Emceed by Greg Douglass, growth & strategy global managing director, Communications & High Tech for Accenture, the session provoked lively discussions among participants.
The title of the session, “Mobile, Mobile Everywhere,” alluded to the famous quote from the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” poem. On the seas, there is “water, water everywhere”—but not a drop to drink.” Something similar might be said about the era of ubiquitous wireless: mobility is increasingly anywhere and everywhere, but are there profits to be made? Are we approaching a mobile “tipping point” where sustainable growth from wireless services and products is possible? And if so, how and when will we reach that point?
Douglass launched the debate by highlighting a few predictions on what the future of the industry might be:
- The mobile industry will grow not by focusing on the next billion customers, but by focusing on the next trillion devices.
- Mobile applications in the consumer space will stall, leading companies to focus on enterprise mobile applications.
- Explosive growth in the mobile industry will not come from services but from payments, applications and marketing.
Organized into three sessions, this workshop gathered executives to share ideas around three business models for wireless growth: machine-to-machine capabilities, mobile applications and monetization.
Machine-to-Machine
The machine-to-machine session highlighted opportunities in the wireless marketplace and included Tom Wheeler, managing director of Core Capital Partners and former CEO, CTIA; Janos Winker, COO, Magyar Telekom Group (Hungary); Ronan Dunne, CEO, Telefonica O2 UK; and Ragnar-Miguel Myhrer, Accenture’s North America wireless network practice lead and head of the new product development & innovation practice in North America.
All panelists agreed that machine-to-machine is likely to be the next big thing and manufacturers will have no choice but to adapt in order to provide the required services their consumers will demand. The mobile industry will grow by focusing on the next trillion devices they are required to provide, rather than on the next billion customers. That is, machine-to-machine communications will change the nature of the relationship between the product and the consumer, transforming the device into a means to deliver a service while enhancing the customer experience. Several panelists agreed that online automated ways to serve the customer will have to be found in order to cost-effectively deliver the appropriate level of customer service.
Customer service was highlighted as a critical success factor to enable the sustainable growth of machine-to-machine. “At the end of the day, we are connected to the customer and the client has our phone number. So we have an obligation to deliver exceptional customer service,” a panelist insisted.
Panelists debated several other important aspects of the machine-to-machine opportunity, including the metrics needed to evaluate marketplace success in the communications industry. They agreed that many traditional metrics such as average revenue per user (ARPU) were not relevant anymore for evaluating success in the M2M space. Traditional key performance indicators used to evaluate a wireless carrier, including ARPU, CCPU or subscriber growth, were already out of date and new metrics will be necessary to evaluate M2M growth.
Mobile Applications
The second panel discussion about the future of mobile applications brought together Ron Jon Nag, CEO, Cellmania; Sumit Chowdhury, CIO, Reliance Communications; Tunc Yorulmaz, head of special projects, Turk Telekom; and Ben White, director, strategy and corporate development, SingTel Optus. This session was facilitated by Angelo Morelli, new product development & innovation lead, Accenture.
Although Apple has revolutionized the idea of consumer mobile applications, one of the most hotly contested subjects is how many players can effectively compete in this space. Given the competition and fragmented mobile application store industry, companies are going to have a difficult time differentiating themselves and grabbing market share. The ability of any single app store to attract quality developers will also be a challenge, as developers do not have time and resources to support every store all the time. And behind it all, the strategy for revenue sharing in the mobile application space will continue to challenge all parties.