Are Telcos Adapting to the Collaborative Economy?
The collaborative economy is a growing movement in which consumers have decided to share and rent rather than own things. A number of factors are influencing this increasing trend, including recession, the growth of community and trust through social networks, and the overall consumer attitude shift by millennials.
This consumer shift is keeping all verticals on their toes, from retail to automotive, hotels and beyond. A prime example is Zipcar, a shared car service that was eventually acquired by Enterprise. Airbnb is now used by 40,000 people a day in 30 cities as an alternative to hotels. And the startup Cookening even allows people to cook for each other, instead of eating at a restaurant.
To survive in this collaborative economy, large corporations will have to adapt their brand to accommodate this paradigm shift in consumerism, and this does not exclude the telecom industry. As more and more subscribers cut the cable cord for their Roku box, is the industry doing enough to prevent churn? Operators are giving their customers more self-service options (such as allowing them to set their own parameters), but is this enough consumer collaboration to keep subscribers loyal?
As big hotel chains are trying to adapt and work with Airbnb, telcos should be doing the same. I know it is always a topic of discussion, but working with over-the-top players and even the right startups will be crucial. For example, as ONF and ETSI are still trying to hammer out issues with SDN and NFV, Facebook and Amazon are quickly hiring SDN talent behind the scenes.
There are already conferences being held on the collaborative economy and the sustainability of big corporations in these changing times. Hopefully, telcos will be asked to speak as keynotes very soon.
— Sarah Wallace, Analyst, Heavy Reading
In today's environment not being ahead is being behind.
If you look at it from a US carrier's perspective they're doing fairly well providing the service that theyve been established to provide, so in that sense they're exactly where they should be. In terms of missing out on a massive opportunity which can be both extremely rewarding and engender real customer loyalty, then my answer is a resounding yes!
If telco's want to to really gain the trust, they need to create services that create loyalty.
This "collaborative economy" is a perfect example: Imagine if the mobile carriers used their real time awareness of all their subscriber devices are, and empower applications that utilize that information.
An example use case wold be that while my neighbor is shopping at Wholefoods I go online and order something to deliver, at which point my neighbor is promoted as to whether they are willing to deliver it.
This is a sharing economy in which instead of replacing one driver with another, you are effectively dynamically car-pooling.
Gives a whole new meaning to "going green".
Telcos are known and, by and large, trusted brands. Now they need to do tow things:
- get to grips with security, interms of how they can secure apps and services in a virtaulized world
- let go of the legacy midset that they can do everything themselves and that they can control processes end to end, because they can't.
And, as many operator execs are starting to realize, if they don't embrace the new way of the world, somsone wekse will and put them out of business.
Very good point about the handsets. Will be interesting to see how things play out over the next 12 to 18 months.
To date I've heard alot of talk about innovation but seen very little of it expressed in the moves made by carriers.
They do go into some digital stuff, but in those cases they dont really bring anything unique to the table. However a true mindset shift can allow carriers to focus on things in which they bring a unique set of assets and capabilities to the table, and only then will they succeed IMHO.