Vodafone: Too much data, not enough vo and fone?

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“Ask not how data can replace lost voice revenue, but how data can rejuvenate the personal communications experience.” Satisfying people’s need to collaborate, chatter, and communicate should be central to every operator strategy. Here’s why… Arun Sarin has stepped out of his asbestos business suit, albeit scorched by the flames of investors and board members, safe in the knowledge that his mission to vanquish more timid enemies is won. Although they don’t say it aloud, The Economist notes that the core of this success was clinging on to markets where vertical integration is turning a profit (USA, emerging markets), and exiting those where is isn’t doing so well (Japan), whilst cost-cutting elsewhere the inevitable detritus of a decade of hyper-growth.

However, as the more acerbic tongues at The Register point out, rather choppy waters lie ahead. The business is rapidly maturing, cost cutting reaches its limits, and new revenue streams (entertainment content, advertising, data) are either slow to ramp up or come with significant supplier costs that dilute margins.

According to their corporate history website, the name Vodafone is derived from ‘voice and data phone’. True or not, the conundrum of whether ‘voice is just data’ persists to this day. So as Vittorio Colao becomes fleet admiral, our burning question is: what to do about the stagnating core product? Along with its peers, Vodafone has conspicuously failed to significantly enhance its voice telephony offer, beyond offering better coverage. We don’t think that’s going to be a long-term winning position as access becomes hyper-abundant, and people’s time does not. Rather than ask how data services can replace lost voice revenue, ask how data can be used to rejuvenate that voice business. And as the biggest player in the international scene, Vodafone is very well placed to do something about it.

Telephony is built on false assumptions

The chart below (from our Consumer Voice & Messaging 2.0 Report) compares the cost of telephony and labour. We show the per minute cost in the USA of using a telephone (fixed or mobile), along with hiring someone (high school or college graduate). What it tells us is that the ‘scarcity’ used to be in the telephone network, and now it is in our time and attention.

Only a decade ago, it was worth paying a graduate for an hour if it would have saved you from making an hour’s worth of mobile phone call.

Today, we barely factor in the cost of calling into our lives. Yet we are buried in voice messages, missed calls, emails and texts. Delivering ever more data to the user is not the same as creating ever more value. The value comes from brokering the right relationships, helping interactions occur at the right time and medium, eliminating unwanted intrusions, automating flows of information, and making users productive.

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