I was recently the moderator of a panel discussion on ‘Incumbents vs New Entrants’ at SITM Pune at the Asian telecom seminar.
Panelists present were:
- Mr. Satyen Gupta, Chief Regulatory Advisor, British Telecom
- Mr Abdul Khan, Head marketing, Tata DOCOMO, TTML
- Mr. Vikas Goel, Sen VP, Marketing, Virgin Mobile
- Selvam K, CIO, S Tel Private Ltd
- Mr. Anand Agarwal, DGM, Idea Cellular Ltd
Focus area of the panel discussion was:
- Operators strategies for rural- Is Distribution or retail more important?
- How do you perceive MNP and its viability in India?
- What impact would 3G have and how have the operators prepared for it?
- How do you see the “3” way impact of MNP, MVNO and 3G (if launched together) on the operators (Incumbentsand new entrants) and on the behaviour of the end customer?
- Service or Price differentiation? Which would hold the key ahead?
- Will Co-Opetition (Competition+ Co-operation) be the key for Indian telecom?
Here were the key insights from the panel:
1) Word of mouth driver of telecom business – All operators agreed that customer word of mouth was the best way to increase their subscriber base
2) Tariff plan not a differentiator – one of the panelists stated that tariff plan wasnt the differentiator but how the brand was positioned for the consumer.
3) Co-opetition (Co-operation + Competition) - Treating your new entrants as a wholesaler is the key and working with him to grow the market an important requirement
4) Problem of Plenty – Anand of Idea stated that going forward the problem will be the problem of plenty. How do you keep over 500 million consumers happy and meet their expectations is the key. He asked some very pointed questions that telecom operators would be faced with:
- Do you have a service delivery model?
- Right Human Resource?
- Brand is important
- Treatment of customers
Rural penetration & ARPU – Selvam from S Tel stated that the rural penetration was a big concern and it was there from where the next 500 million customers would come. He stated Average revenue per user might not be even worth setting up the infrastructure but with scale business might make sense.
5) Affordable services with value matter 3G & 4G doesn’t matter – Abdul of TTML stated that the customer didn’t care whether it was 3G or 4G what he cared about is what he gets and what he pays for the same.
6) Lets not build a BMW for bus passengers – One more panelist had an interesting take on 3G. He termed 3G as building BMW for bus passengers. He stated that Telcos need to package 3G lucratively for customers only then it will find a market. Challenge is going to be how customers uses 3G for data and not for voice.
The panel concluded on an interesting point about the possibility of niche operators springing up post MNP. One panelist gave the example of how banks provide differential services to HNI customers and low end customers too. Same way operators would create niche brands or new operators would come up as niche operators who would target a certain subset of the audience from the telecom subscriber base.
