Mobility is powering the digital revolution

Internet on mobile is taking centre stage as rural households, that are driving digital strategies, don’t have access to PCs

By IBM
Updated: Jul 2, 2015 08:30:07 AM UTC
dth

Information and communications technology (ICT) is an essential part of the growth strategy of both developed and developing countries. It is extremely competent in bringing about social transformation by providing easy access to people, services, information and other desired technologies. Going digital is the latest buzzword across industries.

One can see organisations working on digital roadmaps and investing in a ‘digital transformation’. Majority of these changes, including web and mobile front-ends and increased social footprint, have been directed towards customer-centric business practices. Digitisation is a trend that is not only impacting customers but is also being driven by customers.

The key objectives of any business are industry agnostic—improved customer experience, enhanced efficiency, reduced operating expense and creation of new business models. Hence, taking advantage of emerging technologies has become more and more important to companies in achieving these goals and maintaining profitability.

As DTH players expand their reach and make bigger plans to penetrate into rural India, digital strategies have become imperative. Mobility solutions, or internet on mobile, take centre stage in the overall digital strategy as the majority of rural households do not have access to a PC. With internet connectivity in mobile phones and customised mobile apps, DTH players are better connected to their dealers and hence provide superior services to customers.

Mobile technology has linked people in India, in ways no one could have imagined. What started as a high-end communication device for a select population has now become a device of the multitudes. In fact, a major part of the growth in the mobile industry is being driven by rural India and the common man in urban and sub-urban India.

The myth that DTH is an urban product is being proved incorrect as people living in smaller towns and rural areas are proving their readiness to adopt this new technology. The rural customer has always been a value seeker and he has found great value for money in the DTH offering. Powering an organisation will influence how it functions, thereby affecting its business model, technology framework, sales and marketing and workforce management.

Ultimately, ‘m-powering’ the enterprise improves productivity (Intel research shows that on average mobile users are productive for an additional 51 minutes each day), provides a higher grade of personalisation and fundamentally alters business practices and the way that the business is organised to achieve a competitive advantage.

dth

Mobility solutions will enable the DTH provider to enhance its workforce efficiency and serviceability, particularly in a rural setup. As mobility cuts across various components of the IT organisation (application development, infrastructure management, architecture design and business analysis), it is important to redefine the roles and responsibilities of the people who use mobile technology.

For example, in a pre-mobility set-up, a field worker would go out and return with a filled questionnaire to be handed over to the office worker. The office worker then entered the data into the CRM database and ran analytics and validated the report before sending it to the management. The management in turn used the data to make business decisions. However, with mobility, field workers seek information from people and plug the data directly into the CRM database through their smartphones. The office worker’s scope is now reduced to data validation before sharing it with the management. As the impact of mobility varies among different people, each person will use mobility in their own unique way to manage and transform one or many defined business processes.

Advanced mobility solutions give distributors and dealers the ability to download the app and bring onboard a subscriber as well as service existing subscribers while transacting with the DTH provider on the move. Such solutions work on GPRS and in remote villages, where internet connectivity continues to be a challenge, dealers can switch to SMS mode. It helps the dealer provide a superior customer experience with faster delivery and problem solving as he does not have to call the helpline desk each and every time to manage existing customer needs and new subscriber acquisitions. Mobility solutions helps DTH players make huge cost savings, earn superior customer satisfaction and faster deal closure.

Rural consumers hold aspirations for upward mobility not just through a better economic status but through a better quality of life.  Products and services that satisfy this ambition for a better life are likely to succeed in rural markets. DTH has the potential to echo the success story of telecom, where all the stakeholders—consumers, operators and government—will gain immeasurably.

Over the next couple of decades, enterprises that best manage and implement a roadmap for mobility will be in a better position to gain from the benefits of customer value. CIOs can either wait and watch or proactively start m-powering the organisation today.

- By Girish Balachandran- Country Manager, Cloud SW Business Unit, India/South Asia   

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.

Check out our end of season subscription discounts with a Moneycontrol pro subscription absolutely free. Use code EOSO2021. Click here for details.

Post Your Comment
Required
Required, will not be published
All comments are moderated