My college gets over soon!!!

I am now really counting on days when my exams will be done and will be getting my weekends back! I am really excited for the same. I have suddenly began to feel that I will have all the time again and I can do so many things! I want to join back yoga, dancing, walks with hubby and Siya, evening gardens, etc etc etc. I just cannot wait to get all of them again. I missed all of this so much for two years! Thanks Vipul, Siya, Mom, Dad and Ruchi for helping me complete this journey of two years successfully. Thanks again and needless to say "I Luv U all" :-)

VAS key challenges and hurdles

The major challenge for VAS is:
1) Operator challenges: Operators focusing on subscriber acquisition with no incentives to push VAS in light of current spectrum allocation criteria. Spectrum constraints and delay in 3G roll-out has substantially limited high-end VAS take-off. Hopefully 3G roll-out will happen this time as annouced by April 2010.
2) Device challenges: To provide feature rich handsets even today is still expensive and a big challenge. Many handsets do not even have GPRS enabled and hence WAP portal as a delivery platform is a still a big challenge. Also, pre-loading the handset by the handset OEM is still not really taken off.
3) Content challenges: Localization of content today in India is also a hurdle in uptake of VAS services.
4) Revenue challenges: Ongoing tussle between operators and VAS companies still continues. (Still remember MyToday being blocked for 2 week more than once by some operator nor the other!)Operators still continue to reign as major chunk of VAS pie with them.
5) Awareness: Users are still not very familiar with medium of access such as GPRS, IVR, etc.
6) Because of operators, the other VAS players are forced to find a alternate revenue streams by providing advertising supported services but advertisers are still not convinced with the idea! Mobile advertising as a model is still in nascent stage.
7) Billing to the user from the VAS operator is still a big issue. When I was doing some comparitive study in the past, I was surprised to see small things like different rates for premium sms (of course based on the operator), post-paid and pre-paid for the same operator had different sms charges, Operators have recurring charges for CRBTs you never know when and how it happens and changes, etc. Even today for me GPRS connectivity is a problem. I have no clue what am I paying for the same. Not sure if I get a itemized bill for content download through GPRS at all.

Accept it - the way they are

Yesterday, one of my very close friend told me that I cannot think of writing anything beyond VAS :-). This one is only for you...

My experience so far with my life has been that I am unhappy many a times because I am unable to "Accept things" they way they are. When I see something that I don't like, when I see something that is not fallen my way, I wish it could be DIFFERENT and cry out for the same. Wonder if that is only my nature or human nature or is it the culture that is build in us over time.

The root of the unhappiness isn’t necessarily that we want things to be different, however: it’s that we decided we didn’t like it in the first place. We’ve judged it as bad, rather than saying, "It’s not bad or good, it just is". Things are only negative if you see them as negative. Instead, you could accept it as the way the world works — as the way things actually are. And try to understand why that is, and embrace it. As it is. This can be applied to whatever you do: whether it be how other people act at work, how politics works and how depressing the news media can be. Accept these things as they are, and try to understand why they’re that way.


And finally....
"Be Content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you." - Lao Tzu

User Segments for VAS

We can divide the mobile VAS market into 6 segments:
1) CXO level users: These are Senior executives of an organization who hardly have time and of course high net-worth individuals.
2) Young Professionals: They are people like me, middle management of an organization.
3) Small and Medium enterprises or SOHO users: These are people who are small shop owners in our neighborhood, distributors, suppliers, etc.
4) People on field always: These are people like sales force, feet on street people, etc.
5) Young generation: People who are in college and will be soon be a part of the young professionals group. Age-group specially 18-25.
6) Family: Mostly dependent people like house wives and elderly people.

Of course, their buying behavior varies on weather the devices are company paid or self-paid, but at a broad level, the above six segment have the following need:
1) CXO level users: They basically need devices and application on their phone to reduce the decision making time. They need to be connected always. They are really not very tech-savvy and hence need applications as well as devices that are very simple to use.
2) Young Professionals: These people are highly tech-savy and are ready to spend on devices and application for the FEEL of it. They are mostly early adopters.
3) Small and Medium enterprises or SOHO users: When I see SOHOs in India, it is a very small segment that is very tech-savvy. However, a huge portion of these people are still technology challenged. They generally would demand "Value for money". Since are self-dependent individuals and will pay for themselves, they need low entry cost. The more less complicated and the more integrated the solution is, the more better for them.
4) People on field always: These are people who can stay connected to the organization only via mobile devices and applications. The applications for these people should be such that it help them improve productivity.
5) Young generation: These are people who are the most tech savvy and highly early adopters among the lot. They have great affinity for social networking and peer group communication.
6) Family: These are people who simply have basic communication needs and want to socialize only with friends and relatives.

While building VAS applications/solutions, one needs to know they carter to which user segment.

Tomorrow...VAS key challenges and hurdles

Mobile VAS services - Part 3

WAP Portals
With 3G, this delivery mode will see a completely new era. The entertainment sector can offer Video clips on WAP portals, Mobile games, Mobile themes and Mobile radio too. In the segment of Alerts and News, WAP portal as a delivery platform can offer Movies related information, Stocks portfolio manager, News tickers/alerts, etc. In the commerce segment, almost every service can be offered on WAP portal like ticket booking, Mobile Banking, etc. Wap portals can offer a variety of service in Social VAS like Mail, Mobile Greeting, Dating, Chatting, Blogging, Infotainment, User Generated Content, Advertising, etc. For Enterprise VAS, service could range from Location Based Services, Internet Mobile e-mail, Mobile calendars, Access to intranet and core business applications, Mobile VPN, etc.

Continues tomorrow...User Segments for VAS

Mobile VAS services - Part 2

IVRs as a delivery platform
In the field on Entertainment, IVR is used as the major delivery mode for "Music on demand". There was this famous article on "Who is your competitor" where they talk about the biggest player in music and surprisingly the answer to this is "Airtel". If I have to compare this as to where it fits in "Michael Porters 5 force", it is threat from substitute which is really difficult to determine. IVR has a big advantage of the fact that:
1) Gives a personal touch as voice is medium of communication and emotions can be expressed.
2) Can be conveniently used by rural/old people (people who resist change) and uneducated people.
IVR is a delivery platform which can make money (Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid).

Various other alerts and services like Astro, Vaastu, Personality tests, quiz, games are also delivered on IVRs. When it comes to the commerce stream, IVR is mainly used for mBanking, Ticketing, etc. Because of "CONNECT" via IVR, voice SMS is a increasingly used service for Social VAS. With IVR as a delivery platform for enterprise VAS, we have IVR based contact centers, Self help centers and Voice portals too.

Continued tomorrow ... Wap Portals

Mobile VAS services - Part 1

Most of the VAS services that you see today are only delivered on 3 major platforms:
1) SMS (most companies pioneer in this)
2) IVRs
3) WAP portals

With SMS as a delivery mode, there are wide offerings like Jokes, Ringtones, CRBTs, Wallpapers, Animations, Quiz, etc. Various Alert services like Cricket, News, Astro, Banking infomation alerts, Travel Alerts, etc are also offered. When it comes to commerce, sms is also used as a highly acceptable delivery mode like mobile banking, ticketing, etc. When it comes to Social VAS, it offers location based services, infotainment, search and near field advertising. Talk about take off of Enterprise VAS with SMS as a delivery mode: Pull services for m-Coupons, voting, information, etc. Push services for advertising, Location Based services, Enterprise IM and Group messaging are few examples.

While I was just writing this down, looks like he product portfolio is large enough for just SMS as delivery mode. This clearly identifies clear products required to be developed to get to leader for SMS VAS.

Tomorrow IVRs.....

Get to completion

Now a days, in my workplace, we are all (working hard, trust me) trying to meet deadlines and get the product out of the door! This does involve a lot of stress with meticulous planning and making sure we do not pass away important things. And I myself do realize the fact that there is no limit to writing code and there is always scope for improvement. And most of the time, when there is a great product idea, one cannot wait to see the idea become a reality. When I conduct the meeting every day, I always keep in mind the following:

1) Keep the scope as simple as possible and take "baby steps" - Don't try to everything at one go. The more you try to do, the more it gets complex because the time-lines do not change but scope does increase adding to hell lot complexity.

2) Perfection is the enemy of completion. Try to get the product the "good enough" state and not really THE perfect state.

3) My favorite 80-20 rule applies here too. Concentrate the most of 80% use cases and not 20%. Kill all the features that will be used by 20% of clients as they are really not mandatory for completion.

4) With the constant change in technology and high competition, one needs to make sure to get the product out fast in a good enough working form as simply as possible.

And, remember every product has a scope of improvement and also possible to add more and more and MANY MORE features :-).

Online social networks

Did you ever wonder why Social Networking was able to take off. Online social networking has almost changed the way people communicate, work(http://purwajain.blogspot.com/2010/01/power-of-social-media-for-business.html) and also PLAY! There was time somewhere in 1990's (when I started using PC's) where people were very reluctant to disclose their identity on the web and now almost all age groups are on some networking site. As rightly said by Charlene Li, "The social networks greatest achievements has been to bring humanity in place that was once cold and technological". It is also a awesome tool for mass communication. Like on facebook, I simply set my status and my friends and sometimes the world know about it. Moreover it has actually become a habit for me to update my status everyday. This just shows my ability to "Want to communicate" to all. These sites have also made people's personal relationships more visible. Even today, many companies when planning their product launches make sure that a part of their marketing budget is reserved for communication over social media.

Data Warehousing

Yesterday, I was discussing this with my colleague in office who was trying to break her head in a apt design of a warehouse and why is it not very scalable. Here is what I came up with:

Warehousing is nothing but just one component of business intelligence. The overall goal of BI is to provide information that is required to MANAGE a BUSINESS. This simply means that BI provides data that helps in decision making process and hence many a times also called as decision support system. As we all know, the 3 generic strategies to provide a competitive advantage is:
1) Cost leadership
2) Focus
3) Differentiation
BI should provide data which will help u to reduce cost, improve customer satisfaction and in turn increase profitability.

When you are designing the warehouse architecture, you need to remember that:
1) Change is constant - Business requirements will change
2) Take an incremental approach, do not over design!!!
3) Make sure your existing applications (OLTP as well as warehouse) continue to work
4) Need to allow more data and new type of data to be added
5) The BI view should be intuitive, obvious, visible and memorable
6) When people are thinking, they do not want their thinking process to be interrupted. Make sure you provide necessary drill downs at just one click.

Most of the OLTP systems are modeled as entity- relationship modeling. A warehouse follows dimensional modeling. Every business process is separated in form of a data mart. Make them denormalized and follow the hybrid approach. Need to explicitly well design the data acquisition process (ETL - we could use tools or write our own scripts for the same). Very important to remember in the ETL scripts is sequencing, transaction management (commits and rollbacks), performance and last but not the least Data cleansing. Data Acquisition and cleansing form 50-80% of the effort in a typical warehousing system. Always document the data marts! it is very important to see a consolidated view of a data mart. Enforcing some of a standard across the WH always helps in better undjavascript:void(0)erstandability. Make you document the standards too!. Design the metadata architecture in such a way that it allow sharing across various data models (OMG standards). Last but not the least, the WH must have "a single version of truth". You can use Datawarehousing Bus (conformed dimensions and facts). Most of the companies ignore this as Capacity Planning is a very critical part of the warehouse. Always be ahead in capacity planning to ensure smooth functioning and delivery.

Exploring the rural telecom opputunity

Because of the operators and the of course Governments support, the growth is taking off in semi urban and rural areas for the industry. Therefore in near future, majority of new subscribers are expected to come from here. With cell phone operators and mobile phone manufacturers seeing an immense growth potential in the rural sector, they are now devising new ways and trying to grab a larger share of the rural pie. From launching low-cost handsets to bringing down the tariffs and organizing street plays to advertise, the real battle among telecom competitors is now being fought in the rural market.

We will be able to penetrate the market with Voice services offered by the operators. MVAS players will need to focus more on providing value added services for the rural like regional content, outbound calls in regional languages, local news, etc. At the same time one will also need to think that with reach achieved, how is it monetized to its best. Like reducing the distribution cost for a company like HUL using mobile, opening bank accounts without branches but the phone acting as ATM terminals to transact, etc. The post office is the only medium today that has reach to rural today, should all MVAS players/operators not consider the working with these post offices to achieve all of the above?

Sport day today in Siya's school

Today Siya had her sports day in school. She actually rocked the day. There were two events for her class and she managed to come to finals for both the events. I was like thrilled just to hear that and then she won too in both the event!!! Isn't that great!

But why sports, why do I prefer her to be more in sports as compared to academics. I somehow feel sports teaches one the true spirit of living life to the fullest. It make you so strong that you take your failure to your stride and at the same time also celebrate someone's victory. If you win, you win, if you loose, you learn. And why should one run away from learning at all!

Siya, keep up the sportsmanship! Mommy loves you!

Focus and Passion

Today, while i was discussing at my work place with my boss, something really clicked me and made me question myself on what actually am I doing.

I am always been drawn to a lot of things, it's because people think I enjoy rush I feel when I am trying something new. The 80-20 rules applies here also. You might be able to learn 80% of a skill in 20% of the time it would take to master it. That quick progress is addictive and fun. This is exactly what has happened with me too.

It is only then I realized that in work, jumping from one thing to the next doesn’t necessarily pay off. You would land up in competition with people who have focused on one thing much longer than you have. You loose on competition!!! That is the reason focus is very important. One of the rewards of being really great at something is that eventually you’ll have the time and luxury of being able to try something else professionally.

And how does one ever figure out what should he focus on? It should be something that you are really passionate about (remember 3 idiots). Focus is important, but what happens when the path you’ve taken is more difficult or longer than you anticipated? That is where passion really come into picture. Passion can keep you from quitting when you feel like there’s no end in sight. Passion can help you enjoy the road to your destination enough that you don’t have to only rely on your focus to drive you.

These two things are good enough to rock your career right? :-)