Mdee managing director Tanny Jeffrey, tells Mobile News her thoughts on what might happen this year, including the resurgence of Machine to Machine, the rise of Internet of Things and the strengthening of 4G
We will see a resurgence in Machine to Machine and evolution of the Internet of Things as more devices have SIMs embedded into them.
At network level, a domination of the EE network, with continued strengthening of 4G geographical and population coverage; increased focus from BT/EE on the partner channel and improving partner service propositions, amid uncertainty in channel at other networks.
It will be a year of customer service for networks, distributors and partners, as end users become more educated and commercially savvy. Acquisition and consolidation will continue and, increasingly, we will see groups of partners working together with the larger channel brands getting bigger still.
Partners will continue to be asked for diverged solutions, piecing together the jigsaw of all the individual components to become fully converged. They will need to focus on their ability to manage customers more effectively and proactively, ensuring adaptability through multi-service offering.
There is a definite need to look away from price compression and thinning down of offers, which result in value and service erosion for the customer. Partners will continue their consultative sales approach, becoming outsourced telecoms departments for their customers, creating new business opportunities, as well as focusing on retention and further service penetration into existing customers; increasing share of wallet within their customer bases.