Reality Check: The broadband mobility revolution

Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column where C-level executives and advisory firms from across the mobile industry share unique insights and experiences.
First there was the Industrial Revolution, where machines improved productivity and boosted output. Next came the Digital Revolution with computers and the Internet, which added automation and enabled easier sharing of information. With 4G and evolving wireless technologies, we are starting to see the next revolution that will unleash, by conservative estimates, $300 billion over the next decade in productivity gains in the healthcare, transportation and energy sectors. This revolution will connect machines and enable true workforce mobility. I call this next revolution the broadband mobility revolution.
A common theme in any Industry is being able to boost throughput without incrementally increasing costs, which in healthcare can translate to a doctor being able to see more patients per hour, in transportation needing less assets to transport more people more effectively and finally in energy, being able to allocate and consume power with less waste. To achieve these types of goals, there are four types of industry players involved for success in the BMR ecosystem:
–Wireless service providers that enable wireless broadband access
–Equipment manufacturers (original equipment manufacturers) that incorporate wireless access technologies.
–Innovative start-ups (disrupters) that leverage (1) and/or (2) and create sector and industry specific solutions.
–Service providers (consultants) that integrate different solutions and provide advanced analytics, consulting, system maintenance and management support.
The WSPs provide the critical asset in terms of the network required to facilitate wireless broadband access. Traditionally WSPs have not been successful in being able to monetize this critical asset for data and doing do has been somewhat limited too by the Federal Communications Commission’s “net neutrality” stance, all traffic treated equal. However with “net neutrality” under review and the catalyst of BMR; this will create new revenue streams for WSPs to broaden their enterprise offerings from just human voice and data services to sector-specific offerings connecting machines and enabling workforce mobility. The following actions need to be taken for WSPs to gain more share of the value pie:
–Ensure business partnerships are broadened beyond telecom and device OEMs to OEMs of the healthcare, transportation and energy sectors to influence the right machine level wireless technology adoption.
–Speed and flexibility is required to develop the right business partnerships and sector-specific solutions together with OEMs before they are out-maneuvered by the “disruptors.” Consider merger and acquisition activity with key “disrupters” in each sector to accelerate time to market and share gain.
–Lobby traffic segmentation with the FCC and develop appropriate machine-to-machine and workforce mobility connectivity plans that are royalty-based or embedded with the solution fee to simplify adoption.
OEMs typically will only include M2M hardware if the business case exists to lower their costs of asset monitoring, support, utilization or tracking or if their client requests this. The risks with being late for OEMs include having “disrupters” build third-party M2M hardware that can be attached to the OEM equipment and commercializing these solutions direct with the OEM’s clients. Actions OEMs can take include:
–Proactively evaluate their entire product and service offering and understanding how M2M and workforce mobility can remove costs for deployment, management, tracking and support for both themselves and their clients.
–Neutralize “disrupters” by building internal solutions in partnership with WSPs or together with “consultants” to maximize value share. An opportunity exists for telecom OEMs to take leadership with non-telecom OEMs.
–Be willing to cannibalize shorter term product sales through more effective asset management through M2M.
Disruptors are typically the highest profile and most valued players; high startup risk with high rewards. They are generally very sector and sometimes customer solution specific with tremendous domain experience and client relationships. Furthermore they are very nimble and flexible to create mutual value for clients quickly. Since broadband mobility access exists today, third-party M2M hardware is available and can be customized and access to capital is possible with the right business case, barriers to entry for disruptors to create niche solutions are low. Actions “disruptors” can take to maximize success include:
–Stay very customer or sector specific with their solution and focus on broadening the solution across all the different OEM’s products involved.
–Ensure M2M or workforce mobility solutions are simple to use, deploy and have intuitive analytics and reporting platforms for ease of monitoring and maintenance.
–Have a pre-planned exit or growth strategy before the domain space becomes commoditized or saturated.
Finally, Consultants are typically companies that become active in a new area after early adoption starts evolving to mainstream adoption. Their value lies in being able to independently design, customize and integrate complex solutions from different “disruptors” and/or “OEMs.” They also tend to be able to provide the best analytics platforms and provide improved asset optimization or increased workforce productivity improvement services to clients that have embraced this revolution. Actions “consultants” can take to maximize success include:
–Build early sector specific competence and stay “neutral experts” in this BMR ecosystem. Offer planning and design services to help clients, OEMs and WSPs evaluate the execute the best go to market strategy.
–Build analytics platforms early to be able to provide monitoring and reporting solutions to clients.
–Focus on process optimization methodology for workforce mobility productivity improvement services, business case justification for M2M investments and solutions to address wireless security concerns.
The digital revolution unleashed 1.5% productivity gain per annum for a decade and there is no reason why the broadband mobility revolution cannot give us similar or higher productivity gain for the next decade. The question for the key players involved in this revolution, through their deliberate strategies, is what slice of $300 billion addressable market can they capture?
Sanjay Ambekar is an independent thought leadership contributor with extensive experience in the wireless Industry. Sanjay can be reached for comments or questions at sambekar2008@kellogg.northwestern.edu.