Future for Telecom Industry: Going back to Basics!

900+mn subs for Indian Telecom Industry, one of the fastest developed Industry in last ten years. Business Model envisaged ten years back now need relook. Ten years back when telecom business leaders chalked out plan to penetrate Indian Market, voice was the obvious answer, with slew of Value added services (VAS) got added over the years, but voice remain the key focus area and all business models revolved around it.Voice services are in the verge of saturations, data services are picking, which is going the shape the future of this Industry for next decade. One may call it tough time for Telecom business leaders I would rather say the transition period for Telecom Industry. This (transition) call operators to build right business model, develop right infrastructure to tap the untapped data market. However the real challenge to estimate the market size of data revenue. If you ask someone about the market of this, one would respond saying by 2017, 8bn devices would be connected. Or one would say e 15bn internet users or data market would be $ 200bn by 2017 so on and so forth. However the real question is to find out the numbers, which make shape the future of this Industry, question is to find the specific opportunities which will solve problems and help operators to build the right business model.  Data revenue is loose word, when I say specific opportunities; the real question is from where these numbers will come. What would be product or services which enable to achieve these numbers?  Some of the buzz words you might have heard are M2M, analytics, telematics, m-health, cloud so on so forth. Are we really able to see the big picture from all perspective?

Few days back in an interview with leading magazine in telematics, one of the executive said.

“Thus, one can imagine what shall be the growth potential of Telemetric Industry in India. Thus market survey reports shows growth potential but in reality it is not there. The fact is if we want the telemetric industry to grow in this country, the mobile operator must come forward. If one thinks, we the people, who only deals with the hardware part, will take this industry forward alone – then it’s a big mistake. It is the recurring revenue earning source for the mobile operators. The mobile operators must share the initiative for the growth of this business too.”

This clearly say the answer is omnipresent, our operators, are not geared enough to tap these opportunities. Industry as whole might seems lucrative, however this calls for looking into basics and develop business model for each and every opportunity. Let me try to realize the right technique and steps to develop business model and to see big picture.

Let me first try to size telematics markets and then try to see big picture from all perspective.

Figure: Inverted funnel of creating business Model

Our leader can use various tool to envisage big picture, and most commonly tool to use is PEST analysis.

Figure: PEST Analysis on Telematic

Conclusion: Data services are unfolding thus the future of Indian Telecom Industry, it is time to go back to drawing room and work into basics. This industry has immense potential and size to tap, there is need for creating business model, which reap the infrastructure of data services to solve common problems and improve life of millions of people.