A month ago, we at VOICE&DATA had organized a panel discussion on Mobile Internet: Writing the Indian Success Story about which you have read in the last issue of the magazine. The debate was extremely live, free, and frank—something you rarely experience these days in public forums.

Were the issues the most relevant? The audience thought so. So would have I. But for a book that I had started reading just then.

Written by Mari Matsunaga—yes, the Japanese ex-journalist who was behind the success of i-mode—the book, titled The Birth of i-mode, demystified many myths that surround the phenomenal success of a mobile content service, which is a role model for the rest of us. The subtitle, an analog account of the mobile Internet, I think more aptly describes the book by Matsunaga, who to many, is the mother of mobile Internet. Whether you agree with that tag or not (she herself does not), she is credited with the success of i-mode’s content strategy, which in turn, made i-mode what it is.

The sincere desire of Mari Matsunaga to turn a mobile phone to a concierge desk for the user built world's only successful mobile Internet Shyamanuja Das

Before reading the book, I had read many articles and reports on the reason behind i-mode’s success. Like most executives in Indian mobile services industry, I also believed that the success could not be replicated here, or for that matter, in many other markets in the world because the combination of the external factors that ensured i-mode’s success—Japan’s always commuting population, their fun-loving nature, and their spending power—is beyond an operator’s (or for that matter, anyone’s) control.

How terribly wrong!
The bigger reason behind i-mode’s success is internal, not external. And it is a simple one. A sincere wish to provide something useful to the users. "What’s that service where hotels can arrange anything for their guests?" was the question. "Concierge" was the simple answer.

"It would be great if a mobile phone could provide that kind of service." This sincere desire of Mari Matsunaga to turn a mobile phone to a concierge desk for the user built world’s only successful mobile Internet.

Welcome back to India. The poor user—whose pocket is the target of everyone—gets little attention. A good part of the time in our panel discussion was taken up by issues, such as revenue share and exclusivity. Even the questions and comments from audience were all on those aspects. And that is about an opportunity that is still to prove itself—a time when the thrust should be to find out what would create a market. Sincerely.

Well, sincerity is necessary. But not enough. As I get from Matsunaga’s book, if sincerity towards the user was the moving idea behind i-mode, the guiding force was keeping it simple. So despite fierce opposition from the McKinsey consultants who were working with DoCoMo, she never compromised on giving only the useful information, not everything. Like typical business consultants, McKinsey suggested offering all kinds of content available under the sun to what they called minimizing risk. For McKinsey, it was a strategy. For Matsunaga, it was a passion. As Oscar Wilde, one of my all time favorites, says, only passion is sincere, intellect is never sincere.

"If all that‘s required is loads of information, the service won’t differ at all from the Internet," was Matsunaga’s reply to McKinsey. For Matsunaga and her team, the passion was making it useful. How can something that is not simple be convenient? And if it is not convenient, there is little chance that it would be useful. The catch phrases, devised by Takeshi Natsuno, the person Mari had hired for building it up, summed this well:

l From cradle to grave, DoCoMo is there with you

l Don’t run away without your phone

l Grant my last wish. Delete all personal info

l hope that says it all, though in her book, Matsunaga goes on to explain.

Unfortunately in Indian companies, there are no Mari Matsunagas or Takeshi Natsunos. There are just two camps. One that believes the more technical jargons one uses, the more powerful is the idea. The other that believes that the technical jargons are behind all the ills that area facing the industry. So, they replace it with management jargon.

Interestingly, both these kinds of jargons were actively kept at an arm’s length while building i-mode. For knowing how, you have to read this extremely interesting book.

As we are preparing for our 100th issue—on 100 Indians who have made a difference to the world of telecom—I am pained to see that hardly any of them is based in India. Indians are changing the world. And here, we are refusing to change.

Shyamanuja Das