Repackage, Reposition, Reinvent VAS services in 2009

"Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity." -H. Jackson Brown Jr.


This is a follow up to my two previous posts where I discussed opportunities and my top five predictions for the Latin America mobile market in 2009. The global economic downturn has forced operators to take a second look at new investments for 2009; however, this can be a good opportunity to look at things differently. Operators can rethink their VAS strategy and Repackage, Reposition, and Reinvent services and adapt to succed in the new economic environment.
What follows is a list of services that, based on my experience, have a higher probability for success in 2009-2010:

• Reinvent voice ....
  Operators will be watching CAPEX spending closely and looking for ways to reduce OPEX. In addition, voice will continue to be the greatest cash generator in the region through 2013; it therefore makes sense to think about services that will help them offer voice services as cost-effectively as possible.
• ... through an effective Call Completion strategy
  Operators can benefit from auditing their call completion strategy, including Availability Alert ("A" party) and Missed Call Alert ("B" party). Most operators in Latin America have launched MCA (America Movil, Entel PCS) and some have launched Availability notification (Telefonica Movistar, TIM Brazil) but there is still room for improvement since usually not all call scenarios are addressed. Two good examples of this are busy/call waiting scenarios and providing the service to non voice mail users.
• Repackage and Reposition Messaging ...
  MMS is a service that is widely available in the region but it has not taken off as expected. Since operators already have the infrastructure available, it makes sense to look for new ways to use this existing capacity. Voice Mail on the other hand, is the highest revenue earning VAS service for operators worldwide but is in desperate need for reinvention.
• Using existing infrastructure
  Voice Mail to MMS is a service that utilizes MMS to deliver voice mail messages in multimedia format (Claro Argentina); it can be deployed using existing Voice Mail and MMS infrastructure, allowing operators to repackage and reposition both services with minimal CAPEX. In this same category, Voice Mail to e Mail is another service that can be launched using existing infrastructure.

These are just some examples and I have written about these services previously so I will not go into detail, I have inserted the links to my previous posts for reference. While the services above are not new to the region, we still have yet to see operators in the region working with a comprehensive call completion and/or messaging strategy. These services have proven to be revenue generators for operators around the world and the conditions of the Latin American market, including subscriber usage, ARPU and regulation environment are excellent for them.

I will continue to add to this list and discuss newer services such as Mobile Advertising, Voice to Text and other content applications in my next posts.