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“You’re bringing that information in, and teasing meaning out of that data that’s coming to you. That’s a big challenge for the BSS - and a big opportunity - but you need algorithmically to analyze all of that value-added out of that torrent of information, and that can be monetized,” Pinnes says. Setting up all of the logic that drives these kinds of solutions is another area where BSS experience comes into play. And not only does the upfront requirements process have to be executed correctly, but “carriers have great experience in change realization – getting feedback from users and adopting improvements;” says Pinnes, “that’s a value [service providers] can bring to the table.”
Experience with these kinds of problems, and the technologies and business practices that solve them, gives communications service providers a bigger stake in vertical industries than connectivity alone can provide. There’s a chance to get into the room with the hospital, education system, retailer, or whomever and provide guidance both on how best to leverage communications networks and on how to select, implement, and apply analytical tools most effectively.
Strategic partnership with vertical-specific IT players makes sense here, but because the service provider likely has customer relationships in place with major enterprises – or the brand recognition to get in the door - it’s an ideal channel partner for solution providers to sell through. That moves the service provider higher up in the value chain and gives it a bigger piece of the revenue pie. So, ultimately, because M2M means communications is integral to what other industries want to do to remain on the leading edge, service providers don’t have to
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“You can’t lose site of the fact that there are people on the other end of these devices.” Monica Ricci, Director of Product Marketing, CSG Intec. |
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be content with just providing the pipe; there is a chance right now to learn from the OTT experience in consumer markets and seize the initiative in M2M.
Remembering the Little People
With all of the focus on M2M and
analytics, we can’t forget that
ultimately, people need to use
solutions and information to drive their decision making and live their lives. “You can’t lose the focus on people just
because you’re focused on the
machine-to-machine part of it;” says
Monica Ricci, Director of Product
Marketing for CSG Intec, “you can’t lose
site of the fact that there are people
on the other end of these devices.”
It’s easy to get so caught up in the technology that we forget about usability. Companies like Apple and Google win because they marry usability and great technology together so well, and communications service providers need to do the same thing here. If they can catalyze partner-based solutions for specific verticals in such a way that implementation of everything from the devices and network components to the dashboards and other user-facing components work seamlessly and are accessible to non-experts, they can win big in M2M. If we all spend too much time arguing over what is and isn’t M2M and miss the big opportunity, however, then we will not have learned what consumer OTT should have taught us by now.
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