“I think we have a gap that we have to close,” he said in response to a question on the OTT threat. “The internet brands I think will become serious competitors for us as an industry and I think can erode our revenue models more than sometimes we appreciate.” He added that telcos needed to change their business model to be more nimble and provide a different cost structure and better customer service to counter the threat.
In his address to the AICC, Russell said that it made him nervous that competitors such as Google and Apple had better brand recognition and higher net promoter scores than any of the telcos. “I think it exposes us – Telstra, Vodafone, others – to potentially that customer relationship being supplanted in time…
The average net promoter score – calculated based on whether customers recommend a service or not – is negative and has been worsening as an industry for the past five years. It suggested that the industry average is around minus 40, well behind the +56 and +70 scores of Google and Apple respectively. It is also well behind carriers in the UK and the US.”
Kevin Russell, Optus CEO as quoted from CommsDay magazine.
This is a fantastic insight from Kevin Russell, showing an awareness of how exposed the Telco business model really is. It also shows an awareness of customer service and brand loyalty being key differentiators in an industry that is becoming increasingly commoditised and threatened by Internet brands like Google.
If the OTT business model is a threat to the Telco industry, then by correlation it is also a threat… or opportunity… for the OSS industry.
Is your OSS allowing CSPs to leverage the new-found opportunity of OTT?
How is it protecting your CSPs against the threat of being supplanted by organisations with a vastly higher Net Promoter Score?