During this breakout session at the Global Convergence Forum, attendees engaged in a wide-ranging and spirited discussion about the challenges and opportunities in understanding and meeting the needs of global digital consumers in the years ahead.
Building on the theme of an intensely competitive digital race, Marco Vernocchi, Accenture global lead for the media & entertainment industry, introduced three key themes that were addressed throughout the morning:
- Consumers run faster than companies. That is, consumer needs and desires are the pace-setters of the digital race. So understanding those needs better than the competition is essential to gaining marketplace advantage.
- Different companies are running in a crowded and unconventional race. Many traditional players are struggling to adjust their business models to meet the speed of marketplace change, while more nimble upstarts are pulling ahead in some sectors.
- Innovation is essential to jump ahead of the pack. Innovation is more essential today than ever. Although many companies are still struggling to emerge from the downturn, now is not the time to stop innovating.
A panel of distinguished industry executives explored these three points in some detail. Dr. Jai Menon, Group CIO, Bharti Enterprises and Director, Bharti Airtel, shared with the audience how his company is using the digital opportunity to target new consumers in the telecommunications market in India.
Based on his experience in India, Dr. Menon discussed the need to expand marketplace borders by leveraging new technologies, customer segmentation strategies and business models. From a technical perspective, broadband wireless will be increasingly important to consumers and businesses in India. High-speed broadband—both wireless and wireline—is bringing innovative digital solutions to more people all the time.
As a result of marketplace and technology change, three industries are coming together—telecommunications, media and IT—and their offerings are overlapping. In a country like India this convergence is happening very fast, putting pressure on companies to become more customer centric. Dr. Menon shared his perspective on how Bharti Airtel is successful providing compelling offerings to its diverse customer base within India.
The successful business model that Bharti has used is to focus on their core business and leverage partner relationships along with the outsourcing of non-core functions.
Dr. Menon was then joined by three additional executives: Martin Marcinczyk—VP, National Customer Operations, Comcast Cable Corp.; Jorge Nobrega—Corporate Vice President, Organizacoes Globo; and Rajesh Sawhney—President, Reliance BIG Entertainment.
The discussion among the panelists was led by moderator Kumar Ranjan, Accenture communications & high tech industry lead for India. The panelists debated a number of additional topics:
- Are you meeting your customers’ expectations by developing a deeper understanding of their needs? For example, younger consumers in India are driving consumption. Understanding the youth market is necessary for a sustainable business model.
- Are you watching costs? Low-cost models are critical to success in emerging markets, especially low-cost broadband.
- Is your company running or walking? Are you gaining or losing market share? What is your company doing to meet your customers’ needs?
- Be unconventional—think and innovate differently. Product differentiation is important to stand out from the crowd.
- Collaborating and partnering will be necessary to run the race. There are risks involved when introducing new innovations and these risks can be shared with other players in the digital ecosystem.
- Leap frog the competition. Emerging companies have the ability to leapfrog the mature companies and the competition. The consumer is learning fast from the rest of the world. New competition is bringing in ideas from other areas of the world to help the consumer get what they want by leapfrogging.