Telecom Companies and the gold-rush to rural markets – Part 1: its a whole new ballgame

June 19, 2007 12:20 am 0 comments

Share this Article

Author:

This has been coming for a long time now, but it seems like all major telecos have set their sights firmly on the untapped rural market for growth.

I want to briefly (not comprehensively) discuss the number of challenges for a teleco moving to a rural market, and then discuss some telecos’ approaches.

Game Changers

The rural market is still an open field – anyone can claim market dominance in that area, irrespective of their existing position.

Network Expansion

Network expansion is perhaps the first big challenge for telecos – Outside of citites, the population density decreases rapidly to the point where it is not economically feasible in some parts to put up towers, or set up switching centers.

This is particular important since network infrastructure is costed on the basis of slots – whether they be ports on a switch or frequencies off of a tower – the equipment becomes feasible when you can expect the threshold number of people to be served from the equipment over its lifecycle.

Brand Perception

In rural markets, there usually wont be any preconceived understanding of how one brand is better than another. In fact, most rural consumers will not have a sense of an abstract relationship of trust that a brand creates – trust in these markets starts from within family and the people they know.

In other words, trust from an arbitrary third-party is harder to gain in the rural markets than urban “capitalistic” markets.

Package Awareness Differential

Most rural consumers may not spend the time to understand the subtle differences or advantages one operator gives them over another.

Product Perception

Here is an important point – even though we would like to think just a “connection” to their relatives in urban areas may be enough, rural consumers would generally demand that any technology make a direct impact on improving their quality of life, whether through productivity, information services or more.

In other words, value-addition over your connection plays an important role

Experience Differential

Somewhat obvious – for rural consumers, the technology curve is too steep to adopt. Even operating an ATM by rural customers have proven to be a challenge for rural customers in India. Banks now purchase and install “special” ATMs in India that use biometric fingerprint ID techniques to make the technology curve easier.

A cellphone, on the other hand, befuddles the most hi-tech of us with poorly designed UI, let alone a rural consumer.

Marketing

Marketing is also economical over channels that aggregate consumers. Aggregation platforms – whether they are TV Channels, Radio, Green & White, Newspapers, bring people from a target market together based on specific content, thereby increasing their spatial density over a virtual space, thereby increasing the economies or marketing.

In other words, you benefit from giving out a message once and reaching a lot of people – its straightforward.

So how does a company implement a mass-marketing campaign in areas of much lower population density and limited a set of platforms to aggregate audience virtually?

Distribution

Another model that becomes feasible with population density is direct-to-retail.  Your focus then becomes how to make an optimal  network of retail stores, service centers and franchises to cover niche areas within the larger population.

Take away population density dramatically and retail becomes infeasible. How do you then take your products to your consumers? More importantly, how do you do that faster than your competitors.

The interesting change is that whichever operator exists in an area more than another automatically gains marketing value.

Administration

Some additional considerations here: How do you provide security to any of your assets installed for the service? How do you collect to manage defaulting on payment? How do you plan technical support on remote sites?

 

There are plenty more, but that is about enough to cover the tip of the iceberg here.

In future parts I will talk about the different approaches of a number of telecos.

Until then, why dont you all try it yourself? What could a “Best Practice Framework” for telecos look like?

Facebook comments:

Recent Posts

  • Events General Mobile Apps Container Run a continuation of politically motivated apps

    Container Run a continuation of politically motivated apps

    First we had Angry Imran which brought smiles and some short lived fun for us during the election campaign. Then came Gullu Butt following the incident of Model Town Lahore, which stayed on top of charts (Pakistan play store) for quite some while. Also Gullu Butt made an update with having the famous “Aam Khaiyga” quote form Aamir Liaqat in which a character resembling Aamir Liaqt throws mangoes and the Gullu Butt character tries to catch them. Gullu butt currently has more than 100,000 Installs

    And now during this extremely politically tense situation which had the whole nation on its toes on 14th August we have another app continuing the …

    Read more →
  • Announcements Featured Startup General Meritaleem.com aims to help student make better decision regarding their future.

    Meritaleem.com aims to help student make better decision regarding their future.

    MeriTaleem.com aims to solve an age old problem for our students, where to go next?

    If you have just completed your primary school which college to pick, if you have completed your college which university to pick. There has always been lack of information or rather consolidated information regarding these questions. The best source till now has always been relatives and friends (mostly of your parents). So some uncle did CA and made a good living you should talk to him and decide, or daughter of my sister completed her medical and is practicing follow that career.

    The fact that online presence of our existing universities are limited and not …

    Read more →
  • General Mobile Apps Eccentria Technologies launches an app which shoots to the top of the charts

    Eccentria Technologies launches an app which shoots to the top of the charts

    Whoa!! this was quick so Eccentia technologies launched an app a few days ago called “Ajj Kia Pakaen” or what to cook today and today it has reached the top of charts for Pakistani Stores on iTunes and google play store.

    “Ajj Kia Pakaen” is the most common question asked at every house hold in the morning. The ladies of the family have a hard time deciding what to cook for the day. The app has a fun interface and is simple to use, you fire it up, and it gives you an option of what to cook for the day, if you like the option you can check the …

    Read more →
  • Coffee Session General Marketing/Adv

     

    Until a few years back we used to have closed groups and forums, which gathered the like minded people and anyone targeting the online audience would tap into that forum and market his/her services. So PakGamers , PakPassion initially even PakWheels used to be driven by members talking about what they loved, people used to create marketing and sales opportunities from within those discussions (so you could get a good router cheap or a gaming PC etc).
    The advent of facebook changed all that, most of the forum goers moved to the new social media. It also made a very attractive market place for some one who does not …

  • General Getting back

    Getting back

    I  have been out of blogging for a long long long time, a lot of things happening on personal front (including a little startup I have ben doing my self). However during my absence I met a lot of people who had followed GreenWhite at its peak, read the articles regularly.

    I had hope there would be some one else who would come ahead and cover everything going on and around us in the local tech world. There are some guys doing a great job, but for some reason I still could not find one source where I can go and read about everything, so my routine usually is to …

    Read more →
  • General Mobile Apps Software & I.T.

    GeniTeam launches official app for Pakistan Idol

    GeniITeam has successfully launched an official app for PakistanIdol. This is one of the first collaboration between a reality game show and a local app development company. I am sure a lot more would follow. Previously we have seen seenreport becoming the basis of mostly all channels citizen reporting system (Like Geo Dost). This is a healthy sign and with the advent of 3G round the corner it should become a business generator for our local firms.

    App allows you to follow the contestants that you like, promote them, comment on live feedback on an episode. It offers official content from the show since it is developed with partnership with …

    Read more →
  • General 10Pearls and National Geographic Release A Geography Challenge App

    10Pearls and National Geographic Release A Geography Challenge App

    10Pearls, one of the leading Pakistani IT companies, has recently added another feather to its cap. This time, in partnership with National Geographic, 10Pearls has released the new and improved GeoBee Challenge App – an interactive app to challenge and grow the geographic knowledge of the users.

    Each year thousands of schools in the United States participate in the National Geographic Bee using materials prepared by the National Geographic Society. The competition is designed to encourage geography in the classroom, ignite student interest in the world around them, and increase public awareness about geography. Schools with students in grades four through eight are eligible for this entertaining and challenging test of geographic knowledge. Now …

    Read more →
  • General 10Pearls Spins Off Game Plan8

    10Pearls Spins Off Game Plan8

    It’s heartening to see that Pakistani IT companies have now started to diversify themselves into non traditional areas, and are competing with global players in areas such as gaming. We have received information that 10Pearls, one of the leading  mobile and enterprise web development services companies in Pakistan, has spun-off a separate entity focused solely on developing and publishing casual mobile games.  The new entity, Game Plan8, will focus on creating 2D and 3D games for the iOS, Google Android, Kindle, Facebook and other platforms. Details can be seen on the company’s official press release at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/12/prweb11428177.htm

     …

    Read more →
  • General Telecom CCP Gives Guidelines Against Telecom Companies’ Deceptive Marketing

    CCP Gives Guidelines Against Telecom Companies’ Deceptive Marketing

    If only were there two things when it comes to the law, firstly the fear of breaking it and by passing the legal authority, and secondly, implementation of the law given full dedication, there would have been less competency and dishonesty in business and society. However, keeping good faith, the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) has put forward “Deceptive Marketing Guidelines” which will maintain the Section 10 of the Competition Act, 2010. In order to enforce this part of the law and stop anti-competitive conduct on part of the telecom companies in advertising, the guidelines have been shared with Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and other concerned telecommunication sector members, in …

    Read more →