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At present, the world of mobile communications is in the second phase of transition-from 'voice' to 'data' services. In this new era of data, which is gaining a huge traction with the launch of smartphones and development of many applications around data services, device manufacturers plan to leverage on data-supportive devices. Operators are betting big on data to enhance ARPUs. Undoubtedly, data will transform the space of mobile telecommunications and the business of communications will also increase. However the question is how do we quantify these facets of business, don't we need an effective metrics? As an adage goes 'Seeing is believing', a tool to know the quality of business in mobile communications is mobile analytics. Mobile analytics not only offers a qualitative and quantitative picture, but it's also instrumental in enhancing operators' productivity and they can also leverage on the data to enhance revenues.
Scope of Mobile Analytics
Globally, mobile analytics market is about $200-250 mn. As per a survey conducted by Bango, the Indian mobile analytics market is estimated to be about $5-7 mn. For mobile analytics, US and Europe are the major markets. Although mobile analytics is still at a very nascent stage in India, however it will gain momentum with the intake of iPhones, iPads, and smartphones; mobile data consumption; services related to society, economy, and entertainment offered by operators along with innovative applications, and mobile ad spending. Mobile analytics plays a pivotal role in providing an up-to-date information of consumers, it assists in knowing the consumers-their mobile spends, interests on mobile data, and mobile data consumption. It gives a clear-cut view of mobile-web portal intake by the consumers.
It's an ideal tool to scale the productivity of portals. It facilitates in optimizing mobile web browsing and mobile apps. For instance, it will not only measure how many apps have been downloaded, but also give information about how many people search them in an apps' store, if it is a transient stay, and the frequency of usage. It enables the operators to maximize the success of value added services. Deepinder Singh Dhingra, head of innovation and development, Mu Sigma, an analytics firm, points out, “Mobile analytics gives a richer behavior pattern, any activity can be tracked through this. Data generated through mobile analytics is different with respect to app usage pattern, activations based on VAS, and tracking bandwidth. On a technical side, it can track network based information such as Wi-Fi connectivity, package history, and usage history. For instance, Microsoft has a service quality inspection, which can further be used for product management.”
Monetizing
Information or data is always a treasure. With mobile analytics, telcos can get a holistic understanding of customers. They can leverage on the insight of subscribers data consumption. Anandan Jayaraman, chief product and marketing officer, Connectiva Systems says, “Most operators do not work like a customer service organization instead they operate as a network infrastructure company. So now with mobile analytics they can know what is consumed by the customers on a portal and what are they doing on a portal, and if they are going through the portal. Customers' data or mobile data is like the lifeline of telcos. Data enables operators to customize the experience.” Mobile analytics is a blessing in disguise to mobile banking and m-commerce, as it helps to keep track of behavioral and transactional data.
Mobile analytics has a tremendous potential to boost real-time marketing and advertising. The data can be used in an efficient way with the assimilation of customers' data. For instance, when telcos identify that customers are searching to download a network plan, telcos can leverage this by sending various plans and help customers to choose an appropriate plan and thereby increase the revenue. Anandan Jayaraman mentions, “Telcos can monetize by knowing the access path. They can experiment with sequences or priority and then optimize the clicks. If a portal is optimized, they can have extra revenue based on the data.” A revenue-building marketing strategy can be developed by funneling mobile sites and apps with goals, analyze the traffic data, overview the traffic source and the incoming traffic, and compare with the marketing campaigns.
According to Deepinder Singh Dhingra, “With the advent of smartphone, the mobile carriers have to keep up with the expectations of the user, which practically is difficult for the data service. For example, if the app is faulty the user will blame the service provider rather than blaming the app developer. Mobile service providers need to be extra careful in extending their services. They can monitor and analyze the behavioral pattern of an user and provide the data service accordingly. The carrier providers can cull out data from apps such as 'WhatsApp', Skype, and on top of it the apps from the operators can help source more data from an user. This helps in tracking key behavior patterns such as usage-in terms of data usage, social network usage, multimedia needs, if subscribers download songs/pdfs, etc-which is of interest to the mobile carriers.” He adds, “Telcos can monitor the data from a device manufacturer's end as well as a service provider's end. Various customer services in terms of value added services, value added apps on different devices and platforms can be used. It enables to understand the information exchange between a carrier and the device maker (eg, iPhone and airtel).”
It will also boost innovations in the apps world who offer apps to different segments like m-entertainment, m-gaming, etc; when they trace that there is minimal intake of a particular app, the app developers can re-design or innovate. Quality of service is better measured and telcos can address issues in quality. At times, telcos cannot rely on service assurance system or SLAs for making decisions on the quality of service on network.
Malini N
malinin@cybermedia.co.in