Measuring Mobile User Activity During the Coronation and Beyond

R. Pritchard

Summary Bullets:

• Movers Index gives quarterly UK movement data collected by O2 Motion and by polling users to provide insight into behavior of the British public and businesses.

• More than 114,000 people visited central London (England) to be part of the Coronation parade, delivering a boost to business, matched by similar behavior nationwide.

Virgin Media O2 Business’s new Movers Index combines aggregated and anonymized UK movement data collected from its O2 Motion proposition (Virgin Media O2 Business O2 Motion may have been too much of a tongue twister), combined with polling of businesses and consumers ‘to provide quarterly trends and insights into the behavior’ of the British public and UK businesses.

The Enterprise Customer Segmentation Matrix

R. Pritchard

Summary Bullets:

• Since customer databases are available for mass business markets alongside providers’ existing major enterprise knowledge, service providers have traditionally segmented target markets by number of employees.

• Service providers are realizing they need to be more sophisticated and are trying to identify factors like digital maturity and proportion of knowledge workers.

More often than not, enterprise telecoms service providers segment the market in terms of employee numbers. Typically, they divide the market into SOHO/micro (0-5 employees: owner-managers don’t count as employees), SME/SMB (from 6-250 employees), and corporate/enterprise (250+ employees). Of course, these definitions vary from one service provider to the next, and often, specialist markets such as the MNC segment and public sector are addressed outside of the employee count model. The main drivers behind this are: (1) ‘this is how we’ve always done it,’ (2) ‘we can get databases of the target market by employee numbers,’ (3) and ‘any other approach is too difficult.’

European Telcos: Which Future Operating Model?

R. Pritchard

Summary Bullets:

• Europe’s rumor mill is running at high capacity, but it’s becoming ever clearer that – despite the EU – in telecoms, the region remains a series of national markets.

• Activist investors, workforce reductions, fast-changing technology, hyper-competition, multiple layers of regulation, socio-economic changes, and the digitization of everything have got C-suite heads spinning.

Unsubstantiated reports in the press of BT seeking to replace its CEO, Philip Jansen, are typical of a market that is not entirely sure where it is going. Activist investors, cross-shareholdings, and in-country consolidation are confusing enough for the telco C-suite. Add to that, the complications of national and EU regulation, growing ESG requirements, employee ‘rightsizing,’ broad socio-economic and workplace changes, rapidly evolving technologies, the key role of digitization across all aspects of home and work life, plus the need to invest in both infrastructure and systems – it is no wonder that heads are spinning.

‘Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service’ Marks a Big Step Forward for Microsoft’s Contact Center AI Capabilities

G. Willsky

Summary Bullets:

• Microsoft is capitalizing on two key contact center trends: the pivot from a multi-channel orientation to an omni-channel orientation and the emergence of AI.

• Microsoft must rationalize its contact center portfolio and establish integration with Teams.

This month Microsoft launched a limited preview of ‘Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot’. The offer features Microsoft’s new Copilot generative AI and natural language processing (NLP) engine built natively into various Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM and ERP apps. Employees in functions such as sales, customer service, marketing, operations, and supply chain leverage the Copilot capabilities in the apps to create content faster, complete complex tasks, and gain insights into their work.

Avaya is Making Bold Moves to Rebuild, but Differentiation Remains Key

G. Willsky

Summary Bullets:

• The restructuring agreement is the beachhead of Avaya’s go-to-market strategy and brings significant benefits.

• Avaya faces challenges at multiple levels as it conducts its metamorphosis.

In August 2022 Alan Masarek was appointed CEO of Avaya, replacing Jim Chirico, who had led the company since 2018. Masarek has been charged with reversing disappointing financial results, rightsizing the company, and improving the cloud product portfolio.

UK SOHO Market Heats Up

R. Pritchard

Summary Bullets:

• Infrastructure-focused Giganet has launched a wholesale connectivity offering targeting the SOHO market for its reseller, managed service provider, and ISP partners.

• This re-emphasizes both the importance of the SOHO and SME markets as a key target as well as of the fragmentation of the supply/value chain.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and small office/home office (SOHO) businesses are becoming the telecoms target markets of preference across many countries at the moment. Given the background of deglobalization and trade wars, combined with many individuals choosing to pursue their own path or work on side businesses as a result of the pandemic as well as associated experience of working from home for white-collar workers (or laid-off blue-collar workers), smaller business is where much of global growth is being delivered, presenting an opportunity for many companies across all verticals, including the telecoms sector.

Cisco Live 2023: New Hybrid Work Collection Takes on the Return to Work with Mixed Success

G. Willsky

Summary Bullets:

• Cisco is launching the hybrid work collection in response to the migration of workers back to offices.

• The collection is well-positioned, but its contents are for the most part commonplace.

While the ‘Cisco Live 2023’ event was underway, Cisco quietly launched a hybrid work collection. The collection consists of design guides for renovating office workspaces, documentation for IT managers to deploy work from office solutions, and a three-piece hybrid work offer set consisting of a software offer (made up of collaboration, security, digital experience monitoring, and mobile device management all under a single agreement), a work-from-home offer (featuring three device ensembles plus networking expertise), and a work-from-office offer (assistance in building in-office workspaces that are both optimized for hybrid work as well as sustainable).

Customer Needs, Not Speeds

R. Pritchard

Summary Bullets:             

• CityFibre, the champion of altnets in the UK, is reported to soon axe 20% of its workforce due to the UK’s “struggling” economy.
• An obsession with end user needs rather than financing and technology is needed to encourage customers to migrate from their current broadband solutions.

Most folks waking up in the morning may think ‘I need more fiber’ – but that is usually a dietary consideration rather than anything bandwidth-related.

With reports that CityFibre, traditionally the darling of UK altnet market, is set to cut up to 400 jobs from its workforce of 2,300 (but will add 200 more, giving a net job loss of about 200), questions need to be asked and answered.

E&’s New Partner Networks Program Looks to Extend its Reach and Influence Globally

I. Patel

Summary Bullets:

• Etisalat by e& is making moves to share its expertise with telcos across the world that may not be able to afford next-gen B2B services.

• Etisalat by e& will look to increase its B2B credentials through a network of partners beyond its operational footprint without having to go through complex M&As.

UAE telecoms incumbent Etisalat by e& (e&) has launched its new business program called ‘e& Partner Networks.’ The move is an attempt by the operator, which is sitting on large piles of cash reserves, to increase its influence on the global stage as a credible B2B partner.

Digital-First Customer Experience Adds the Next Layer of Intelligence in Customer Contact

G. Barton Research Director

Summary Bullets:

• Enterprises should consider the digital-first customer experience as a central pillar of their transformation strategies building on the work of omnichannel.
• Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) tools can unlock greater value, reduce costs, and improve the customer journey.

The internet and smartphone have driven a phenomenal pace of change in the way that customers interact with businesses since 2008. Multichannel evolved to accommodate the new channels of contact such as instant messaging, SMS, social media, and mobile apps that have become available to customers alongside voice.