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.

Ben Kepes

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

2 Comments
  • re your comment on Rod’s blog “They need more real-world, at-the-coalface, solution-centric advice from players unaccustomed to ivory towers. simple as that…”

    I disagree… i think they need the sky to fall, they just cannot move unless there is a calamity

  • That’s sad and I’d like something to happen to prove you wrong……..

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