Corporate proposals from Mobile Operators

MNOs always relied on corporate subscribers as major revenue generators. This is very significant to maintain corporate subscribers loyalty and one of the best ways of this is providing of special corporate services. As example MTS is trying to attract new subscribers through offering mobile communications to corporate subscribers family members. You may found plenty of corporate proposals on web sites of leading MNOs in Europe and USA:

• http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/business/services/
• http://www.o2.co.uk/business/corporate/productsandservices
• http://www.vodafone-dataworld.co.uk/default.aspx?pageId=21

I was looking for the most promising innovatove proposals which could bring new opporunitites for MNOs. Below you may find short list of them. I'll provide presentation a little bit later. At this moment let's simply realize their potential. Most of these services could be launched with minimal investments from MNO and this is very valuable in nowadays turmoil. Spendings needed only for MNO branding and hosting preparations (no investments into hardware).

1. Soonr (www.soonr.com). Promising service which already gained popularity all over the world. This is Sales Force Automatization task mobile implementation. Another popular term for such kind of software is Cloud Computing. Mobile employees could be powered with remote access to corporate internal documents storage. Main tasks which could be performed:
   - Publish documents from mobile device (smartphone). As example works made Acts could be published from client site. All these documents are stored in reliable (with copies) storage.
   - Access documents through mobile portal (contracts, proposal, presentations, templates etc)
   - Collaboration tools and - so called mobile work flow
   - Documents printing/faxing/emailing
2. 
   Corporate portal for services and applications management. It is an essential tool like App Store for iPhones. Such a solution is a starting point for driving corporate VASes promotion. Special business cases for business process mobilization and tools for this should be stored here. Moreover it is the place for MNO Partners to promote their developments. 
3. Range of special PBX offers. As example, 2N (http://www.2n.cz/index.html) – broad range of corporate solutions. The most interesting of them are mobile PBXes and Virtual PBX. There is a strong trend for CAPEX and OPEX minimization in SMEs budget. This is very comfortable to buy small box and make office IVR enabled. This is fast and cheap way to gain new level of clients interaction for SME. Definetly such solutions will gain popularity. Here you may find info about Telefonica activities (http://www.2n.cz/company/references/customer_references/telefonica_o2_resells_2n_products.html)
4. Nuance Mobile Care gives ability to manage corporate smartphones (it is not the only purpose of this solution). Operator could bring IT deparment or itself manage corporate mobile devices in order to increase corporate VASes penetration, boost additional services using (email, corporate applications, especially different mobile CRM access and so on).
5. LBS integration solution. This could bring new revenue from corporate clients which would like to automatically collect location information of courires and other mobile employees.
6. OTA backup&restore in corporate implementation. Storage of long list of contacts on server side, text and other messages, call history, alerts and so on. This could bring special feature - calls detalization where numbers will be replaced with contact names from phone book. As example, Gemalto (http://www.gemalto.com/) is able to provide such opportunities (http://www.gemalto.com/axalto/Company/press/pdf/T_Mobile_Slovensko_en.pdf).
7. Carrier grade solution for IT managers alerting by SMS/Voice/MMS – standard procedure of client monitoring system integration should be provided. 
8. Scanr( www.scanr.com ) – replacement for faxing in some cases. 
9. Telecom Expense Management system. Allows corporate clients to manage their expenses on telecom.

I'll be glad to discuss other opportunities and get your comments on these VASes.

Thanks,

Denis.

1. 
   

Knocking on the right door

All sales people know how important to knock on the right door during sales cycle. One of the main tasks is to find responsible people able to make decision. I hope my blog will help all interested professionals to find this way. At this post I'd like to discuss Megafon.

First of all in current situation Megafon is in my opinion the most probable buyer. Megafon debts are lowest among Russian MNOs. Megafon has a lot of ways for improving it's business with different innovative projects.
Megafon has Head Quaters (HQ) in Moscow but many decisions are being made in St. Petersburg - Megafon's homeland. All regional subsidiaries were independent companies that's why often buy decision was made on regional level. MTS and Vimpelcom have centralized structures and all projects were going through Moscow HQ. Finally decision to centralize Megafon was approved. http://megafon.ru/news/newsarhive/11586/
It means that Megafon should take same structure as MTS and Vimpelcom. I think it will increase HQ departments ability to influence on decisions. The management should become more centralized in same time current relationships with regional Megafons could loose their wheight. Further standartization should be mentioned too. Soon Megafon should perform IT and technological infrastructure standartization in order to get the most possible synergy effect. As example there are different Call Centers in different regions supported by different vendors and SIs.
An additional consequence of this restructurization could be the temporary delay in making deals. I think such step will take not less than a quarter and in summer time Megafon will be ready for business cooperation. I do not take into consideration that this step will allow Megafon gain publicity on Stock Exchange.
Another piece of information is in a reorganization of managing companies. New attempts of gaining synergy should be taken soon according to Vedomosti (http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/article.shtml?2009/01/11/176209). Vladimir Zhelonkin (former SvyazInvest executive) became "AF Telecom Holding" CEO. And his main task is to provide synergy between different actives of Alisher Usmanov. Concrete actions should be discussed during Board Of Directors of TelecomInvest which includes directors from media and internet actives of Mr. Usmanov. It means possibility of huge amount of new innovative projects around Megafon.
List of actives: Mail.ru, Odnoklassniki, Vkontakte.ru, HeadHunter.ru, Freelance.ru, Livejournal.com, Gazeta.ru, Newstube.ru, "Kommersant Holding", "Muz TV", "7 TV". All these projects could gain synergy effect in Megafon networks and among Megafon Subscribers. I believe it is a good opportunity for vendors and SIs to offer their services in deploying innovative mobile features.

What do you think about Megafon?
Will it be easier to cooperate with Megafon?
How soon positive effect will be?
Is it a good time for such step?

Thanks,
Denis.

Downturn economy predictions and trends

I believe that crisis it's not only the time for loosing but it is very good time for gathering new clients. It is a good time for gathering mainly because of other players loosing. Some MNOs will loose their Subscribers (sale less new contracts with increased churn rate) other will gain them. Some vendors and SI will loose deals and in same time more active and wise one will gain new contracts and business development.
Subscribers begin to perform much more detailed analysis of their spendings. MTS first took this paradigm with New Year tariff advertising as I mentioned in previous post.
I'd like to share my thoughts on Russian Mobile market trends in 2009:

• MNOs will launch several 3G oriented services. After spending millions on 3G infrastructure it is strongly required to fill networks with content services like Mobile TV, Mobile Radio, Video Calling services. Russian Great Three MNOs have project groups for such projects and already performed some investigations of launching such services. Some vendors offered their experience and systems. In 2009 commercial launch should be made.
• Mobile Advertising. It could be additional revenue generation factor from WAP/WEB banners insertion, SMS/MMS peer to peer ad insertion and of course MMS campaigns with rich content ads. 2009 could be the starting year of these activities.
• Simple Video Call propositions.
• Device based Mobile Internet. Widgets, specialized portals, new internet offerings, branded internet web browsers will be started for evaluation.
• Mobile Commerce. MNOs will enhance their activities in attracting Subscribers to mobile payments. This interest was emphasized at the conference. http://www.mobilepaymentsrussia.ru/
• Mobile Broadband. MNOs will try to compete with mobile broadband offerings like Yota (www.yota.ru). Special flat rate tariffs will be proposed. As example Vimpelcom already propose switching to Apple Fresh tariff (with unlimited GPRS internet) with other than Apple iPhone models. Hence IP compression and optimisation tools will take popularity (P2P traffic optimisation etc).
• Pricing wars. In downturn time there is a big desire to attract more Subscribers with special anticrisis discounts. This trend already seen on market. Additionally advanced discounts could be entered on market - as example cell load discount (discount when nearest cell isn't loaded) in order to spread load on network and hence increase cpacity, delayed content delivery discount (get content later while network isn't loaded for cheaper price).
• Content portals improvements. More content, much easier access. Megafon and Beeline will try to reach MTS portal success.
• MNOs will increase their efforts on corporate Subscribers attraction. Beeline will use its Golden Telecom actives for such proposition. Megafon is going to build it's own infrastructure, MTS will increase collaboration with Komstar. As example special office GSM routers could gain popularity (http://www.megafonnw.ru/info/rus/news/pressreleazes/mobile_cabinet_3grouter.html).
• Much stronger requirements to ROI of vendors offerings. I think will be initiated projects with ROI in less than 1 year.
• Closer integration and cooperation with retail industry to gain additional revenue.
• Branded phones proposals. Modu phones, Huawei etc.
• MVNO developments and startups. But I'm sure in their unsuccess except ad funded mobile communications like in Blyk.
• All MNO will try to gain minimization of investments and proposition of revenue sharing models with almost zero investitions. In case some system integrators could provide end to end solution (system infratructure, deployment, licenses, content) they could be a leader in tenders on such systems.
• MNOs will try to attract independent software developers like Orange, T-Mobile, AT&T do (http://developer.t-mobile.com/site/global/home/p_home.jsp). So called application stores could gain popularity.
• Maybe Beeline and Megafon will realize that content aggregators are the showstoppers in their content success. :-)

Additionally I'd like to add these thoughts:

http://mobile-thoughts.blogspot.com/

http://www.m-trends.org/2009/01/mobile-and-wireless-predictions-for-2009.html

Thanks,

Denis.

New Year outdoor campaigns

I'm very interested in continuous fight for Subscribers between leaders in Russian mobile market and I performed small research of New Year campaigns - good time for gathering new clients in Mobile services.
During Russian holidays I was wondering about primary focus of "Great Three" MNOs. Of course one of main direction for promotion of MNO is outdoor advertising. I spent about 12 hours driving through Moscow biggest roads and overall route is about 700 km. MTS is almost 100% concentrated (as Jack Trout proposed in "The marketing Warfare") on New Year tariff promotion: outdoor, TV ads, movie in cinemas, portal. This is very strong offer: cheap price inside MTS network and very expensive outside it, strong advertising campaign on TV screens, New Year magic theme. The main advantage of MTS is sharply directed campaign - all forces aligned to be the main New Year offer. I bet that it will give significant results on subscriber base growth rate of MTS during first quarter.

In same time Beeline divide efforts on advertising its iPhone proposal, interesting Roaming offer, Optimal Budget (SME proposal). iPhone is not hot theme and I'm pretty sure that without exclusivity for Beeline it is mistake to advertise it. Those who need iPhone already bought it, others know that it pretty simple to buy it now from every MNO. I do not understand aggressive Roaming advertising - it isn't the key factor for significant amount of Subscribers especially in downturn economics. Optimal budget is a new proposal for SME segment - the worse design I've ever seen - white text on yellow background impossible to read. Idea is very good for crisis time but implementation is very hard to understand. I remember Sonet proposal of 1998 crisis solution - "Anticrisis" tariff - it gained popularity very soon $2,5k for lifetime contract. Beeline has relatively small amount of bonus ads which I found interesting (because of New Year theme and 10% payment bonus). Summary for Beeline - very ineffective way of spending advertising budget.

Megafon has relatively small amount of outdoor ads. It seems that they try to meet their audience in other places. As example they had sponsorship contract with russian business TV channel RBC, a lot of ads in industry magazines. Additionally Megafon performed pilot launch of branded mobile phone (with Huawei) in North West region. Idea is to make present package for New Year holidays. http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/article.shtml?2008/12/08/172628 Additionally I'd like to mention that subway halls are full of Megafon advertising. Interesting targeting but do not forget that russian subway isn't a poor people way of transport.

As short summary, it is clear seen that MTS is performing aggresive campaign vs dispersed (after Golden Telecom merge) Beeline and Megafon. Soon Megafon and Beeline will be seeking for answering tools: unlimited internet, special discounts, new services offering (a.e. branded phones).

What do you think about most effective ad campaigns? May be some advice from European and Americas campaigns?

Thanks,
Denis.

Small portion of analytics

Russian business news magazine "Vedomosti" published small portion of MNOs financial analysis. http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/article.shtml?2008/12/26/175603
The most interesting part of it below on picture. This is debts of MNOs before crisis according to their official financial reports.

You may see significant increase of Beeline debts after Golden Telecom and Corbina aquisition. Of course not all debts should be paid in 2009 but it is very hard to refinance debts in current situation. I think it is the answer on expenditures cuts in 2009. Beeline will have to spent almost all revenue on debts and there is no way for many new projects.

MTS and Megafon already refinanced part of their debts and able to compete for Beeline market share with aggressive strategies. They have already begun this - in the same article there is information about average minute cost (APPM) going down in MTS and Megafon while Beeline increased it.

Thanks, Denis.

Mobile VAS cases

Dear Colleagues,

Here http://www.slideshare.net/dangerden/mobile-vas-20-cases-presentation you may find my presentation available for download about gaining popularity mobile services all over the world. I'll be glad to get your feedback.

Thanks,
Denis.