Disruption at the Bottom of the Pyramid
2008, India foreseeing a telecom revolution, new services, new technologies and soaring customer base. It is being estimated we may touch 500 million customers by 2010.Indian Telco’s are now trying to reach the rural market to augment their customer base. How this can be transformed into a practical implementation is what has to be seen.
We have seen considerable amount of disruption happening in the bottom of pyramid in FMCG market in India. Can we make such inroads into Telecom services still has still to be seen?
What is hampering the growth in rural telephony, absence of effective infrastructure, communication of service offerings, huge investments to be made and fear of failure?
Can we really have Disruption at the bottom of this Pyramid? We can and we will but when. Let’s see what’s the profile of an average customer at this level, a farmer, daily wage worker, a panwala, rickshaw puller, a laburor, the list is long. Purchasing power and literacy rate is low so it can be assumed awareness about services will be comparatively low.
We try to find something common among all of them which can be set as an analogy for the mobile handsets. So we can say that common among all the customer’s profile is that they at the best might all be owning a bicycle or a radio set. That’s make our task easy, now we try to make mobile an important utility for him so that he is compelled into buying it.
What can be an affordable price for a handset is highly debatable for the time being, but price range of Rs 700 to Rs 800 is something affordable for an handset which is easy to use and with suggested one touch button approach for all IVR.(Data enabled handset and colored hand set are being keept out of scope for this price offering).Even if he buys the handset what kind of monthly rental he can pay? May be life long validity is what they all be looking for one time recurring fee.
Let us assume we have got the customer under the above mentioned conditions, but now how to make him shell more money for the services that are being offered.Rs 200 per month is what I feel at the current date an SP will be trying to target for. What can you bundle into a Rs 200 package and make him feel a privileged customer is a challenge for a given SP.An extra money shelled by the customer will always be welcomed. This package may be broken into the combination of following Rs 150 for outgoing calls Rs 25 for service charges and RS 25 for some other VAS which can help in making a mobile handset into a utility.IVR kind of offering has to be designed with keeping regional preferences and content in mind. Making them dependable on these kinds of services will be the biggest enabler in penetrating the masses. For e.g... A farmer gets an IVR in his farm with regard to Monsoon or mandi rates can be equivalent to what information he gains from listening to radio every 1700 hours. It’s all about making him aware what is being offered to him, what he can draw out of it.
You may have erratic electricity supply but you can never have an erratic mobile signal that’s what the promise of an SP can be. Rest is all left to the people who are running the business how well they understand the Indian Pyschology, because this nation lives and breathe very different.
I summarize all this by suggesting an evolving model for the same. Firstly try to do a need gap analysis for this particular segment. Secondly do analyses for the purchasing power parity of the customer in the given segment.Thirldly try to find the enabler for the same; this can be technology or an approach for the services for e.g. pushing Enterprise model of VAS kind of services to this segment and lastly the most important of all the communication. If you are not able to communicate what you have as an offering you will barely make any inroads. These four steps will be working in a circle making a loop which will generate enough torque to pin in the screw.
Figure Summarizing the implementation Cycle for Bottom of the Pyramid.
Anuj Gautam