There was a time when the telco industry served the interests of public at very affordable costs, the voice calling facility was very much in conformance with the ever thrifty ‘common man’, the internet services for mobile phones were very inexpensive. With the introduction of 3G services now, everybody had to shell out twice the money for half the services and then the 4G services are burning a hole in common man’s dear pocket.
The entire world has been witnessing the fluctuations in the telecom industry. The way technology has been advancing, the telco industry is being definitely influences in ways more than one which engulfs the economic aspect as well.
However, the new revolution that has just begun and telecom sector is about to be uberized with lower tariff plans and cost which is bare minimum. It is astonishing to see how quickly this is happening.
Role of Telco in growth and society of the world:
Taking out data from unchartered and inaccessible territories of large countries works in a great manner for the population as well as the Government. They help in planning policies and modulating public tensions in their commendations. For this, establishing a successful communications network all over the nation is very important.
The communication networks thus set will be an invaluable asset to government in gathering data about those natives and residents which were till date only registered on pen and paper. The information pool that can be generated by providing people with the communication network is something that no any incumbent network has ever been able to anticipate.
How and why Telcos are offering this:
Let’s take a look at the possible reasons of how telecom companies are able to offer such a good public service to the masses in the form of new products which are coming up. Information in this time of total internet connectivity is the key to every business. Various apps on a mobile phone today not only captures our behaviours, it captures our locations, our needs and desires which are logged on multiple apps, stored on the Telco network. With the development that has been made in developing Intelligent Cognitive Thinking systems the face of Intelligence transfer, replication, generation and sharing has been changed from inside out. E.g. how often does one go to a pizza app, what you say on your social networking site, what reviews are you looking at, what videos are you watching, etc. can help predict your needs and wants. Who is to deny the possibility that trick or say strategy of the companies of almost free mobile network might have any links with trade of information to its best usage?
- Warm leads
If there’s one thing that every business needs for sales, that is ‘Warm business leads’. The companies might also be selling backend leads to ambitious organizations who are willing to pay the price. With the development of search history tracking algorithms, the kind of keywords that people search for, the kind of weblinks that they visit for any particular number of suggestions that are provided to them might be valuable information in deciphering the consumer based market of India.
Trade and commerce on internet platforms are run by public mobilizations of trend, elasticity and affinity of products and services which are very hard for any incumbent company to track without spending dungeons of money for gathering trends and statistical data for Research and Development.
- Disrupting Ecommerce
With a mobile network and that too a loved one, telecom companies might be aiming at gathering all the data required to run the disruptive cogwheels of E-Commerce markets. This network could have embedded ‘fillers’ programmed to learn and replicate trends of Natural Selection, Volatility of Elasticity of Consumer Services and Products, generating multiple databases of Human Internet behavior for Indian Population for streamlining its entry into this market.
Considering example of India which is a country ranked 120+ out of almost 196 for Internet Penetration Levels with an even skewered percentage of Internet Buyers, running a new E-Commerce wing can be very hard and having a likeable network of your own can be very profitable. This is indeed very inviting for all kind of global companies. However, before a global company could invade and leverage that, an Indian company has taken a charge with a new product – Reliance Jio.
How Reliance Jio is leading the way in Uberization of Telco – A case study:
The completely Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoiP) system of Reliance and only Fiber Optics Network makes this job very subtle and easy for Reliance.
With RIL on an expansion spree by acquiring Atlas Energy, opening a Telecom Communications Wing, E-Commerce expansion of Stores and sanctioning high amount of loans based on wonderful credit ratings built over year, it’s going to need to gyrate between the market very efficiently and in order to do that it’s going to need a Robust Target Marketing, because cold calling and promotional messaging part of Indian Telecom Industry has been taken over the DND service and thus only Specially Targeted Marketing based on the trends learnt from the population’s mobile and internet usage can provide enough information to pull this all of. Only those customers would receive a promotional call about ‘Jio Beats’ who regularly use Online music apps like ‘Gaana, Wynk’ etc.
Reliance replacing international players?
The futuristic application of this offer to Indian Masses can be identified in the possibility that Reliance wants to replace the international players in Mobile Applications, Online Payment Portal and other Telecommunication business segments as well (as communicated by Mukesh Ambani in 42nd AGM of RIL). Jio aims to build a customer bandwagon of 90% Indian Population and with the current movement it’s likely achieve that feat. When Reliance Jio does this it’ll be able to control the information of Public Information by helping customers who use those very business tools (Google Play, Payment Gateways, E Commerce Websites etc.) which Jio itself want’s to compete (it’s going to be done on their network) and thus would have the power to know at all times the Research Inputs required for requisite Research and Development of Reliance’s own products and services. In long run Reliance is generating tough resources that it can bank upon to become the company that even Dhirubhai Ambani might not have imagined it to be.
Complete Disruption by Reliance in India:
One thing can be deciphered for sure that the absolute decapitating theory of Disruptive Marketing, if ever was to be formulated; than it would be just like the one that Reliance Jio has come up with. Irrespective of the repercussions that the strategy might hold or for that matter any scam (that’s what we are most afraid of) be unearthed or the promises be turned bad upon the ending of December 2016 period people are dying to have a Jio SIM card and many of them as one reads the article could be found waiting in queues to get one. It’s not the greed that we’re trying to satiate here, the greed of being able to talk for free and exploit an industry giant (most of us are smart enough to know that this can’t happen); what lies in this for us the sheer power of being able to communicate and accomplish what was restricted by our limitations of communication and our intolerance towards the idea of every part and especially young and youth being connected to world class information.
The telecom world is changing and for sure the customers will be the real beneficiaries as the cost will be borne by the businesses rather than the consumer themselves. It is in fact an intelligent move and is a win-win situation for all, if done judiciously and wisely.
Trust me, Uberization of Telco is here to stay and this is only going to spread in other part of the world, very soon.
