“Wholesalers need to catch up” to mobile operators’ needs
Anecdotal evidence collected by research company Ovum suggests there is a business opportunity for providers of wholesale services who are willing to be more flexible and offer more specialist services to mobile operators.
Ovum carried out a survey amongst wholesale customers of telecoms services – service providers, operators, systems integrators and major corporates. It found that there was a general view that the performance of wholesale suppliers is deteriorating in many of areas. Some mobile operators in particular were critical of how wholesalers meet their current requirements.
David James (Pictured above), Ovum Principal Analyst and author of the report, commented, “Wholesale customers report that there are expanding gaps between what they expect from their suppliers, and what is being delivered to them.”
“Wholesalers are also getting it wrong by offering too wide a wide range of products. A clear conclusion from our survey is that customers want specialist suppliers with in-depth offerings, not generalists with broad portfolios,” James said.
Many of Ovum’s respondents were also reportedly of the view that the quality of products and services is falling significantly short of that which wholesale customers require.
Mobile operators, one of the biggest purchasers of wholesale services, made up about 1/3 of the survey sample, David James told Mobile Europe. They also form one of the most demanding segments, James said.
Ovum provided Mobile Europe with some quotes from mobile operators who took part in the survey. James said they “highlight the need for wholesalers to pay greater attention to the needs of their mobile service provider customers.”
- “We need more features that are relevant to mobile operators.” (European mobile operator)
- “Some carriers have missed a trick with mobile operators. The smaller guys come out with things that are more innovative but that can lead to integration issues. The big players could do better.” (European mobile operator)
- “For M2M and mobile services for corporates, it’s difficult to get what you want, particularly outside of Europe, and in some geographies it’s non-existent. Enterprise customers now buy integrated fixed and mobile services and few suppliers are capable of doing this end-to-end.” (Global carrier)
- “They talk and present and push their products but we need them to listen to us more.” (Asia-Pacific mobile service provider)
- “Definitely some carriers are more attuned to customer needs than others that we find are only focused on their own priorities.” (European mobile operator)
James said that he believes that mobile service providers have more exacting requirements than other wholesale customer segments in terms of price, quality and service interoperability.
“Wholesalers need to catch up with the changing needs of the rapidly innovating mobile segment,” James concluded.