Scarcity is the mother of all invention including birth of “Mobile Applications”

Have you ever wondered why there is a saying “Scarcity is the mother of all invention “.  Whenever in our personal lives we get challenged by unseen forces we tend to think the way out of these forces. Some give up, some keep trying, and some come out fresh. Whatever the path one chooses, it defines person’s strength of handling emotions and issues in life and that decides the person’s future.

Well few years back most of the VAS partners complained Telco’s arrogance.  Few of them shared that they had to wait for whole day to meet the designated person. Promotions were done on personal level and were considered personal favour. Most of the processes are manual from signing the agreement to publishing to promotion.  It was like local shop and one has to please shopkeeper to increase the product sales. It would be right to say”professionalism was missing”.

Things have not changed drastically in today’s scenario. When i was handling one of the VAS products i always knew that VAS life in telecom is limited and is evident from the fact of growing power of OEM’s.

App stores launched by OEM’s are huge hit. Only similarity which we see between telco’s and OEM’s are the power to mould partners and objective is only “revenue”. Having “Revenue “as one of the objectives is not bad but the means of achieving this objective is equally important.  Developer relationship, Partner relationship is very critical in app business.  OEM’s must learn from Telco’s mistake and should work on this aspect. Personally i would give Opera five stars out of 5. UC browsers have to study opera model and should work on long term relationship building than just working on revenue model. As developer I am extremely pleased with Opera service and entire process of publishing the app.

For ad platforms like V serv the message from developers would be to increase the ad payout to developer. One get 1p/click on ad wrapped application whereas advertisers say they pay  Re.1/click to Vserve so there is margin of 99p which is huge margin. Worldwide Ad platform like Appia, Inmobi are still better than Vserv in terms of process, service and transparency.

With the evolution of mobile phones and the application in people lives, we can conclude that application now has become necessity in person’s life. There are millions of applications available on different platforms and are being used by trillions of people.  Android market is growing widely and has the major market share.  However you'll find other platforms are also growing at the same speed and when a mobile application is developed it need to get supported on all of the platforms. The technology utilized in generating the mobile application transportable is definitely the java virtual machine. This technology assists in converting the application when it comes to a widespread code which is often converted suitably inside a language which is understandable by each of the platforms. As a result quite a few organizations goal at mobile apps development is to develop mobile app which is universal. Mobile applications have created the lives of men and women substantially simpler by aiding to finish the duties in a number of ways. The value of your safety of information transfer via these applications also has to be regarded as a way to keep away from several hacker complications. Hence a security protocol needs to be typically followed for mobile apps development this kind of that it ensures safe information transfer. Uploading apps on different formats are not the main concern. There are other pain points of developers as well which is being illustrated in the following para.

Its quite evident that if developers pain points are not considered then the future of OEM’s will be same as operator. OEM’s need to consider the pain points and give best of the service to developers as they are critical ingredient of their app strategy. Trust me its really irritating to upload the different images size on different app stores. Why can’t we have standard image size ? Imagine developer has to convert the image into 10 formats before uploading on different app store for the same application. Why can’t we have one platform where an application is developed and is distributed worldwide across all app stores.

From consumer point of view these apps bring great value to them. There had been comments on the apps where people had thanked on how these apps had brought change in their lives. So are we “brand” where people recognize by brand name. To some extent “Yes”. User response to mobile applications depends on several factors —aesthetics, usability, and brand loyalty, to name a few. However, research shows that brand loyalty doesn’t result into usability. Users will not download or recommend bad application even if it’s from the top brands. Hence one must look into all aspect and publish the build after thorough testing. With this I come to an end of this write up.

All the views expressed in this article is solely authors view and is not meant to hurt anyone/any organisation. In case of any suggestion or disagreement on the views, all are welcome to share feedback. Looking forward for valuable feedback from the players of app ecosystem.. So finally we conclude that mobile Application is the growing market and all the players have to work together to bring value to the end user. “A satisfied developer, happy customer, and profitable app store” would be an ideal combo ..... Ciao !!!

Managing Service with class

Differentiating physical products is one of the toughest task for product companies in today's competitive world. since it has been difficult to differentiate the physical products, companies are now turning to service differentiation. companies have found significant profitability in delivering the superior service whether that means quick delivery, faster resolution of complaints or quick answering of customer queries. Service provider knows these advantages as well.so what should you do differently from your competition in providing the great service to your customers. well the first and foremost important thing is

• Feel the product as customer. Think like customer, Imagine that you walk into store and how you would want to be treated. Create the experience in your mind and replicate the same in your organisation.
• Encourage empathy in the employees. Be empathetic. train them to be good listener and quick solver of the problem.
• Create the best team. Work on employer self esteem. If your employees are happy your customers too will be happy
• All your decision should be data centric. Data centricity is the future of the business. 

Services are  like "The Invisible Man" ( Mr. India) which cant be seen,tasted,felt,heard or smelled. lets take an example. At VLCC you have been told that under one program you will lose x kgs but you cant see the results before the purchase or before you join the program. To be able to trust in these programs companies will publish the feedback, recommendation from people using communication material, symbols and price. People too will check with friends, family, internet etc. One of the prime KRA's of service marketer is to be able to transform intangible services into concrete benefits and well defined experience. The Disney company is a master at tanibilizing the intangible and creating magical fantasies in theme parks. Similarly the luxury tourist train "Palace On wheels" a joint venture of Rajasthan tourism and Indian railways is highly successful due to careful design, excellent service which has resulted into delivering superior customer experience. 

Lets take the example of application business. 

In a research conducted by Kentar it was observed that Android has out paced I phones by hefty margin of 52.1% to 42.3% 

A market study done by Comscore gives the similar picture as Kentar. Android has 52.3% market share where as IOS has 37.8 % market share.

IDC world wide says that android captures 70% of market share where as IOS stands at 21%.

So its clearly evident that Android is the market leader in terms of market share and most of the people will conclude that Android is more profitable where as there is twist in the story. In spite of capturing 70% of market share Android is lacking behind in terms of profitability. Apple has 72% of the profit, Samsung has made 29% of the industry profit. 

Lets try to find out the reason behind profitability, so we will evaluate both the smart phone OS on certain parameters like No. of apps in application store and quality of app in each store,download per OS, business download per OS, spending per OS... etc First lets compare the no. of apps in each store

Both have equal no. of apps. In terms of quality IOS has better quality then Android as per the survey done by U test.

Lets take the 3rd parameter which is  no. of downloads Android at 51% market share where as IOS has 40% market share.

Lets take the 4th parameter which is download revenue. Android is at 20% share where as IOS is at 74% share.

Looking at 5th parameter which is net market share in terms of OS usage for the month of March 2013, we can conclude that android has 24% market share and IOS is at 61.4% market share as per the survey done by Net market share. 

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However survey done by Stats counter gives very different figure. It says in the month of March 2013 Android was at 37% and IOS at 27%. Going with the above figures it seems Stat counter figure is more valid than Net market share.  

Lets consider the last parameter which is the enterprise use of  mobile platforms. Here also IOS is winner with 62% market share and Android at 35% market share,

Some more data on IOS. A survey was done on 1200 subscribers across France, US, UK and Japan and findings of the survey is as follows :- 

So if you compare all the parameters you can conclude that Apple in spite of low market share has high profitability because of high brand equity. Brand "Apple" has placed themselves as niche brand and has been able to target niche customers whose spending is higher than the average Android customer. All this is possible by excellent & innovative combo of  of pricing, packaging and distribution. And the experience you have as an Apple customer cant be compared with any OS. Excellent service, Intelligent marketing is core of Apple, however Android is not far off. If you take average life of customer after attaining teenage is 50 years and going by consumer behavior we all know that customer gets bored using the same brand even if the brand is fulfilling all the cues, hence IOS customers are going to use Android in their life span and vice versa, so to conclude every consumer in their life span is going to use Android as well as IOS.  Android should aspire to become IOS and IOS should compete with themselves and should keep on enhancing the feature and bring the best of technology, Innovation for the customers. Lets do the unusual comparison of brands like Äpple "with our Bollywood. Bollywood Ä class"actors like Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, Deepika padukone, Katrina kaif. these A class actors need to be very particular about their image. Celebrity marketing is major business and these stars should create themselves as brand and some of them have been able to convert themselves as brand. e.g Salman's movie "Dabang"or Tere Naam"people have gone crazy and have copied his hairstyle to dressing. In this case fans have become brand ( Salman Khan) advocates. 

 Hence we can conclude that Managing service with class should be strategy for Ä"class brands and it should be aspired by all whether product or people.

*data credit - techostat

Telecom In India: Should VAS be Outsourced

Long back I was having coffee with one of the senior member of an organization which was into management consulting. So I asked Rajat “What are issues you are facing today with respect to Indian Telecom market?” He said “Fortunately many and that’s the reason Telecom has become our core focus area”

 The main issues shared by him was as follows: 

1.       Revenue growth

2.       Subscriber growth

3.       Profit margin

4.       Many Operators leading to Price war

5.       Huge investment in 3G Roll out leading to high debt

6.       Rural Penetration

7.       MNP

8.       Security clearance for procurement of Telecom equipment

9.       Review of spectrum management and licence terms and condition

10   Re verification of mobile subscribers

11   MVNO

12    Network Operations

13  Saturation of voice. Not much usage of data

14    Off and On Termination of Prepaid service in J&K and north east

15   TRAI directive on Value added service

Well if you look at the above problems you will find out that all are inter related. I am going to take few points in this write up and rest of the points in part II of the write up (which will be released after 1 week ). In this article I am going to cover revenue growth, subscriber growth, profit margin, Price war, & TRAI directive on Value added service.

1.        Revenue growth – Telco’s are complaining that revenue growth is dipping year by year and the possible reasons given by them are many telecom operators operating in the same region, that leads to tariff war which further results into lowering down the tariff and hence it impacts the revenue growth. But my question here to all the old players“Yours is the established brand and brand recall value is much higher so why should you match your price with the new operators” For old players the strategy should be based on retention not on acquisition and for new operators the strategy should be acquisition hence one shall form the strategy depending on the no. of years spent in industry. Revenue growth is dependent on quality of customer you acquire so if you want to grow your revenue, look at the moment of truth, touch points for customer and make the experience WOW!  If you ask customer they are afraid of keeping the money in the mobile wallet as they feel that operators might deduct the money without informing. Remove that fear. Gain your consumers trust. Let them be your Product Advocate.  Create value for customers, emphasize on customer satisfaction, and award them for loyalty. If you look into these small things your revenue will grow automatically and you will be happy organization!

2.       Subscriber Growth – Well! When one talk about subscriber growth only one word comes in Mind “Channel Sales”. So channel sale is the department which brings sales for the operators, who are responsible for acquiring the customer. One of the important roles of channel sales is to convert potential buyers into profitable customers. Its operator role to decide the strategy for Channel sales. Usually there are 2 kinds of strategy seen in the market. 1. Push strategy 2. Pull strategy. Well for Channel sales all the operators in India use Push strategy. But overall operator uses both Push & Pull strategy. Whatever strategy you have chosen, one has to ensure smooth conversion. One should also understand customer need. There are 4 kinds of consumers 1. Repeated customers 2. High value deal seekers 3. Variety loving consumers 4. High involvement customers. Channel sales should be trained on probing because probing leads to real need of consumers and its easy to convert if you get the nerves of the customer.  We need to go off with the fake activation and high penalty should be imposed not only on the dealer but also on the channel sales representative. Operator need to have strong system which can monitor all these activities. It is worth spending on automation of channel sales. Also a system where one dealer can view the best practices of other dealer. Communication forum for all dealers.

Communication is the most important term for channel as causes of channel conflict are

 1. Goal Incompatibility
 2. Unclear roles & rights
 3.Differences in perception with respect to carrying higher inventory.

Hence communication is very important. So the best way to communicate to all dealers would be to launch Facebook for dealers where dealers can share their experiences and best practices. All the grievances can be addressed online, at the click of the mouse.  If you have clean system, system to monitor frauds, strong policy & clear procedure, trust me Subscriber will grow automatically. Happy & smiling dealers will lead to the quality sales and hence quality subscriber growth. I am again emphasizing on word quality customer because quality is going to help you in long term not quantity.

3.       Profit margin – Profit Margin is dependent on 2 main factors cost &MRP. You can control your cost if you make wise decision in controlling your expenditure. A good CEO should not only be good sales & marketing professional but should also have strong hold on finance. Usually there are 3 kinds of cost 1. Fixed cost 2. Variable cost 3. Overhead cost. Identify and eliminate those products/services that are unprofitable.  Lower the prices of those that are overpriced. Identify and eliminate production or service processes that are ineffective and allocate processing concepts that lead to the very same product at a better yield (process re-engineering aim). If you can control all these activities and rework on the processes, I am sure that will result into high profit margin.

4.       Price War –  Telecom has become an Oligopoly market.  Price war lead to short term gains for the organization but will damage the industry in the long term. We have seen Indian telecom market engaging itself into Price war. Price war can be attributed to the government policies. Price war leads to negative profits and sometimes can lead to the death of the organization. If Government is supporting price war then it should also have the policy of bailing out the organizations because such examples sends wrong message to the world and in future the investors will not like to consider India as the option to invest. So even for the government it might look good for the short term gain but its not viable option for long term. Operators should form the cartel on pricing. With the government support of not allowing many operators to operate and cartel formation by Operators on Price can control the price war but it doesn't mean that you increase the price substantially and it effect the normal customer. There should be policy on Price with minimum and maximum band by the government and the policy should be formed in consultation with the operators. Due to Price War we see only Top 3 surviving in the long run. Our pick would be AIrtel, Vodafone & Idea Cellular. We see many small players merging with bigger one's but we would like to give the standing ovation to the best launch team done by Tata DoCoMo team ! " Do the new" is their brand communication & one of our favorite.

5.       TRAI Directive on Value Added Service – VAS my favorite topic ! I can write Bible on VAS.  I appreciate the TRAI directive and its good for the consumers as well as operators. But the question here is “Should VAS be outsourced” Answer is yes it should be outsourced. Reasons are :-

• VAS partners have more expertise in handling the product
• Cost Reduction
• Experienced professional at the partner end.
• In house focus on core objectives
• Productivity and service improvements
• Win Win situation for both operator and Partner.

Operator should focus on their core business which is providing mobile solution to the customers and they should work on sales & core Marketing ( Prepay,Postpay & UnR). Other services like VAS ,Customer care , Network operations should be outsourced. 

VAS community should work together to bring tangible & intangible value to consumer along with excellent customer service to differentiate themselves. Operators usually blame partner for any wrong moves whereas its not the partner which is at fault but the operator itself. 

If you put unnecessary pressure on partners and encourage the wrong practices then they are bound to follow your instructions hence stop blaming the partner and try to build better ecosystem taking partners into confidence. Its like if the organisation is not performing well you cant put blame on employees, its the CEO responsibility not employees, in the similar manner if there is any mistake by VAS partner its the operator mistake not partner's. VAS community should put clean system which will result into customer Advocacy and hence increase in the product uptake. It will also result in Intangible benefits like trust of the consumer!

Happy Customers are Brand Advocates

Hope you agree with my points. At the end I would like to say that market share is determined by the four major components – 

Customer Penetration, 
customer Loyalty, 
quality of customer, 
Selecting the right Price. 

Work on these components and soon you shall be the market leader. I am sure you all have heard of Bell Curve so your market share will also be dependent on these major components and how you perform on the matrix of these components. We will never have straight line against X axis, We definitely will have Bell curve so your fitting in that curve is dependent on your overall performance. All the best and I shall connect with you again discussing other points.. Till then have fun  ! 

Convergence of Mobile & Education

http://www.slideshare.net/kamnapandey/mobile-education-17822077

Balance Scorecard - An Effective Management System

What do companies like Microsoft, Apple and Intel have in common? Well they all are using scorecard to measure performance and set strategy!

Today’s manager day and night struggle to measure performance, but they somehow miss to include measurement as an essential part of the strategy. For e.g. executive may introduce innovative new processes intended to achieve breakthrough performance, then continue to use short term financial indicators to gauge the performance like return on investment, sales growth, and operating income. Such managers fail to introduce new measures to measure new goals and processes. Also they are unable to question whether the old methodology of measurement will work in today’s dynamic work culture.

Effective measurement however should be integral part of the management process. The balanced scorecard helps executives with comprehensive framework that translates company’s strategic objectives into coherent set of performance measures. The balanced scorecard is a management system that can motivate breakthrough improvements in critical areas like product, process, customer and business development (other words “sales”).

There could be different perspectives though which manager can choose measures. It is beautiful mixture of traditional financial indicators and measures of performance for customers, internal processes, and innovation and improvement activities. These measures are different from the traditional methods used by companies in few important ways:-

Many companies believe in myriad operational and physical measures for local activities. But these local measures are bottom up and are adhoc. The scorecard measures on the other hand, are grounded in an organization’s strategic objectives and competitive demands. And, it requires managers to choose the limited number of critical indicators within each of four perspectives, and once done the scorecard helps focus the strategic vision.

In addition while traditional financial measures report on last period performance; it however doesn’t help managers on how managers can improve performance in the next. The scorecard however functions as the cornerstone of a company’s current and future success.

Moreover, unlike conventional metrics, the information from the four perspectives provides balance between external measures like operating income and internal measures like new product development. This balanced set of measures both reveals the trade offs that managers have already made among performance measures and encourages them to achieve their goals in the future without making trade offs among key success factors.

Finally, many companies that are now implementing local improvement programs like process reengineering, total quality and employee empowerment lack sense of integration. The balance scorecard can serve as focal point for the organizations efforts, defining and communicating priorities to managers, employees, investors even customers. The balance score can be used as the language, the benchmark against which all new projects and businesses are evaluated.

The balance scorecard cannot be termed as template and should not be applied to business in general or even industry wide.  Other factors like market situations, product strategies, and competitive environments force us to think that general scorecard won’t work and organizations require customized scorecards depending on market and organization.  Business units should prefer customized scorecards to fit their mission, strategy, technology and culture. In fact critical test of scorecard success is its transparency: from 15 to 20 scorecard measures, an observer should be able to view the business unit competitive strategy. But the most important factor is who and how score card measures are getting implemented.  For successful implementation the organization should hire a right coordinator. Also a decision that scorecard is appropriate for which business unit. Usually its appropriate for the business unit which has its own customers, distribution channels, production facilities and financial performance measures. So prepare, interview, conduct workshop, interview again post workshop, derive final company’s vision, objectives and measurements and develop target for each measures. The core implementing team must agree on implementation program, including communicating the scorecard to employees, integrating the scorecard into management philosophy and developing information system to support the score card.

Finally companies should not adopt scorecard as latest fad. Organizations hire external consultants to help in implementing scorecard and organizations put system that’s bit different from what existed before. Such systems are only incremental and you don’t gain much additional value from them. It can get worse if one thinks that scorecard as new measurement systems that eventually require hundreds and thousands of measurement and big expensive executive information system.  One should make the scorecard the cornerstone of the way one runs the business. It should be the core of management system not measurement system. It’s the people and senior executives who drive the scorecard approach in the organization. Hence we can say that senior executives will determine the future of the success of management system.  Cheers !