Developers - New Game Changers of App Store

"Software, Software, Software !" shouted the guy outside an IT Hub market in New Delhi. For a minute I was taken aback ! bcoz this kind of selling software's by yelling is not something which i have heard or have seen. so it was definitely a pleasant surprise. Curious as I m ,I went to the guy selling the software asked him whether he is aware about the software's he is selling. He handed over paper menu to me which has alphabetical list of all the software's starting from Adobe to Microsoft. What amused me is door to door selling of software's which we never imagined 5 yrs. back. With the growing penetration of internet and data connectivity, the day is not far off when internet will be commodity rather than luxury. This is good sign for all the people who are in Software segment.

 

 

 

 

 Human needs are changing and annually new needs are added. From the days when we had to wait for few months to get new connection to the days where we are buying software at the roadside, we can say we have come a long way.

 

 

So the question we should ask is -What is store for marketer ? Will this door to door selling  work for software industry ?. Of course it will work in India where we are used to buying stuff at the roadside be it fastfood like gol gappa or aaloo chaat. Can softwares be compared to fast-food ? yes to some extent as both are part of our daily need. From taking help to finish child homework to cooking tips to creating animated presentation we have been taking help of software's hence we can conclude that software are definitely part of our daily need and are consumed on daily need basis.

 

 

 

Needs are the essence of marketing. The key to software success, profitability and growth in a highly competitive marketplace is its ability to identify and satisfy unfilled consumer needs better and sooner than the competition. In the software scenario we can have many examples where a need of consumer was converted into a product and it was successful in the market. e.g when applications were being launched, many consumers were pissed off with the forceful selling and they preferred app store where they can have many buying options from free to try n buy to paid. All these lucrative pricing combining with the apps were the hot selling on the app store. The mistake which the app store guys did was giving the apps for free. Anything which is free is considered as product with zero value. Whatever comes easy is not sustainable is the common thought ! Being in app business my advice to all the stakeholders of app ecosystem (from OEMs to operators to developers) will be to realign the go to market strategy. Free usually is not good pricing. However I see bright future for the developers as they will be key to app delivery to end consumers. Customer satisfaction to creating product landscape, developers will be the game changers of app ecosystem. They will also decide the future of Operating System they want to work on. Developers forum of a operating system will decide the future of platform. In the current scenario there are many OS players in the market. The key to the success of these OS will be able to align with developers. More developers - More development on OS- More options to choose apps from - More consumers will buy the phone with OS giving maximum value. Are we saying here that apps will decide the future of OEM ? Yes to some extent as everything can be matched but not the service or value. Value creation is completely different ball game and are game changers of many industry. If OEM has exclusive tie up with developers and are giving more value in terms of apps then definitely consumers will be enticed to purchase a particular brand which gives more value. Ending the conversation with the conclusion that Apps are the future of mobile and developers are the creators of the future !   

 

  

Google's Googly - Android One

“Bada Hua To Kya Hua Jaise ped Khajoor, Panthi ko chaya nahin phal lage ati door”

English translation “In vain is the eminence, just like a date tree, no shade for travellers, fruit is hard to reach.

These lines were taught to me when i was kid and i must confess that these lines had huge impact on me. These lines emphasize that we should shed our greed, selfishness, and insecure tendencies and should be willing to give and share. Once we help other with pure mind and soul we become blessings for others.

But Question of the day is in business do we really follow these lines? Answer is “No”. Let’s take example of one big company like Google and let’s evaluate their mobility business.  Google has Operating system called Android and they keep launching different version of operating system with funky names like kitkat, sandwich..etc.  No doubt that each version has more similarities and less differentiation. We can say each version is mirror image of version in itself with little icing.

One of their product Google app store is suppose to be household name among consumers. Thats what Google says! Is it? So lets ask question to our self “What is google app store”. For me it is simple aggregation of applications. There is no rocket science in that. Brainers are the ones who publish the apps as the apps flow, idea, conceptualisation and publishing are developers/publishers brain. Where is Google brain in that?  Fine let us be little kind to Google and say that they are the brain behind OS which controls 40% of world market.  So will they be able to retain their market position in future? Will it be successful in its future ventures?

App Ecosystem consist of three main stakeholders a) End Consumers b) Developers c) OEM’s

Lets analyze all stakeholder one by one.   

1.       End Consumer – First question which comes in mind with respect to end consumers is “what value add it brings for end consumer. The Obvious answer we have got from Google is “By emphasizing on vernacular apps “& “By launching low cost model devices with Android one “ Well if you think from end consumer point of view there is no difference between local app store and Google store. In fact local app store is any day better than Google store because of its localized, customized display of apps. Hence we can conclude that from end consumers point of view there is no value add from Google app store. End Consumers download app from Google store not because it brings value in their life but it is easily available on their mobile phone. In other words simply burned on their handsets. It’s just the convenience for end consumers not value add. We should not confuse between convenience and value add. With Google app store It just that end consumer does not have to type the extra link to get into app store. There is absolutely no consumer engagement, zero benefit from Google Store hence I personally would recommend to check out local app stores than Google as they are more focussed, customised and bring more value for consumers.

2.       Developers – An article published in the leading newspaper states that “95% of android developers are unhappy and their earning is as low as 200$/month. Developers are unhappy because there is no one to listen to their complains and absolutely zero support from Google. Google support is termed as one of the rudest support. They will never give any explanation or will give vague explanation and will terminate developers account without any proper reason. So if you have enmity with x developer, you should only know that developers app link or icing on the cake would be if you also know Google employee who handles app support & just share the link, Sit back and enjoy watching your enemy account getting terminated without any reason. If you are developer and your account is being terminated you would have got vague reason, Keyword stuffing, inappropriate content.. etc etc.. no further reason given as which keyword has caused the termination of account.  We can sum up all this melodrama of app store in three words “ Sic Business Tactics” But at the end of the day its Google which has deep pockets and best talent hence they show their muscle power to developers. Little do they know they if these developers come together and boycott Android completely they will be left nowhere. Google being big daddy forgets that such attitude and negativity among developers will only lead to destruction. Negative image of Google brand will only bring disliking among developers as well as end consumers because somewhere developers are also end consumers and pen is mightier than sword, Word of Mouth is stronger than marketing spend. If this continues then that day is not far away when Google will be on sale and we will ask "Any Buyers ?????????"

3.       OEM’s - Original Equipment Manufacturer like Samsung, Nokia, LG.. etc controls the integration with operating System like Android.  Since GSM is an open market hence we have many players in OEM space hence they are one of the main influencer of bringing OS to the end consumer. Recently Google had partnered with Micromax, Spice and Karbonn  to release Android One smartphones. With the launch of these low cost smart phones they offered 2 year software support. Do you think this handshake between local OEM’s and Google was success venture?  Did Android One handsets was successful in India ? No it was not. Android one smart phones were priced between $200 & $300. The estimate sales figure for Smartphone during festive season is generally reported 0.2 million units however as per the record Android One have reached only half to 1/3^rd of the above number. One of the reasons of Android one failure is given to Google’s inability to explain the difference between Android and Android one. In spite of huge marketing spend by Google, they have failed to explain the consumers the difference between Android One device and regular android device. Is Android One a project that gives lighter version of Android. There is no clarity. Or in simple words is it the cheaper version of the main Android Handsets. Launching with Local OEM’s like Micromax, Karbonn and Spice it is quite evident that they have not placed Android One for premium segment. Their vision is to increase market penetration. In all this Marketing Gimmick they have failed to learn from Nano. Indian Consumers are not only intelligent but also smart enough to know where to get value for money. Each purchase by consumers in India is the end result of online and offline research. I am sure value for money doesn’t stand with combo of Android one + Micromax, Karbonn or Spice. And launching Cheaper version cannot be termed as innovation.

 

Summing up the above discussion and going by Google’s interaction with developers, end consumers we can conclude that Google’s Motto is “DO EVIL NOT GOOD”. Little do they realise that evil character whether in game, movie or life eventually die and is replaced by Good.

 

We are definitely looking forward for new OS by Samsung, and expansion of Windows OS. I personally feel that in coming years Windows will rule the Smartphone market and Nokia, Blackberry will retain its market share. Let’s end this article with these lines. “Future is Windows, Future is Nokia” After all Satya always win!!

 

PS: This write up is personal opinion of writer and is not influenced by any third party.

 

Diary Of An Entrepreneur

Long time back Radhika completed her post graduate diploma. While finishing her post graduate diploma Radhika was offered to take Audit subject. ( Audit is given to those whose percentile is 7.0 and above and is usually taken outside the student’s core subjects) So she decided to take finance as subject.

The small introduction given above is to make you guys understand that Finance is the subject which interests everyone and trust me its not rocket science. Small shopkeeper to big corporate all deal in financial management. The beauty of this subject is that its basic is as simple as your elementary school basics.

Lets evaluate today’s scenario. In today’s scenario corporate deals with very basic question 1) What investment should they make 2) How should they pay back for those investments. The first question involves spending money. The second question involves raising it. Any entrepreneur will emphasize on increasing the valuation of their company. It’s very simple logic “Increase valuation” but not easy to achieve. It is like asking an investor “Buy low, sell high” It is one of the powerful statements and if achieved can make you millionaire or billionaire depending upon the valuation price at buying and selling. But million dollar question is “How to do it”

Investment and Financing decisions are separate. When an investment opportunity or project is identified, the entrepreneur evaluates whether the project is worth more than the capital required to undertake it. If the answer is yes then he or she considers how the project should be financed. But the separation of investment and financing decision doesn’t mean that the financial manager can forget about investors and financial markets when analyzing capital investments project.

So if you are an entrepreneur it is very important for you to analyze the way the capital is raised. If its the 1^st level funding then you must check whether the investors and your goal are same or not. When you shake hands with the investor you should also clearly draw the line of involvement.  In other words whether the investor would be interfering in day today operation. If answer is yes then they should discuss the area of expertise and decide to work as team. Trust me its great feeling to have investor who can be involved in your day today operation as you get help in the form of mentor or few decisions (which you are not sure of!) You fail together and you pass together.

Usually investors are interested on ROI (return on investment) . While exiting business you can consider following options 1) Preference Share (certain percentage) after x years 2) Preference share with option to redeem at safety net price (Price can decided mutually) or convert the same into equity shares at prevailing value. In other words 1^st preference could be IPO, 2^nd preference could be secondary sales and 3^rd preference could be buy back at net safety price.

Your exit strategy is as important as choosing you business partner. There should always be separation of ownership and management. If you are founder & running company as well then you should forget the tag of founder and work as normal manager. The separation of ownership and management has clear advantages. It allows share ownership to change without interfering with the operation of the business. It allows the firm to hire professional managers. The negative part of it is that it brings problem if managers and owners objectives differ. Dangerous part would be rather than attending to the wishes of shareholder managers may seek leisure or luxurious work. They may shun unpopular decision or they may attempt to build an empire with shareholders money.  Hence integrity is always an important criterion of hiring. Become man of value not man of success.

Concluding this write up in 9 financial problems you should never overlook

1)      What is Project Risk & what is net present value

2)      Incorrect Evaluation of Risk & returns

3)      Importance of exception to the efficient market theory

4)      How the Net Present Value is calculated

5)       Before investing what are the danger points of new securities and new markets

6)      How to resolve payout controversy in other words when to distribute dividends

7)      Value of Liquidity

8)      Wrong merger steps

9)      International difference in financial architecture.

Takeaway would be invest sensibly & in planned manner. Stay home, build the future of home managers as foreign investment may involve high risk. Understanding international market takes time & could be highly risky. Always invest in international market through merger or acquisition. Don’t confuse total risk with market risk. Take risk and consider mitigation, after all its your money it’s your bread and butter !

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. 

Add caption

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  !