Telcos need to move from a technology-driven mindset to a people-driven mindset. “There’s far too much talk about technology, such as 2.5G, Edge, 3.5G and LTE. It’s irrelevant to customers. It’s all about services,” said Telenor’s head of Asia Sigve Brekke.
Brekke, told the TM Forum event Wednesday that few mobile operators are really good at getting close to the customer. He said it’s essential operators think as consumer products companies.
“Our industry is not good at using customer information. Few industries have this amount of data. Actually, the problem is we have too much information. Few take advantage of this information and are able to micro-segment their customer base to launch new types of services.”
He said operators can take a larger share of the customer’s wallet through micro-segmenting and at the same time reduce costs by having a more narrow marketing focus.
Brekke said that Telenor, which has operations in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand Malaysia and most recently India, has no common brand across the region.
“There is a similar culture across our 13 operations worldwide – that is our brand. But it’s not important to have a common physical brand or identity. That is just a logo.”