Mobile Value Added Service ( MVAS)

Few of my colleagues who have read my blogs have asked me why I have not written anything about VAS?? So I told them that VAS is like family and you don’t share your experiences about your family… But then I gave it thought and decided “ Lets share my experience about VAS” with my friends.

VAS my dear friends stand for “ Value added services : A list of services which adds value to your daily life” Let’s segment people into 4 broad categories
1. Children
2. Youth
3. Middle Age
4. Old Age

Does VAS provide value to all segments ?? The Answer is yes ( to some extent). Extent of adding value depends on how you place your product in consumers mind.
E.g lok katha, devotional tracks, devotional services…. Etc will be more lucrative to Old age customers. Where as Stock gyan, job on call, Astrology, chatting.. etc will entice middle age customers.
Youth – Youth is one segment to whom you can sell anything. You just need to communicate it in their language. E.g If you want to sell Devotional tracks .. tell them that “ To impress your grand parents, gift them devotional pack “ I am sure they will love to surprise their grandparents. In the similar way you can sell anything and everything to them ( but in their language).

If you target children you automatically get their parents as your customers. You just need to make children content little funny and to target them you have to become children or need to spend some time with them. I have a plethora of idea’s on children content because I am a mother so I know how VAS can satisfy child needs…
In VAS “technology” is a commodity whereas “content” is brand therefore we can say that content is “King” or “Super King”. Good content can make or break your product. I mean behind every successful product there is an intelligent product manager and behind every successful product manager there is an intelligent support system ( In terms of technology, Content team, customer support… etc etc).
Let’s evaluate the pro’s and con’s of product manager. There are so many content partners in today’s world that its likea sea of CP’s. You need to figure out good CP ( which is tough in today’s environment). All CP’s think alike and have the same objective ( Revenue). Issue is not with the objective but the means to achieve those objective’s. Last week I got joke through SMS and the joke was as follows : PATI : mere marne ke baad tumhe mere jaisa aadmi nahin milega. PATNI : Tumhe Kis bevakoof ne kaha ki main doosra aadmi tumhare jaisa chahti hoon.
Do you think the above joke will make you laugh ?? No it will not. Infact its going to create strong dissociation with your product and once you lose trust of customers it will take years to build one. So you need to be very careful while designing the product and what content goes to the customer.

Let’s take our discussion to new product development. Product Managers should think that product is like their baby. And every product like baby has cycle attached to it :-
• Introduction Stage ( Baby)
• Growth stage ( Youth)
• Maturity stage ( Middle age)
• Saturation and decline stage ( Old stage)
It depends on product manager when he wants his baby to achieve saturation and decline stage. It could be 1 month, 1 year or 1K year depending on the strategy and innovation attached to each stage. So what’s the screening model for new products.

Key dimensions of new product are listed below :-
1. Product superiority, quality and uniqueness
a. Is superior to competing products
b. Has unique feature for the user
c. Is higher quality than competitiors
d. Does unique task for users
e. Reduces customer costs
f. Is Innovative – first of its kind.

2. Overall project/resource compatibility
a. A good “fit” between needs of project and company resource base in terms of :
i. Managerial skills
ii. Marketing research skills
iii. Salesforce/distribution resources
iv. Financial resources
v. Engineering skills
vi. Production sources

3. Market Need, growth and size
a. High need level customers for product class
b. Large market (S volume)
c. Rapidly growing market.

4. Economic advantage of product to end user
a. Product reduces customer’s costs
b. Product is priced lower than competing products

5. Newness to the company ( negative)
a. Project takes the company into new areas such as
i. New Product class to the company
ii. New sales force/distribution
iii. New types of users need served
iv. New customers to company
v. New competitors to company
vi. New product technology to company
vii. New Production process to company

6. Technology resource compatibility
a. A good “fit” between needs of project and company resource base in terms of :
i. Research and development resources and skills
ii. Engineering skills and resources

7. Market competitiveness ( negative)
a. Intense price competition in market
b. Highly competitive market
c. Many competitors
d. Many new product introductions into market
e. Changing user needs

8. Product scope
a. Market driven new product idea
b. Not a custom product i.e. more mass appeal
c. A mass market for product ( as opposed to one or few customers)

(Please note that key dimensions listed above are sourced from journal of product innovation management vol 2 no.1 March p.g. 39)

Many companies organize their new product development process into the orderly sequence of starting-with idea generation and ending with commercialization. Under this sequential product development approach one company department works individually to complete its stage of the process before passing the new product along to the development to next department and stage. This orderly step-by step process can help bring control to complex and risky projects. But it also can be dangerously slow. In fast changing highly competitive markets such slow but sure product development can result in product failures,lost sales,arid profits and crumbling market positions. Speed to market and reducing new product development cycle time have become pressing concerns of companies in all industries.
In order to get their new products to market more quickly, many companies are adopting a faster team-oriented approach called simultaneous product development (or team NPD or collaborative product-development) Under this approach company department work closely together through cross functional teams overlapping the steps in the product development process to save time and increase effectiveness. Instead of passing the new product from department to department,the company assembles a team -of people from various departments that stays with the new product from start to finish. Such teams usually include people from the marketing ,finance ,design, manufacturing and legal departments and even supplier and customer. Top management gives the product development team general strategic direction but no clear cut product idea or work plan. It challenges the team with stiff and seemingly contradictory goals— turn out carefully planned and superior new products but do it quickly —and then gives the team whatever freedom and resources it needs to meet the challenge. In the sequential process a bottleneck at one phase can seriously slow the entire project. In the simultaneous approach, if one functional area hits snags it works to resolve them while the team moves on.

It is very important for new product in VAS to have combination of a good brain and resources. If you have good brain in hand, technology and content will fall in place automatically so with this note I come to an end to my write up on VAS. I hope VAS community agrees with me on all the points which I have highlighted here. I see a bright future of VAS in India. (All’s well that end’s well) and I am sure VAS has no end……….. It is endless opportunity both for entrepreneurs and professionals so all the best :)

Gyan on Brand...

“ Can eggs be branded” ? was the question put to us in strategic brand management paper. I wrote “Anything can be branded”? Let’s try branding you. So in marketing “Kotler “is brand. Other writers are commodity (oops !!. my mistake…All writers are brand except myself because I am not writer). I am a commodity but I am brand for my daughter, husband, and my parents because I bring value in their life. For them Maid is commodity. So it depends to whom and how you position yourself. A discussion on the difference between a brand and a commodity is going on at one of my groups on LinkedIn. This discussion was initiated by Kate Wright. More than 150 comments have been made so far, highlighting marketing and sales professionals love for this topic. It is interesting that respondents presented their own definition and description of a brand and commodity, no author was quoted and the comments varied greatly. I noticed two significant trends as follows: a) Though there are more than 150 highly different comments, these could be grouped into eight major categories. That is, most of the respondents differentiated between a brand and a commodity either from value-addition perspective, loyalty and relationship, functional & emotional attributes, brand personality & experience, perceived value & expectations, needs & wants, unique identity or price. b) The respondents come from a diverse professional background including Business & Financial Consultancy, Sales & Business Development, Account Management, Marketing, Business & Franchising, and Real Estate. Most of the respondents are from other than marketing profession. Having worked in the marketing , I considered branding a purview of marketing because marketers are responsible for creating consumer pull for brands. This differentiation is getting blurred and branding is a cross-functional discipline now, especially in B2B set up. I took the liberty of picking the brand descriptions that I liked most and present these to you here along with the name of the group member. A brand is a product that is elevated above commodity level because of its added value in the mind of a shopper or consumer. By Lynn Wentzel Commodity resonates with consumer at the functional level; brand goes beyond, resonating at the emotional level. By Keith Kelley A Brand is that Commodity with a personality! By Thomas Bullock A commodity is a product, a THING, tangible. A brand is a[n] idea, a thought, a feeling and is intangible……. As Herb Lubalin said, “Products are made in the factory. Brands are made in the mind.” By Bob Bischoff …… THAT THE BRAND PROMISES AND DELIVERS By Valerie Skala Walker A brand provides an ‘experience’, a commodity does not. By Chad Symens A brand improves the life of its loyal consumer because it constantly brings a new and better feature or experience – it innovates. By Dana Mosora Brand is what people identify with. A commodity is traded, bought or sold. By Craig Castle And my take is as follows: Brands create and satisfy consumers’ wants, commodities meet consumers’ needs. Taking a leaf out of Kotler’s book, Brands live in the penthouse of Maslow Hierarchy of Needs; commodities live in its basement. How Do You Go From Commodity To Brand? Here are few suggestions:- 1. Know and Express Your Value. I love a “value statement” using this structure: “[Your business] helps [this target audience] with [this problem] to [achieve these benefits.] For example, Fit In Fitness helps busy moms with small children Fit In time for Fitness, so they can Fit In the clothes they love. I made that one up, but you can use the formula to make your own. 2. Differentiate Yourself from Alternatives. Have a polite and specific response to “Why should I work with you instead of that other coach?” Yes, you’ll need to study your competitors to do this, which can be enlightening! I was laughing my heart out when I saw competition benchmarking report in one of my ex companies. In that report they had positioned themselves as the best whereas they were one of the worst. So it’s very important to understand where you stand instead of projecting yourself erroneously. 3. Deliver an Experience. A brand is the unique identity for your business, and it’s all the thoughts, feelings and expectations that are associated with that identity as well. This total perception, living in the heart and mind of your client, is your brand. What can you do to make working with you memorable? Multi-sensory? How can you stand out in ways that no one else is doing? If soda pop can take someone back to childhood, imagine what you do when helping your clients change their business or lives!........Need help ?? Contact me :)