Is It Time for Metering?

As we head into ITEXPO East 2012 in Miami Beach next week, one topic of discussion will be metering of bandwidth. The carriers must be happy that this is finally being talked about. Apparently, about half of American broadband users already have a cap. Certainly, mobile data is metered and capped. Satellite is definitely capped.

As usage continues to increase and as more data goes to the Cloud, how will network operators keep up with demand not just for capacity, but throughput and latency? Will Metering will bring in the extra dollars to pay for it?

One viewpoint from LogiSense is in this article from Channel Vision magazine.

There are companies now that are just providing the ability to meter services (at least one will be at ITEXPO). It should make for an interesting year as both Cloud and Hosted UC try to take off (so that those service providers who have invested millions in these services can gain revenue) at the same time that broadband access will increase in price (and uncertainty because with metering you don't know what your bill will be month to month).

More Stats

I got these stats from an email as a Parallels Summit 2012 registrant:

"We would like to give you a sneak peak at some of the findings for 2012:

"Cloud Services and the Developing World --- The cloud services market in the developing world is growing over 3 times as fast as the developed world market."

From IT Authorities, a prezi on cloud market.

Hosted PBX -- "The U.S. hosted PBX market grew 84% this year among the smallest SMBs - and more and more SMBs demand hosted PBX to give them access to enterprise-level communication tools. Can you to offer this cloud service to you customers?" [Obviously, Parallels is in the Hosted PBX space now via a relationship with 4SPA and a provisioning tool in the hosting control panel. Do you see how the Hosted VoIP sector is just so hyper-competitive?]

Sole Proprietorships -- "77% of U.S. sole proprietorships design their websites in-house. Do you know how to target these SMBs with site building tools?"

SaaS Market -- "Globally, the worldwide SaaS market will grow to $20B by 2014. Are you prepared to take advantage of this growth?"

Premium Hosted Email and Medium SMBs -- "In 2011, U.S. medium SMBs' use of premium hosted email grew an incredible 110%, driven by these companies upgrading from free email accounts. Do you know how to target medium SMBs with your messaging and collaboration offerings?"

I'll be at the 2012 Parallels Summit in Orlando, let me know if you are going.

BC/DR Planning

From a VZ email about BC/DR Planning:

"According to research by the University of Texas, only 6% of companies survive a catastrophic data loss, while 43% never reopen and 51% close within two years. In spite of those shocking statistics, Gartner Research estimates that only 35% of small and medium businesses have a comprehensive disaster recovery plan in place."

"Researchers estimate that companies lose, on average, over $80,000 for every hour of downtime."

I like BC/DR stats.

Rate Increases

Last year we saw big rate increases in AT&T Metro Ethernet. This month, AT&T raises its cellular data rates but also changed the data cap. They also added about 25 different data plans "to fit your needs".

Windtream raised the prices on its DSL. (see here.)

That likely means you can raise your rates a little too! Depending how you do it, you will increase revenue and margin and only lose a few customers. However, the revenue increase will more than make up for the few customers you lose.

Use the Phone More

from Khali Henderson of Virgo who was live tweeting from CenturyLink's Channel Advisory summit: "#CCAExpo Michael Stephens: Email is a lousy tool for communicating. We need to do more in person or by phone. We will do less email in 2012."

That's the second time in a couple of months that advice has been to let go of email and use the phone more. A Harvard Biz Review article said that a phone call is quicker and clearer (if you can get through voicemail obviously).

Another tweet: @thesocialpro: Great advice from Michael Stephens, no need to write emails in ALL CAPS for me to respond.

And you don't need to Reply to All every time either.

Sales Math and Marketing

Most CLEC/ITSP/ISP/WISP do little marketing. And Branding isn't even in the picture. Heck, something as simple as having an updated website seems beyond the reach of some service providers.

What most execs don't grasp is that most sales are moving online. Buyers do research before they buy. They check reviews. They ask their networks on Facebook, twitter, Linkedin, Google+. All of this online.

If you are not online - or worse your image online is awful - sales will be hard to come by.

I think one issue is that service providers don't have a grasp on who they want to market to because they think everyone is a prospect. WRONG!

Your marketing should target the most profitable prospects with the most profitable services.

Don't worry it isn't just you. I read this article yesterday, "Most entrepreneurs have NO idea how much they really need to be marketing in order to effectively and consistently attract more clients and make more money. You need to be really clear on what you want to accomplish that will make you happy with your progress."

Do you have a monthly sales goal? Do you know what/who/where that will come from? [i.e., from two medical offices at $750 per month for Internet and Hosted PBX.] This gives you a target prospect and a product bundle.

What is the average dollar amount each client is worth to you each month? What is your ARPU?

next we do sales math. How many prospects do you talk to? How many proposals to you send? How many contracts get ink? Closing Ratio = INK/proposals

More sales math: Your closing ratio times your ARPU is your monthly revenue. So if you want 2 sales and you close 10% of the time then you need to do 20 proposals and that means talking to XXX prospects OR talking to 40 qualified prospects.

So how does Marketing come into the picture?

You want to have a certain message go out to your marketplace, especially to your most potential prospects. Email, website, social media, networking, direct mail, webinars/seminars, trade shows, search marketing (SEO/SEM) and guerrilla marketing are all possible tactics. The strategy is to reach the targets that the message and product bundle will resonate with. The fact is that it takes a lot of touches to make an impact on a prospect. That's where the tactics come in.

So you need to identify your best prospects.

What will they buy from you?

Why would they buy from you?

How will you get this message to them?

How do those messages convert to sales? Branding a consistent message to your best prospects means that sales will be more targeted and if you have the right message, product and target --> KA-CHING!

Need help with this? Give my office a call at (813) 963-5884

FYI, these slides sum up what I said.

Perfect Products is Disasterous

In the Economist article about the collapse of Kodak, the story tells a tale of why Fujifilm is going strong while Kodak is seeking bankruptcy protection.

One reason is the monopolist mindset that RBOC's and Kodak have. That mindset is why products don't get launched quickly. Rivals with less market share can win by launching many imperfect products into the marketplace. Kodakk "executives “suffered from a mentality of perfect products, rather than the high-tech mindset of make it, launch it, fix it."" Software and apps developers think this way. Apple does not. Google certainly does. Failing is okay. Failing is important. It means you take risks. No risk, no reward. Also, failures have lessons embedded in them too.

Another quote from the article: "Even when Kodak decided to diversify, it took years to make its first acquisition. It created a widely admired venture-capital arm, but never made big enough bets to create breakthroughs, says Ms Kanter." It is pointed because I see it with the powers that be in Tampa and I see it with many service providers. They won't partner with others. They have to build it all themselves.

It's a good read.

2 Interesting Things Plus ITEXPO

Alteva has sales training for agents - and they charge for it!! Two days for $350. Alteva will be offering this training at ITEXPO East in Miami Beach on Jan. 31- Feb. 1.

Alianza landed a deal with Clearwire. "Alianza will oversee day-to-day voice operations for Clearwire and supply all end-to-end software components of the hosted voice platform, including soft switch, application feature server, call rating, CPE provisioning, monitoring, security, and end-user self-support tools," according to the article. Apparently voice over 4G won't be the same as voice over 1G and 2G networks. Interesting.

This is kind of cool:

Change the way you think about the phone call! I found this video about Thrutu via Rich Tehrani's eye opening article about the future of telco competition. It isn't about the phone call -- it's about how customers want to communicate.

ITEXPO East 2011 is Feb. 1-3 in Miami Beach. I will be moderating 4 panels. There will also be a dutch dinner gathering on Feb. 1st. If interested, contact the office at (813) 963-5884.

Knology Buys e-Solutions

"Knology has acquired E Solutions Corporation for $13.8 million in cash. E Solutions is a premiere provider of colocation and data center services, operating two state-of-the-art SAS 70 Type II certified data centers in Tampa, FL," according to the press release. Rick Nicholas, Jr., COO of e-Solutions, says that he is sticking around to manage their other data center projects. I had heard rumors back in November that an LOI was on the table. This deal sounds like a smaller version of the TWC-Navisite deal.

CenturyLink Debt Sheesh

This is interesting from SeekingAlpha about CenturyLink: "The balance sheet for Dec. 31, 2010 shows total assets of $22+ billion with liabilities of $12+ billion. Of those total assets, nearly half are categorized as goodwill and intangible – vague and ambiguous at best. The 2011 acquisitions for future growth will no doubt increase operating costs and company debt in the near term." This Morningstar chart has CLink debt at $22B, which fits in with corporate debt schedules. Revenue for the last quarter was $4.6B with $140M in profit. CenturyLink is a stock darling because it pays dividends. Just saying.

Thoughts on VoIP at the Top of 2012

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower." - Steve Jobs

It's an interesting quote because back in the days of dial-up and the early days of DSL, ISP's were the leaders. Today, it seems there is too much me-too. There is still for room for profit in verticals.

ZDnet has a post about what they want out of Google. Now that you get SMS, chat, docs, email, voice, transcription, calendar and more with Gmail and chrome, ZDnet suggests that fax come to that platform along with document management. It's not a bad idea. I have thought the same thing. My pal at FaxBetter.com would love to work with service providers to offer an efax solution to customers.

You all know how I feel about Fax over IP. I receive faxes via an efax solution from Astro, but I can't send faxes. When I have to sign a PDF, I have to print, sign, scan and email. Yet this is not always an option, since some agencies - like my credit union - don't give out an email address. I still have a fax machine, but no POTS line to use it on.

Document management wise: I can't believe that with Kodak, Xerox, HP and Polaroid all struggling, not one Engineer and Manager could team up to launch a Doc Mgmt SAAS product that integrates with email. Maybe Microsoft Lync does that with Sharepoint and Exchange all the other 80 boxes and licensing. HyperOffice and Zoho tried to do this. It needs an integrator to put the pieces together I think.

In an article on SearchIT, "As health care organizations update their computing capabilities in order to support electronic health record (EHR) systems, interoperability and standardization, many are considering whether to replace their existing phone system. As with any product purchase, IT executives are looking for real ROI in order to justify the cost." It continues with Ten tips for using VoIP in a clinical setting which include customized voice broadcasts, speech recognition, click-to-dial, CRM (but really patient record) integration, voice-to-text reminders and more. Besides scheduling, what if you could send out health tips to your patient base every week to remind them to get a physical or get diet help or botox. There is money when it isn't about VoIP and the tech but what the tech will allow the business to do.

In other VoIP news:

A article about PSAP's migrating to VoIP details the reasons for the switch: cost savings and flexibility. "With its portability, cost savings and the promise of enhanced functionality, Internet-based telephony is becoming the de facto choice in jurisdictions whose PSAPs are approaching the end of their five- to seven-year life cycle." If PSAP's are going VoIP, shouldn't your customers?

In UC (unified communications, the catch-all new buzz term for all hosted communications - voice, video, chat, text, social), there's a new study showing that potential customers for UC struggle to justify the expense of converting to UC. Maybe they don't believe all of the ROI calculators that are available. The study, written by IDC analyst Rich Costello, is titled IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Unified Communications Voice Infrastructure 2011-2012 Vendor Analysis. "Educating potential customers is critical to UC sales." The funny part? The study is about premise equipment vendors like Avaya, Cisco, Microsoft, NEC, IBM, and ShoreTel. In the case of Cisco, MS and IBM, you would think their sales force is trained to be Consultative. [Are yours?]