Miles
21-05-2005, 10:04 AM
As the Chief Executive of Britain’s only pure-play 3G operator I am often asked about the opportunity for 3G.
Bob Fuller ( inset ), CEO of 3 UK gave this speech to the audience at a recent Financial Times Mobile Conference.
What is its potential? Will consumers really use the services? When? How quickly? What’s the revenue implication?
It’s right to ask questions, it’s right to be probing, to be sceptical about a technology that breaks records in terms of infrastructure investment. 3G has not come cheap.
But today I hope to answer some of these questions. Because I believe 3G has massive potential. It unlocks a host of new revenue streams. It has potential for us as operators; it has potential for suppliers, manufacturers, but also potential for consumers. After all it’s the consumer that will make or break us.
THE FUTURE FOR 3G LIES IN HOW WELL WE REALLY KNOW OUR CUSTOMERS
The mobile industry never stands still. It is in constant flux, constant change. It’s always been like that and I guess it always will be. The communications and technology industries never rest because consumers don’t let them. Demand drives choice and choice opens up revenue opportunities for operators.
A little over two years ago the promise of 3G was just words – there were few real believers outside of the five UK operators…. and even the main four had their doubts.
Here was an untested technology – a technology that was born from the most aggressive, the most hyped government auction ever.
No one really knew what would come of it; would it ever reach its full potential? Or would its legacy be the four hospitals that the government built with just our proportion of the proceeds?
Some might say that through the auction blind hope outshone sense, but today I am going to argue that 3G is making significant inroads into old fashioned, outmoded 2G mobile telephony.
As Chief Executive of 3 I have felt not the gentle ebb and flow of change, but a furious struggle. A struggle to prove that you cannot hold back the unremitting advance of technology.
I don’t believe 3G has yet come of age. But take up is accelerating, the market is opening up and fundamentally technologies do not recede they expand.
3G is here to stay, soon it will be ubiquitous. It will be part of our everyday life – nothing new. But there’s some way to go yet.
It’s a truism, but to succeed in this evolving market you need to understand the consumer – almost better than they understand themselves (and you don’t need to be McKinsey to figure that out). No opportunity can go unexplored, no chance unexamined, no trend ignored. Consumers are not just the recipients of a technology they are in the vanguard. Operators need to be tuned in; in a way they perhaps haven’t been since the explosion in usage in the mid-nineties, and the emergence of Orange as an exciting consumer brand.
An ability to spot the opportunities reminds me of that well documented story about competing shoe companies, Clarks and Bata.
Both companies were at a strategic crossroads, they had exploited their domestic markets and were looking overseas for opportunities. So both companies dispatched their brightest marketing stars to central Africa to seek out new markets.
Both men arrived and examined the opportunities. They spoke to potential customers and studied the market. Two weeks later they flew back home.
Back in the boardroom at Clarks their marketing director presented his findings. His conclusions were bleak. “There is nothing there for us,” he said, “They don’t wear shoes.” In the boardroom of Bata the conclusions were very different. “This is an amazing opportunity for us… they don’t wear shoes.”
And Bata went on to be one of the biggest mass-market shoe manufacturers in the world.
My point here is simple – markets are not necessarily visible to the naked eye. You need imagination and foresight to maximise your opportunities.
In our world, opportunities will come from two areas: either spotting as Apple did, a gap in the market for a new product and then delivering it to an unsuspecting consumer, or expanding a product where there is existing consumer demand.
As a mobile operator we need to understand both worlds. Above all we need absolute belief in our product.
Back in the mid-eighties a company called Racal Electronics won a license for radio bandwidth that could be used commercially. The technology that allowed individuals to receive and make calls on mobile phones was revolutionary, but the public didn’t know that yet.
Full article here
http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/May2005/1435.htm
Bob Fuller ( inset ), CEO of 3 UK gave this speech to the audience at a recent Financial Times Mobile Conference.
What is its potential? Will consumers really use the services? When? How quickly? What’s the revenue implication?
It’s right to ask questions, it’s right to be probing, to be sceptical about a technology that breaks records in terms of infrastructure investment. 3G has not come cheap.
But today I hope to answer some of these questions. Because I believe 3G has massive potential. It unlocks a host of new revenue streams. It has potential for us as operators; it has potential for suppliers, manufacturers, but also potential for consumers. After all it’s the consumer that will make or break us.
THE FUTURE FOR 3G LIES IN HOW WELL WE REALLY KNOW OUR CUSTOMERS
The mobile industry never stands still. It is in constant flux, constant change. It’s always been like that and I guess it always will be. The communications and technology industries never rest because consumers don’t let them. Demand drives choice and choice opens up revenue opportunities for operators.
A little over two years ago the promise of 3G was just words – there were few real believers outside of the five UK operators…. and even the main four had their doubts.
Here was an untested technology – a technology that was born from the most aggressive, the most hyped government auction ever.
No one really knew what would come of it; would it ever reach its full potential? Or would its legacy be the four hospitals that the government built with just our proportion of the proceeds?
Some might say that through the auction blind hope outshone sense, but today I am going to argue that 3G is making significant inroads into old fashioned, outmoded 2G mobile telephony.
As Chief Executive of 3 I have felt not the gentle ebb and flow of change, but a furious struggle. A struggle to prove that you cannot hold back the unremitting advance of technology.
I don’t believe 3G has yet come of age. But take up is accelerating, the market is opening up and fundamentally technologies do not recede they expand.
3G is here to stay, soon it will be ubiquitous. It will be part of our everyday life – nothing new. But there’s some way to go yet.
It’s a truism, but to succeed in this evolving market you need to understand the consumer – almost better than they understand themselves (and you don’t need to be McKinsey to figure that out). No opportunity can go unexplored, no chance unexamined, no trend ignored. Consumers are not just the recipients of a technology they are in the vanguard. Operators need to be tuned in; in a way they perhaps haven’t been since the explosion in usage in the mid-nineties, and the emergence of Orange as an exciting consumer brand.
An ability to spot the opportunities reminds me of that well documented story about competing shoe companies, Clarks and Bata.
Both companies were at a strategic crossroads, they had exploited their domestic markets and were looking overseas for opportunities. So both companies dispatched their brightest marketing stars to central Africa to seek out new markets.
Both men arrived and examined the opportunities. They spoke to potential customers and studied the market. Two weeks later they flew back home.
Back in the boardroom at Clarks their marketing director presented his findings. His conclusions were bleak. “There is nothing there for us,” he said, “They don’t wear shoes.” In the boardroom of Bata the conclusions were very different. “This is an amazing opportunity for us… they don’t wear shoes.”
And Bata went on to be one of the biggest mass-market shoe manufacturers in the world.
My point here is simple – markets are not necessarily visible to the naked eye. You need imagination and foresight to maximise your opportunities.
In our world, opportunities will come from two areas: either spotting as Apple did, a gap in the market for a new product and then delivering it to an unsuspecting consumer, or expanding a product where there is existing consumer demand.
As a mobile operator we need to understand both worlds. Above all we need absolute belief in our product.
Back in the mid-eighties a company called Racal Electronics won a license for radio bandwidth that could be used commercially. The technology that allowed individuals to receive and make calls on mobile phones was revolutionary, but the public didn’t know that yet.
Full article here
http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/May2005/1435.htm