Source: www.voip-news.com

The stats are in, and the team at Gartner is reporting that a whopping 80% of telecom carriers will fail against the likes of Apple, Google and Nokia, companies that have a better grasp of the consumer market.  Gartner pointed out that telecom carriers consistently rely on pricing cuts and various promotions, in an effort to compete with a crowded marketplace.  However these days, that’s just not enough.  As Gartner said at their recent Symposium/ITxpo, in order to stay the course, traditional telecom carriers will have to transform themselves.“The players that will be among the successful 20 per cent will be the ones that provide a consumer-centric experience, for example through interactive TV, where users will be able to chat online while watching their favourite TV programmes,” said Martin Gutberlet, research vice-president, in a recent press release.  “As demonstrated by Apple and Google, three new attributes are coming into play and driving change in the marketplace that the traditional telecom players must embrace to become successful content enablers, which create and/or deliver content. They are trust, usability and an exciting customer experience,” continued Mr Gutberlet. “If customers trust your services, they are willing to grant you access to their personal life. Ultimately, improving the customer experience will increase customer loyalty.”According to Gartner’s recent research, there are three distinct business models that will enable carriers to remain competitive for the next few years.  They are:

1. Content Innovator – Entering the Media Market: Embracing this model,  content innovators produce and own their content and will use exclusive content to differentiate themselves. For example, France Telecom is investing in film production while SK Telecom acquired a record label. The risk of this model is a temptation to focus purely on content ownership at the expense of providing customer experience.2. Aggregator:  Unlike the content innovator model, the aggregator model will not involve the creation of content, rather the sourcing and packaging of it. Carriers that adopt this model realise that much future content will come from the internet. Their aim will be to make it as accessible as possible, given the constraints of networks and devices, especially mobile phones. Aggregators will engage in content location, rendering, billing, advertising insertion and customer care and, as such, will have the opportunity to offer comprehensive bundled packages. Examples include T Mobile’s collaboration with Google for mobile search and Hutchinson’s Xseries which embraces internet services such as Skype and eBay.Gartner advises that a partnership or joint venture approach offers the best balance between risk and opportunity for carriers. They would have to establish themselves by teaming with content owners, producers, developers, distributors and media buyers.  BT is a good example of a traditional carrier that successfully understands and leverages wider media offerings. 3. Bit Pipe Carrier: This represents a stable business model based purely on connectivity as a utility but with both lower revenue and lower margins than today. Rather than emphasising content and services, the bit pipe model is driven by operational excellence. In order to maintain profits amidst declining revenues, carriers that adopt a bit pipe approach are expected to reduce their core operational staff by at least 20 per cent by 2012, driven by internet protocol (IP) technology, infrastructure consolidation, process automation, operational outsourcing and cutthroat competition. “The risk of this model is making the wrong network investment decision,” Mr Gutberlet said.He added, “We envisage that carriers will use any combination of the three business models. A company that has successfully deployed this approach is Telefonica, which was once a content innovator and following its sale of Endemol became an aggregator and a bit pipe carrier.”“The telecom industry in 2012 will be very different from the one we know today. Developing strong partnership skills, focusing on customer user groups, embracing internet services and starting to talk the language of Web 2.0 will enable the carriers to thrive well into the future,” concluded Mr Gutberlet.

Source: voipcentral.org

In its latest report, the research firm Gartner has predicted that business enterprises would waste around $20.3bn by purchasing expensive VoIP phones during the second half of the decade. Off this amount, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Asia) would account $5bn, the report said.

The market trend shows that a good number of firms are keen to invest on IP phones equipped with screens. The report claims that such investments are useless.

Gartner has noted that many firms are replacing their old phones with fancy, screen-based IP phones IP phones. However, they are using these phones like the old phones, though the firms take the advantage of new capabilities such as viewing missed calls or for directory dialing in the new phones.

Bob Hafner, an analyst at Gartner says

Ironically, in most businesses, the IP screen phone is placed on the desk beside a PC that has a much bigger and higher-resolution screen.

There would be more than 150 million IP phones purchasing by the business worldwide in next five years with 50 million purchased in EMEA alone. For seventy five percent of those purchases, companies are spending at least $150 more than they need to as they focus on purchasing IP screen phones, Gartner predicted.

To save money, the companies should purchase low-end IP phones without a screen and use PCs with UC applications.

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