Where have the Marketing guys disappeared from the wireless space?
The Value Added Services space in Telecom has recently seen a spate of hi profile VC investments be it mobile payment gateways/ applications/ gaming/ alternate technologies etc (cases in point being the VC funding deals with Nazara/ Mobile 2 Win/ Mauj and Indiagames to name a few) This is surely driving the market in terms of pure opportunities to a host of related services but a clear dearth of qualified marketing people has surely put a spanner in the works as far ground breaking ideas are concerned.
Do we see MBA's driving the VAS business with any of the operators whether it is strategy/ execution/ ideation or revenue. Most of them have a tech background and very few of them come armed with a biz qualification. Are the qualified people driving the CP's initiative to provide path breaking content ? No. Absolutely not.
Where have the hard core marketing folks disappeared ? Why is the industry not able to attract and retain precious talent ?
The answer to this malady probably lies in the fact that historically, the CP's have not worked to create a professional work ethic to attract fresh B School graduates the way other industries like advertising/ media/ FMCG's do. Most of the CP's are more than willing to bend over to accommodate the most outrageous requests which explains the reluctance of qualified people joining in. There are no systems/ no processes/ no strategies in place. Most of the times, the biz is driven by the mundane me too syndrome. Imagine a scenario where development of an application is driven by the sheer desire to have a competing product without any USPs compared to the original and no number crunching done to arrive at potential business figures to arrive at a do it or not stand. Sounds pure drivel, strange but true.
India is one of the only countries in the world where the CP's get the lowest of the rev share and the operator walks away with the cream. IP holders get a pittance and most of the reporting systems are fudged.
One of the largest CP's in the country does not have a proper MIS system and reports are fed in manually at the end of the month. One of the biggest operators in the country discounts the download figures by a straight 30% - 50% every month and payments come in with a 90 day credit period. Another operator merely provides an unaudited soft copy of an excel sheet at the end of 45 days of the reporting period to the CP. Business heads at the CP's end are frightened at the prospect of asking for audited figures with the operator for the fear of agonizing them and harming their business interests in the long term. Time for the audit guys to step into the picture.
It is time to ring the alarm bells. Time to wake up. If the trend continues, there would be no businesses to take care of but who the hell is listening. Does it ring a bell with TRAI.
VAS services in the country are now more than 2 years old and you would not encounter a fresh B school grad worth his salt more than willing to work in related fields. What we have here are people from other industries - who have been driven to the medium by the sheer thrill of doing something extremely different (or let's say easy) in one of the most engaging platforms to emerge in recent times and the baggage that they get from the industries they have exit actually kills the novel out of the box ideas which probably a freshman would get with him. This is driving the industry into a very boring quagmire from which it would be very difficult to emerge in the latter years.
If the industry has to survive and get the golden numbers that everyone has been tomtoming for the last 12 months, we need to set the system right. Get the dead wood out of place and consign it to the bon fire. Get fresh insights and new out of the box ideas and alternate revenue streams in place. Till such time it happens, just cross your fingers and just hope that the mobile boom just not go away like the dot com doom.
