The banning of roaming charges in the EU is going to lead to a reduction in revenue of £4bn to mobile operators. However, making the right partnership decision could significantly reduce that shortfall. Here’s how.
Roaming charges being banned by the EU will compound the already huge declines in mobile operator voice revenues – while providing an opportunity for an innovator to break out of the pack and steal a march on the slower, less hungry Operators.
To be meaningful and effective in the short term – the Operator’s strategic responses must allow for the set-up of partnering units that don’t have the ‘die on the vine’ procurement rules and cycles that see so many promising technology partnerships between big & small collaborators fail.
The investments needed are tiny but as the biggest technology successes of the past decade show, they all rely upon mobile infrastructure for their success. Opportunity knocks for those who are listening.
For sure, the biggest mobile operators need to find, fund, and fast track innovative small companies. Old rules and unimaginative gatekeepers to the corporate cash & resources must be removed by the leaders of these massive companies. Buying-in innovation is – a dirt cheap, low-risk, strategic option.
There will be start ups that play a crucial role in the outcome of the the creative destruction brought about by the competitive and regulatory dynamics of a maturing industry and deep down the CEO’s of the Operators know that the best corporate strategy cannot be to eat your competitors without figuring out how to deploy new innovation.
