WHO IS Red?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Karachi, Dawood spent his early years
growing up in countries spanning Asia, the Middle East,
and Europe. He came to Canada in 1988 to study at
Carleton University. Upon obtaining his Bachelor’s
Degree in Aerospace, Electronics and Computer
Systems Engineering, Dawood moved to British
Columbia, where he worked as a Software Design
Engineer at MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates
(MDA). When MDA acquired a consulting firm out of
Ottawa called The PSC Group, they could only find one
volunteer willing to relocate to Ottawa. Dawood
established and managed the wireless practice for PSC
in 1995, and spent time advising and educating
professionals at Nortel, Motorola and other firms on the
latest wireless and IT technologies, and trends. His
passion to learn drove him to move to Whippany, New
Jersey, where he joined Bell Labs, Lucent
Technologies, as a Member of Technical Staff in 1997. Over the next five years Dawood
was promoted to Technical Manager and subsequently Director. He held roles in
Engineering, Product Management, and Sales. During this time, he availed the
opportunity to earn a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Columbia
University in New York. In 2002, Dawood became a part of KAZAM Technologies team
in Markham, Ontario, and served as a Vice-President of Professional Services. Ranked
in the top 300 companies in Canada, KAZAM provided management consulting,
strategy, and planning services in wireless and broadband communications. In 2008
Dawood founded Red Mobile, an innovative consultancy leveraging the experience of
KAZAM and bringing together seasonal professionals from Wireless and Broadband
Telecommunications with vertical experts from Industries using wireless technologies,
including Retail, Healthcare, Media and the Financial Sector.
Over his 15-year career in wireless, Dawood has worked globally with key decision
makers and executives at companies including SK Telecom, KTF, NTT DoCoMo,
Verizon, Sprint, Telcel, as well as all of the major Canadian operators. Currently
Dawood heads up the WiMAX Forum in Canada and writes regularly for the “Wireless
Telecom” magazine.
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WHO IS Red?
Successful Telecom Strategies follows the adventures
of a management consultant specializing in wireless and
broadband strategy and implementation planning. Her
name is Red. She has a degree in Engineering, an MBA
from a leading University, and has worked with several
global vendors and operators. 32 years of age, with
distinctive red hair, she is outspoken and frank, vivacious,
lively, energetic, and youthful. She is knowledgeable and
up to date on the latest trends, but always looking to learn
from new experiences. She is well traveled, can converse
in several languages, and is always interested in learning
about new cultures and traditions.
A series of case studies are presented, using real life situations. There are two types
of articles. Strategy focused articles follow the traditional case study format and have
Red address key client challenges by devising tried and tested strategies. The other
form is Insight focused. These articles typically involve interviews with thought leaders
globally. The story unfolds as a series of chapters would in a novel, and over a period of
time, you learn more about Red.
Want to inter@ct with Red?
If you have story ideas, feedback on an article or if you are interested in having Red
help you with your strategy or planning needs, write her at
redmobileco@redmobileco.com.
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CASE II: DRIVING SERVICE STICKINESS VIA AN ENGAGING
END-USER EXPERIENCE
Situation
Problem
Strategic
imperatives
• Incumbent operator facing declining voice revenues and increased churn
in customers has decided to focus on customer retention and increase
revenues from data services to meet targets
• Increased post-paid churn, as a result of no perceived differentiation in
services or value from those of lower priced competitor plans
• Low take rates, low usage, and low revenues for data services, as a
result of poor user experience and lack of differentiation
• Reduce churn - create stickiness to attract and grow high value
customers, changing the competitive measure to differentiated value
rather than pricing
• Increase Revenues while monetizing existing investment
The Setting
She woke startled, as though she’d overslept, and was jumping out of bed as her eyes met the
clock, blinking 3:48 AM. It was then that Red realized that she had checked into the Grand
Hyatt in Seoul, South Korea the prior evening. She was in Seoul to meet SK Telecom to gain
some insights on their current mobile data strategies. While SK Telecom’s data revenues had
been strong over the last several years, they had started to level off, she was interested in
what new initiatives they would be working on to drive new revenue, attract and keep
Customers.
She recalled her meeting with Richard, the CMO of the North American operator. Richard’s
objective, in light of burgeoning competition, was to differentiate his services from those of his
competitors; attract and retain high value customers; increase revenue; and reduce churn.
There was no point trying to sleep, so she walked to the desk and flipped open a
complimentary cell-phone. It was busily downloading mobile ads. “Cool,” she thought, “using
the network to download rich media content when the network is least busy.” The ads were
premium content, and some were exclusive to the operator’s customers. They reminded her of
short films similar to the ones BMW had done a few years ago with Clive Owen to promote its
cars on the internet.
She went on-line to catch up on the developments with her colleagues from the consulting firm
(known as the firm internally).
She received an IM from Jamal, a colleague at the firm. “Hi, Red, Richard is really excited
about your suggestions. He is especially interested in enhancing the user experience and
simplifying billing. He is toying with the idea of offering mobile browsing for free and charging
only for content. He isn’t even interested in charging a monthly base fee for data services, only
a pay for content download fee. That will be his only offer.” Red was brushing her teeth and
almost choked on the toothpaste as she read Jamal’s comment on Richard’s plans. Richard
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had heard that Vodafone had started zero-rating its browser traffic sometime ago to drive
usage. Jamal continued typing, but Red was busy calling Richard.
“Richard, I am glad I caught you! It’s me, Red!”
“Red! Aren’t you half way across the world in some God forsaken rat hole?” Richard didn’t get
out much, and it was too early for Red to get into political correctness or international lessons
with him.
“Richard, I hear you’ve been making progress on the plans we shared, I wanted to provide
some more guidance on the key aspects of what we’re trying to do, do you have time now?”
“I’ve got 40 minutes before I get pulled into a standing meeting,” he said. Red sent a message
to Jamal to be on standby for a call. “Richard, I am conferencing in Jamal,” she said as she
selected Jamal on her messaging interface and with a click of a button, she connected him in.
“Richard, there are two key items we need to focus on. First is churn reduction through the
creation of a user experience for your services to drive stickiness, and the second is raising
data revenues. For the next 39 minutes let’s talk about creating stickiness.”
“Is this where you tell me about the Smarties in the popcorn?” asked Richard.
“No,” she smiled, “we’ll get there someday.”
Creating Service Stickiness
“Richard, there are several things one must do to create stickiness. These include enhancing
the user experience; moving from simply bundling services towards blended or integrated
services; improving customer loyalty and retention; and when there is sufficient market
penetration, focusing on segments. For now, I want to focus on the basic ingredients of
creating an engaging end-user experience” said Red.
Achieving service stickiness through enhanced end user experience
“User experience is a quality measure that predicts end user engagement. Simply exposing
people to content does not ensure engagement. One needs to focus on elements that drive a
positive user experience. Delivering an engaging user experience requires one to provide quick
and easy access (i.e. value for time and money); fulfillment of user’s present needs (fun,
entertaining, informative content); and allow social networking (sharing with others). Elements
that inhibit user experience include information that is overwhelming and perceived to be a
waste of time or money,1” said Red.
She added, “Richard, there are four elements that have been perfected by carriers who have
developed an engaging end-user experience to reduce churn. I will share the ones related to
revenue generation later.”
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Dr. Michael Smith, the executive director of Northwestern University’s Media Management Center and his team have done
extensive research on the topic of motivators and inhibitors in creating and engaging end-user experience. While some of the work
is for print media, there are several areas relevant to the mobile user experience. http://www.mediamanagementcenter.org
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1. Simplifying access to content
“With a plethora of mobile content available, it’s easy to overwhelm the user. SK Telecom
(SKT) overcame this in several ways, starting out by creating multiple segments. This allowed
for targeted focus on the interests of the segment. Dynamic menus and tightly coupled devices
allowed SKT to offer users faster access to content they wanted. I also think we need to reconsider offering only browser access to content.”
Richard pushed back, “Red, you know how difficult it is to drive device roadmaps, and we find
people are used to using a browser to get content.”
Red calmed Richard’s concerns, while trying to make her point, “device changes are not easy;
however, if we focus on a specific segments and prioritize the user interface, it’s manageable.
You are also correct about people getting content through the browser; unfortunately, it’s not
the mobile browser they are using enough of. Did you know that the mobile music industry is
projected to exceed $30 billion by 2010, and less than 10% of it is being downloaded over the
air?”
“It can’t be due to lack of selection. We have over 250,000 types of music content on our
portal alone, and offer several of branded music sites for off-portal access,” said Richard.
“The experience of finding content is made worse by the sheer amount of content available.
We need to focus your on-portal strategy to offer customers content that is hot, current, and
relevant, and allow them off-portal access to everything else,” replied Red.
“The browser is slow to launch and cumbersome to use in the mobile environment,” said
Jamal. “Proactively displaying select previews of the hottest content on the front screen,
without the user launching the browser, is viable with larger screen sizes. The previews can be
updated daily based on interest in the user’s segment, the user’s own history of use, or usage
within the user’s social network. Increased memory and over the air capabilities permit us to
push previews to the device. If the user is interested, they select the content and the applet
launches the mobile browser in the background to download it.”
“In a nut-shell Richard, you’re not just simplifying access to the hottest content, you’re actually
placing it on a platter and enticing the user to download it,” added Red.
“OK, I can see that working for the youth market, but what happens in cases where people like
to have a consistent interface that doesn’t change each day?” asked Richard.
“A dynamic menu may actually be an irritant for some users. This is why a one-size-fits-all
approach to user experience doesn’t work. Our approach involves tailoring dynamic menu
structures to segments, and even with the daily updated content, we’ll place the hottest game
or music clip at the same menu location. So only the content changes, not the location of the
content type. Secondly, we’ll enable customers to update their preferred menu structure at any
time,” replied Jamal.
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2. Simplifying content discovery
“What happens if I don’t see what I like, with the browser I at least have options,” challenged
Richard.
“We will always offer the ability for a user to launch the browser, but with a slight twist. Can you
launch your mobile browser and download the theme song to Spiderman?” asked Red.
It took him a couple of minutes after which he mumbled something and said, “I’ve tried our site,
now I am looking off-portal, I am having trouble finding it, I only have a few minutes left before
the meeting.”
“Exactly my point! We need to provide users with the ability to discover content in a simpler
and faster way,” said Red.
“Ah yes, mobile search! Everyone is talking about that,” agreed Richard.
“Yes, but we’ll need to explore ways to make sure that the solution works for you. Branded
solution from Google or Yahoo vs. white-label; search on-portal then off-portal or only onportal, etc. are just some of the things we need to assess when we meet next,” said Red.
3. Simplify sharing of content
“While search is important, a user can discover content in other ways. We know that people
trust recommendations from peers and members of their social network. We need to allow your
customers to recommend and to gift content to others. We don’t stop there, through an
intelligent menu, we can also suggest content to users based on their usage history,” she said.
“Enabling users within a community to recommend and gift content will increase awareness
and revenue. However, users also want the ability to side-load and transfer content between
devices. Something like KDDI’s LISMO service, which allows users to share content with
others and transfer between devices should be evaluated. Cyworld, a Korean company is
another example of a successful community concept that integrates the mobile and web
experience for users. Let’s explore ways to leverage communities in a smart way that provides
value to your customers,” added Jamal.
4. Simplify billing
“I remember you telling me how complicated our billing mechanisms are, I am thinking of zerorating browser access, so that people can download content without worrying about the cost of
browsing, and we can drive more market awareness of the type of content we provide access
to” said Richard.
Red responded, “This is one of the things I needed to talk to you about. We conducted a
survey of your customer base, and found that over 90% of your customers are aware that they
can use their mobile device to download and listen to music. You do not have an issue with
market awareness. Yes, people would rather pay nothing, but as we can see from the success
of iTunes, users are willing to pay for content if they see value. Given that you will likely keep
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only the hottest content on-portal and offer users the ability to go off-portal for everything else,
with side-loading gaining momentum, our recommendation would be to move away from the
per kilo-byte charge you currently have for browsing, to a monthly subscription.”
“We’ve had subscription models, but they haven’t worked all that well,” replied Richard.
“Yes, but now we’re changing the way you bundle and what you offer as a part of the bundle.
Through cooler devices that are tightly coupled with services to deliver a superior user
experience; the latest and most relevant content,; and browsing bundled into a data plan; you
have the ability to grow both adoption for data services and revenues at the same time. To
drive loyalty, we can offer a certain tier of customers pricing promotions.”
“Jamal and the rest of the team will work with you to devise the right approach for delivering
segment focused user experience, content discovery and content sharing, with DRM in mind.
They will work to devise services and user experience driven roadmap for future devices, and
appropriate plans for your installed base. I will join you upon my return and we’ll dig deeper into
some of the areas we discussed today,” summarized Red.
“Looking forward to it, and remember we need to have a serious discussion about those pesky
Smarties next time we meet,” replied Richard.
Red signed off, it was almost 6 AM, time enough for a few laps in the swimming pool.
All rights reserved by Dawood Khan, “Red” is a character trademark owned by Dawood Khan. All
references to operator are hypothetical, however all situations and numbers are reasonably
realistic.
Dawood Khan is a Partner at the KAZAM Group and a founder of Red Mobile Inc. Dawood worked
in the wireless industry for over fifteen years and was previously Director of Sales Engineering at
Lucent Technologies. He holds an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University, N.Y.,
and a B.Eng. from Carleton University, Ottawa. Ranked in the Top 25 up & coming companies in
Canada by the Branham Group, KAZAM Technologies provides Management Consulting, Strategy,
Implementation Planning, and Service Development Services in wireless & broadband
communications from Canada to South Korea.
210-8901 Woodbine Avenue
Markham, Ontario L3R 9Y4
Canada
T: 905-479-0080
F: 905-479-5141
redmobileco@redmobileco.com
www.redmobileco.com
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