By John Hansen
Many service providers are now starting to think innovatively about how to meet the requirements of users from businesses of all types, large and small.
Irrespective of whether it's fixed or mobile services, business customers have often had to take second place to the consumer market when it came to getting specially targeted offerings from their communications service providers. Sure, the larger national and international companies usually enjoyed dedicated account and support staff and specialist services like Virtual Private Networks, but the experience of many small to medium sized business users has usually been limited to standard service packages.
On the fixed side, incumbent operators were often forced by regulatory conditions to limit the service options of their business customers for fear that their already tight profits would be eroded still further. When services were specifically bundled together to target the SME space, the market’s general lack of exposure about the benefits of advanced communications limited real innovation. Instead, many service providers were forced to apply the usual ‘one size fits all’ marketing model of traditional telecommunications to what in reality was a very diverse sector.
Historically, similar issues applied to the mobile sector, but were accentuated by the intense focus of mobile operators on the consumer market, with a particular emphasis on the teenage and early adopter segment. Business users may account for a significant proportion of service providers’ revenue, but sadly they haven’t been seen as ‘sexy’ or as challenging as the much more content laden, ‘creative’ end of the consumer market. To compound this, purchasing decisions on mobile communications within smaller companies were often seen as the responsibility of the generic office manager and the sell was on simple cost and coverage issues, rather than the more strategic commercial benefits that a well-structured portfolio of mobile services could provide.
Businesses sell quality:
Fortunately these perceptions are changing, with many service providers in both spaces now starting to think innovatively about how to meet the real demands of users from businesses of all types, large and small. As they evaluate these needs, they’re picking up on one prime concern of any business customer – service quality, in its widest possible sense.
The rewards are certainly there for the taking. Enterprise customers usually deliver far higher ARPU returns and, once established, are far more unlikely to churn in search of the lowest possible tariff, like many consumer customers. They also hold the promise of acting as drivers for further service sales to staff and employees, particularly given the trend towards teleworking and of providing mobile phones, partitioned between private and business usage through different billing and account processes.
The expansion of broadband services only increases the attractiveness – and potential returns – of the enterprise market. With the infrastructure needed to deliver seamless voice and data communications across cellular, wireless LAN and fixed DSL links now falling into place, converged fixed-mobile service strategies are the obvious next step for ambitious service providers to take. Joined-up thinking is finally coming, especially in the mobile space, with business applications from simple e-mail up to ERP systems and converged voicemail now capable of being accessed reliably and securely from mobile handsets and laptops.