Indian telecom companies are stilling following old strategy of customer acquisition and price reduction to increase the market share. I think this will not help because of increasing marketing expenses, cost of operation etc.
Few years before, the Indian market was so attractive, we saw huge interests from foreign investors. Now, situation is different.
After the latest verdict from Supreme court, Vodafone, Airtell , RCOM are really in advantageous position.
Source - www.techonzo.com
Will one of them become a new leader or somebody else?
I spoke with few thought leaders regarding what should be correct strategies to dominate Indian Telecom market . Here are 9 points which e believe can improve the profitability of Indian Telecom companies.
1. Coverage. There are no single operator who has really good PAN India coverage. This is true for CDMA, GSM & 3G network. I think this should be the prime focus for the future leader in Indian Telecom market.
Companies need to focus on indoor coverages and apartments in high rise building.
2. Price war is killing the service quality. High ARPU customers are not getting the desired service level because all operators are targeting the bottom of the pyramid.
3. Companies should proactively track the customer's problem. People buy fancy high cost handsets/ tablets but most of the time they can not configure them properly. Companies should use latest technology to understand and improve customer experience.
4. Company should focus more on online selling of services and promotion to get high ARPU customers. Companies should be more active in social media segment. India might have more than 1 billion people but actual base of English speaking high ARPU customer ( monthly bill amount INR 450) is around much less than even 100 million.
6. Companies should invest in value innovation to create new market instead of competing for survival in a crowded place. There are still huge opportunities to merge entertainment, gaming, mobile TV , M commerce on mobile.
7. Companies should capitalize mobile advertisement right now. They need to innovate something like Google adwords instead of irritating SMS or direct calling. This will open a complete new revenue stream for them.
8. There are huge revenue opportunities in B2B segments. This is virtually untapped market.Some experts and small business owners was talking about SAAS.
9. Mobile companies can tie up various online stores or emall to sell their products where entire service assurance and fulfillment will be the responsibilities of their partners.
In other words, team thought the standard telecom market is saturated. Companies need to deploy disruptive technology along with blue ocean strategy to create new customers to increase revenue.
Some telecom analyst believes that Mr. Mukesh Ambani will capture the market these types of disruptive technology which will create new customers for him. He did the same by reducing the price drastically in 2003.Click the link to know more on current state of Indian telecom industry .
Are we going to see another telecom revolution in India ?
Are we going to see an interesting competition between Vodafone & RIL?
As per the global trend I can see two major areas
ReplyDelete1) The trendsetter ( can call it a Winner) in this path is supposed to popularize data & reap the benefit out of it.
India is still a voice market only if you consider both rural & urban population; but Voice is already cheap & getting cheaper everyday with competition. The pond is already fished by so many players that it leaves very little room for innovation.
I believe there are major rooms for innovation left to make data popular.
2) Another important business line is selling telecom as a service to sectors like retail,energy,insurance,banking which is already started in developed countries & will be in India Sooner or later.
Its not only a question of RIL or Vodafone; whoever sets foot in those areas first will capture it & be called a winner .. ofcourse it also comes with the responsibility to popularize new usage types.
my 2 cents :)