have changed rapidly. Today, even kids who haven't reached a double digit age mark, have handsets in their pocket. In the 90's, some of these handsets used to be very costly, and only a privileged section (err shall I say - high income?) of the society, made utmost use of its existence. Today, there is a mobile phone for every 1.5 person, and moreover this figure is to further reduce every quarter, as mobile companies fight for a share in the market to improve their ARPU (Average Revenue Per User). While the developed nations have reached the mobile saturation, developing countries are yet to improve upon their customer base, while the least developed nations are yet to explore a lot of uncharted opportunities within their region. I had been travelling around for a while, and as I travel, I keep updating my social networking status to let my close friends know about my whereabouts, and lucky me that the friends I have, I do get calls and I end up meeting them in their town. As people and business move, people are looking for smarter ways of accessing the internet and staying in touch with their clients and dear ones. Today, data services have become the new source of income. There is a huge potential, especially amongst the young segment, which have different ways of communicating and keeping in touch. Today, mobile social networking (SN) is on a rise, given the increase in the number of hits to networking sites like Facebook, Orkut, Xing, LinkedIn etc. This new channel of communication in the internet has a huge penetration in young adult segments. More than 68% of young adults in U.S between the age of 18 and 21 reach out to a well known SN site, while a little more than 42% of the adults above 21 in U.S reach out to SN websites. The trend is surely changing. As I was grazing through the websites and reading newspapers, I could see the number of people tweeting, or updating statuses all over the SN websites. What more, just see the uproar that our minister had caused a month ago, because of a tweet. Many studies and papers about communication channels suggest that there is a need and a want for these demographic users to stay connected, have 24 * 7 access to the internet-email-chat-social networking websites. Several handset providers are trying to bring in data services as quickly as possible, with Blackberry and iTouch leading the pack. These handsets still need to further develop the technology in order to meet the customer expectations and deliver the desirable user experience. Both the operators and the handset providers see a great opportunity as well as increased interest amongst the young professionals and teenagers. As technology moves forward, several devices are now internet enabled - the better the quality of the product and superior the functionality of the devices, the expensive these get. Clearly there is a need to have all applications such as Facebook, Yahoo, GChat, E-Mail, YouTube, Google Maps, News Channels, Photo Sharing, Social Networking etc. to promote the usage of the devices on a large scale to the young segment at-least. This will make the customers to up their data traffic usage and hold up an excellent customer experience. The market opportunity is definitely clear, however operators and hand set providers need to be innovative both with their product and marketing techniques for a successful launch. I wish I could have typed this with a Blackberry or a smartphone, that would have been a perfect end to this narration. Well I am yet to experience mobile social networking. Its just that my old cell phone is still loyal and doesn't seem to die of its own...