Telcos need to change…

Rod had this frustrated post about the set-in-stone strategic mindset of our telcos.

He is dead right of course – telcos have a heightened sense of their own importance and believe that repackaging an existing product or service with a different name or a different add-on constitutes fundamental change. They also believe that customers will just accept their arrogance when problems arise (case in point of course the daylight savings fiasco).
I fail to understand why telco’s, with their huge R&D budgets and massive staff levels, have failed to understand the basic premise of selling a product or service. Just to remind them;

• your customers are not overly interested in who you are
• your customers are not interested in the technology pluses that your product or service has as opposed to your competitors
• your customers aren’t overly interested in your, or your competitors whining over regulation, incumbency or competition (or lack thereof)
• your customers aren’t predisposed to use you as opposed to your competition just because you are a bigger company

All your customers want is a solution to their problems. That is why providers like Skype work. Problem: cost of toll calling. Solution: Free VoIP. Simple as that. Or Zoho. Problem: Need accessible and collaborative documents. Solution: Hosted Office Apps

So…… pull your people off their huge repackaging projects, their big marketing campaigns, their innovation-crushing lock in attempts – those projects might buy you some (very) short term breathing space but your customers are smarter than just accepting the same old thing with a different name. Instead put your best and brightest to work thinking about how they can actually ad-value to your customers by SOLVING THEIR PROBLEMS.