Communicating Simply When Faced With Chaotic Complexity

When surveying business partner or customer concerns in companies that have complex ecosystems, one technique we have used for several years is the tag cloud.  They are used to summarize the concerns, recommendations and commendations heard during qualitative in-depth interviews.  Two assumptions are made: that each and every interviewee’s opinion carries equal weight, which in practice is not true because some customers have more buying power than others; and that if a customer or partner mentions something several times, it carries more weight than something mentioned only once, which again may not be true, because that one mention, might be a deeply felt root cause.  From the notes of the interview, customer comments are categorized so they can be tallied across all interviews.  Then we go to wordle.net  and paste those words in.

Customer concerns tag cloud

We end up with a quick and easy way of showing frequency of mention.  The bigger the word, the more often it was mentioned.  We find it carries more visual impact than a bar chart and sticks in the mind longer.   To overcome the faults that lie with the above assumptions, we also recommend that clients read the notes made during the interviews to get a flavour of the gist of those conversations.

On launching a new product

Having been brought in by a client recently to sanity check their routes to market prior to launching a new set of products, I was reminded on an old piece of marketing advice – first, walk a mile in the customer’s shoes. In the context of routes to market, that means being completely aware of how customers already buy products and services like yours -who they transact with and to whom they turn to for advice that leads to a brand decision. So often, companies launch new offerings into their existing channels because it is what they know best and and can manage best.  Existing routes are their comfort zone.  They have partner account teams that already perform well by servicing those routes.  To establish new routes is a risk.  It takes time to build a trusting partner relationship – and who has time?

Reviewing your routes to market is one of those early fundamental steps required to complete your business plan for a new offering.  One can’t assume that because customers buy one set of products from you this way, they will continue to prefer to buy another set in the same way.  There may already be incumbent competitors who have conditioned the market to expect your type of new offering to arrive at customers in a wholly different way.  For example, customers may prefer a more direct route to market. – a direct relationship. One can’t assume that customers’ future preferences will be based on your past conventions.

And the client? They had done an admirable job prepping their existing channels, as one would expect, and there were entirely appropriate routes that had been overlooked.  A completely sane, but mixed bag with plenty of new opportunity to reach customers.

A Perfect Storm in Barcelona

At the Mobile World Congress last week in Barcelona, three companies dominated the show.  The mobile industry is on fire, yet two of those companies weren’t there, though their presence was felt everywhere.

Apple – doesn’t do shows like MWC – but what they have done to the industry is provide a tremendous catalyst for innovation.   Apple’s iPhone, introduced only three years ago, has transformed how handhelds look and function.   They have given the industry a kick up the backside and smartphone innovation has accelerated.  LG’s 3D Optimus phone is an example.  No Blues Brothers glasses needed to view stunning 3D videos.  Apple’s iPad, introduced just 8 months ago, has legitimized the tablet, and though the Far Eastern manufacturers had plenty of tablets before, suddenly there was a buzz on their stands as punters were eager to get their hands on the latest tablet wares.  Tablets stand astride the traditional PC channel and the mobile channel and the two industries have now collided.

Google.  Though Android was only released as an open source license mobile operating system just over two years ago, Android smartphones now have the largest share of all smartphone O/S’s.  Smartphone and tablet demand is driven by whether or not the latest version of Android is supported on devices.  The Android section off Hall 8 was heaving. It was by far, the noisiest, most crowded area of the entire show, and that buzz didn’t let up until the final whistle.  Apple should take note.

Facebook wasn’t there, though Google’s YouTube was.  Both have transformed the mobile industry.  It doesn’t matter whether you are a service provider, a phone manufacturer, a backhaul equipment vendor or a manufacturer of power equipment. You are feeling the effects of consumers capsizing the capacity of networks .  YouTube is boosting data traffic and Facebook and IM are driving signalling traffic as well as data traffic.

Whether you are a farmer in Kenya or an executive in the City, few would argue that mobile communications is transforming lives and the mobile industry is being transformed faster than ever.

 

What we don’t know about China

We don’t know what we don’t know about China, as Donald Rumsfeld might have put it.    A year ago, fed up trying to get sensible market research on my own from China for a telecoms client, I turned to a large Chinese market research agency, Info China.    I found them by looking through the directory of Esomar which is a market research industry body that promotes ethical market research.  They specialize in IT, Telecoms, Healthcare and Financial Services B2B research and their BDM speaks English -in fact he went to university in the UK.  They are an offshoot of the University of Beijing and have been going for ten years.

We worked on a couple projects together and after struggling with some Chinglish, we are now getting the type of quality needed to gain real Chinese customer and partner insights for my U. S. client.  I was lucky. I took a shot in the dark in finding them, though Esomar proved to be a reasonably good filter.   Info China, like most Chinese companies, is unused to promoting themselves outside China.  I thought, if only they improved their web site, that would be a start – so we worked together to do just that and they were very happy to take advice (and some copy writing help).   Then I probed how they attracted clients.  I learnt that much foreign market research work in China is subcontracted by market research agencies, many of them based near me, in and around London.  So right now,  for Info China, I am interviewing these agencies to find out how they go about developing relationships with Chinese market research companies.

And I have had some excellent conversations. Market research agencies understand better than most the value of market research. Like me, they are more naturally curious than others – so interviewing them isn’t a problem.  And it turns out, they too are very curious about China as a market for Western goods and services – as are their clients.    So I hope, in the near future, to shed some light on the Rumsfeld conundrum, and at least suspect what I don’t know, as I help put a Western face on Info China.

Fragmentation in the mobile market

At last week’s Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Morgan Stanley’s Mary Meeker gave an insightful talk on the economy and internet trends.   She asserts that the mobile internet will be bigger than most people think.  Her slides are here with the ones on internet trends beginning on page 28.  Let’s look a little more closely at the complex, rapidly morphing telecoms market – where the action is now largely in mobile devices.   For a pithy overview of the telecoms industry, allow me to copy from that industry’s changes as cited by the eComm conference in Amsterdam that is concluding today:

• Telecom is becoming software
• Today’s model of the telephony and SMS cash-cows will significantly dry up long-term
• ”Phones” are becoming general purpose always-on computers
• A march is underway to change how spectrum is allocated and utilised
• Applications innovation is being democratised
• The media industry is converging with personal communications
• Internet-style ecosystems are starting to pressurise the traditional value chain
• Search engines and computer manufactures are encroaching into the space
• App downloads; media content and even communication streams are increasingly routing-around operator’s billing systems
• The telecom kingdom is fragmenting daily.

What is a supplier to do?   Let’s look at smartphone operating systems and the Symbian operating system in particular, backed by the likes of Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung, and as of this year,  an open source venture.  Speaking on the subject of innovation at a London’s  Symbian SEE 2009 show yesterday, noted author Geoffrey Moore declared that the only recourse for members of the Symbian ecosystem  is to copy as fast as they can the innovations made by Google and Apple, commoditize those innovations, and use Symbian’s huge installed footprint to turn the tables on its competitors – or lose share to Google and/or Apple.  In other words, copy Microsoft’s strategy when faced with the upstart Netscape and use its platform to commoditize and integrate its competitors’ functionality. His slides are here.

Moore also predicts that there will only be one winner amongst smartphone mobile operating systems.  He expects that within two or three years we will see which one will reach a critical tipping point. In Symbian’s favour, Google he said is disadvantaged by attention deficit syndrome – it keeps on innovating and has trouble concentrating on anything long enough outside its core advertising/search business.   Apple he claims prefers to occupy prestige brand positions.   Microsoft has problems breaking out of blue collar mobility.

Whilst copying competitor innovations and leveraging a huge installed base may help guard aganst some encroachment, I am not so sure we will see a consolidation in the near term.   I suspect mobile ISV’s will continue to have to port to several OS’s for the next decade if they want to grow from tens of millions of dollars turnover to hundreds.   Mobile infrastructures vary widely between regions and consumer profiles.  Where Japanese demand high sophistication, developing countries need inexpensive basics.   An elderly person is likely to use a different handset to that of a much younger facebook, YouTube addict.  The sheer size of the smartphone market, diversity in use types and supporting infrastructures have made it possible for different mobile business ecosystems to thrive, unlike the simpler and smaller early PC era that Moore often cites.  There is room in the mobile market for diverse approaches, devices and ecosystems – so fragmentation will probably continue for at least a few more years.