Operators Should Not Be Innovators
Carlo Longino has an interesting post up suggesting some things to do to improve the uptake of mobile content. It’s more about changes in broad attitudes than specific examples. For example, citing the need for innovation Carlo wrote: “Operators need to realize that they’re not, and never will be, the key innovators in mobile data. Nor should they be.” He claims operators need to empower other people to innovate — and I tend to agree with him. A few years ago I asked a senior executive of a major bank why his company wasn’t pushing the envelope in terms of financial services, and he replied that people don’t want innovation from a bank, they want security and certainty. I think the same can be said of operators — people don’t want whizz-bang services from operators, they want a network that works. In terms of improving the network innovation is good, but beyond that it’s not the main thing people want from operators.
Of course, there’s other sides to this, including (I think) a falling return on investment for providing straight network access. So while it might be best for the content industry if operators concentrated on their networks rather than trying to run mobile content businesses, the carriers may not think it’s the best thing for them.
Hi Willem,
Thanks for the comment. I agree banks need to innovate (I'm still waiting for an easier and cheaper way to send money internationally…but there's always PayPal), but they don't want to be bleeding edge. When they launch something new their customers expect it to work perfectly — they'd rather have an online banking system with limited functionality that worked perfectly than a site with absolutely everything the customer could even imagine doing but which sometimes saw people sign into the wrong account. So banks tend to let other industries work out the bugs before they follow in the wake.
ING Direct is a good example. It's service only started taking off (at least from what I remember in Australia) around 2000-2001, a couple of years after its launch in 1999. The service could have been offered around 1997, as it was in Canada, but the technology had only just been developed. And ING Direct didn't launch in the UK until 2003.
Also, ING Direct was a new bank — it didn't have much to lose. The established banks didn't follow ING's lead until it was successful.
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