Companies in the telecommunications industry are in the fight of their lives. Operators, CPE manufacturers, media companies, software vendors, and Internet players have invaded each other's previously clear-cut turfs. Over-the-top (OTT) players have become a major source of revenue cannibalization. For example, players like Netflix and Hulu are directly cannibalizing telco and cable operators' TV revenues. Similarly, applications like Skype and WhatsApp have made serious dents in operators' voice and SMS revenues. To make matters worse, the bandwidth needs of these OTT players exponentially increase the cost of building and operating telecommunications networks.

This exponential increase in bandwidth consumption is not accompanied by an equivalent increase in revenues for operators. The industry's fear is that the cost of providing connectivity could at some point outpace revenues generated. Many have tried to strike back with their own content platforms and services, with little success.

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Posted by Andre Popov | Permalink | Comments ()

Social networking is becoming more and more relevant in today's world, especially in the North Africa region. As evidenced by the impact that social media has had in fueling the Arab Spring, companies in that region, as well as other emerging markets, should embrace this new trend and place increasing focus on social media activities. In fact, they need to enter the 'social' era with a structured approach and best practices in their social media adoption.

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Posted by Amine Jabali | Permalink | Comments ()

Last week I attended the Forrester Customer Experience Forum in New York. Judging from the number of senior-level attendees, it seems that customer experience has elevated into a strategic priority for the top management. A strong theme I noticed was the importance of cross-channel customer understanding and delivering a consistent experience through the new interaction channels.

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Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski | Permalink | Comments ()