Primus Telecommuncations

The Guardian

Calling all networks...

Mobile phone providers have finally seen a gap in the market—small business. Guy Clapperton looks at how contracts are being tailored to suit SMEs

And, of course, the replacement handset and third-party carrier market is starting to hot up with entrants like Primus offering the PTL 888, whose advantage is a built-in global call saver that takes you onto a cheaper network for international calls with a simple hotkey.

Guy Clapperton
Thursday, June 24, 2004

Selecting the right mobile phone and tariff for your organization has never been more complicated. Wading through the small print in all of the contracts is time consuming and tedious—and the devices themselves are less and less straightforward.

There are, of course, fairly simple phones—the ones where you dial a number, the person at the other end picks up and you speak to each other. But more can be done.

A refinement on the way from most operators is “push to talk.” This will work in the same way as an instant message using email—you record your message and send it effectively like a text, so if you need someone to know something but don’t have the time for a natter, they just get your voice message whether they’re diverting to voicemail or not.

Other additions have been around for a while. Picture phones are now commonplace and inexpensive, and they’re not only suited to the consumer. Several businesses find the technology useful as well (see AbleFlame case study overleaf, or think of estate agents wanting a photo or three for a property’s details very quickly). Clearly, not everybody will want every function available.

What businesses do have in common, though, is a need to drive costs down and the need to have their mobile network available the whole time.

Paul Tollett, head of business marketing for O2, confirms that when he arrived at the company six months ago, the way it serviced small business was either an extension of the way it served consumers, or a cut-down version of the offerings for the corporate market rather than looking specifically at the SME sector.

“One of the things [that concerns small business] is network availability. We’ve actually divided the country up to analyze the concentration of small business by postcode, and we’re mapping our 2G network and GPRS investment to where the potential is to service small business,” he says.

This isn’t as straightforward as beefing up the signal a bit during the daytime, says Tollett. The consumer market, and indeed many large businesses, exist and operate in large conurbations, or villages and towns, and it has been important to ensure that the railway and motorway networks are covered.

This has left some gaps in the area of trading estates, for example. O2 has also put a new small business care center into its support offering, and added a small business tariff that includes the care scheme.

The other thing that O2 has done is it’s much-publicized “business zones” scheme, in which customers can have 40% off the price of any call in two dialing codes of the customer’s choice.

Promotions and schemes crop up often in the mobile arena, but a lot of focus remains on the support and care areas.

Graeme Good, small business manager at Orange, believes the 1-49 employee market has very specific requirements compared with the rest. “Their mobile phone is not always central to their working lives, but it’s important as an enabler, so they can stay in touch with their customers and their suppliers—and it’s an essential communication tool to make sure they don’t lose out on any business.”

This contrasts with, for example, the corporate market in which there will be specific decision makers and IT managers responsible for communications.

Orange’s support tool for small business is called the business standards package, including free insurance and answerphone for example, and it continues to monitor pricing against the competition.

Marketing is also tailored for the smaller concern. “Smaller business tends to be alienated by overarching national campaigns,” says Good. “So we try to keep it local.”

Regardless of what people say about service, however, there are companies to whom getting the right tariff is the most important thing. This is why there have been moves to make the tariffs more straightforward

O2’s move to offer discounts is one obvious promotion in this area. Vodafone UK has recently launched its “perfect fit for business” campaign, which includes free calls back to the office for people needing to work on the move, as well as shared inclusive minutes. So if employee A is on holiday or doesn’t need the mobile, employee B or C can pick the unused minutes up.

Other companies in the area are also stepping up their activities. T-Mobile is focusing mostly on the service area—think account management and rapid resolution of faults, plus flexibility about tariffs—while Virgin remains mostly committed to the consumer.

You can expect the next big battleground in the mobile arena to be around the 3G services that will no doubt arrive sometime over the next year. 3G, or 3rd Generation, is a faster connection through the phone. This allows companies like 3 to offer video calling and fast networking.

The other players paid heavily for 3G licenses and will want to do something with them, although T-Mobile has linked up with partners to provide Wi-Fi hotspots that will offer similar services.

There is also movement on the services that go around mobile phones. Smartner, for example, is about to launch its Duality Always-On product line, a service that will push emails to your phone regardless of who the manufacturer is (as long as you have a reasonably current phone).

And, of course, the replacement handset and third-party carrier market is starting to hot up with entrants like Primus offering the PTL 888, whose advantage is a built-in global call saver that takes you onto a cheaper network for international calls with a simple hotkey.

Reprinted from the Guardian.

 

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