Over the last few years SMS has evolved as a global communication with mobile
networks spanning in over 200 countries and with more than 400 operators
offering it as a value-added service. In addition, many CDMA operators also have
embraced SMS in their bouquet of services. With SMS finding favor with all, many
technological initiatives have been taken to sync this means of communication
with the interest of the customer.
Since, there is a network sharing understanding among most of the mobile
network operators around the world. SMS becomes an obvious choice for expediting
two-way text based communication irrespective of the geographical
location. Besides, there are several unique benefits of using SMS as a
medium of communication.
Do enterprises in India need SMS-based mobile data services?
SMS-based mobile data services are not necessary for every enterprise or every
division within an enterprise. As with any new communications/IT application or
service, the investment and cost of an implementation must be balanced by a
sufficient economic return. Several research firms have stated that it is after
two to three years of mobile data services implementation that a company
should see a positive return on its investment.
However, there are a few compelling reasons for enterprises in India to tap
the potential of SMS-based mobile data services. Such wireless initiatives
advance customer service, productivity, cost reduction, or even simply the
functionality necessary to remain competitive. A good example is the financial
industry where many enterprises have already started services in which their
customers receive 'pre-defined, business-rules-driven' alerts or
notifications. These notifications or alerts are a result of SMS-enabling of
certain business processes. Such a service eliminates the conventional need of
getting connected on voice. Thereby, they reduce direct communication cost and
indirect costs (the time of people making voice calls) and the complexity
involved in business process.
Of
late, innovative and cost-effective business models for SMS-based mobile data
services have emerged by which the enterprises are not required to own the
wireless communication infrastructure required for such a service. Instead, they
get all the benefits by the hugely successful pay-as-you-go model. This reduces
total cost of ownership of the new initiative.
A few mobile value-added service providers (MVASPs) or mobile data service
providers (MDSP) have emerged in the last couple of years who provide
higher-quality service as compared to operators. The operators do not focus on
enterprise wireless messaging, as the size of this market is sub-optimal for
them. Moreover, the expertise required in providing high quality and end-to-end
service requires expertise in both IT and telecommunication verticals, which
makes this service offering rather unique. Many enterprises in India are already
benefiting from such SMS-based wireless initiatives to reduce cost and increase
operational efficiency.
- In what all business processes (in which if the concerned person gets to
know the relevant information on the move) will the person be able to take
desired action?
- Is a significant percentage of an organisation's work or workforce away
from a fixed place of business?
- Is my enterprise ready for such an initiative?
- Would such an initiative have the potential to reduce my total cost of
communications?
- Can remote users easily access pertinent information from internal
systems?
- What are my competitors doing with regard to wireless applications?
- Will using SMS-based mobile data services improve my customer
service?
Mobile data services are aimed at increasing operational
efficiency and reducing costs. When computing the actual return on a wireless
initiative, one must look at cost savings from increased efficiencies,
productivity, customer satisfaction, and other such metrics. This is
substantially more complex than discounting revenue generation, because many of
the metrics are approximates and many of the benefits very subtle, but this
estimation gives the most accurate measure of success.
There are a number of metrics that will assist in determining
the return of a wireless initiative. Take careful attention to assure that the
metrics used relate directly to the type of solution. For example, when
deploying SMS-based mobile data services for maintenance, look at the amount of
time spent on a sales call. If billing is incorporated into the system, check
the change in the billing cycle, to see that it has decreased. Some other
metrics that may help measure the success of a wireless implementation are:
-
Increased sales per employee
-
Decreased time per maintenance call
-
Increased customer service levels
-
Reduced turnaround time
-
Reduced communication costs
Benefits of Going Wireless
Once a decision is made on implementation of SMS-based mobile data services,
the key is to choose carefully the best MVASP get on to the implementation mode.
SMS-based mobile data services can lead to increased efficiencies throughout
an enterprise, from the sales force to the supply chain and management
reporting. As the services integrate seamlessly with most existing IT
infrastructure, the enhancements of each corporate function can be shared across
the entire corporate entity. For example, integrating a stock status check with
wireless devices will allow a salesperson to check inventory for a specific
client from a remote location. Of course, since the industry is in a nascent
stage, processes such as order flow from businesses and general consumers are
not readily deployed as they have high complexity.
Benefits of Using SMS-based Services
Cost-effective: As a communications medium, SMS is the most cost-effective
way of communicating with any mobile audience. The fact that SMS can be sent out
to large groups of recipients in a manual or automated manner further means that
fewer resources are required to communicate.
- High Reach: In India, the number of Internet connections is less
than 20 percent of the number of mobile connections. Thus, more people can
be reached via SMS than with, e-mail or Internet. Currently, there are over
45 million mobile connections in India.
- Immediacy: An SMS is typically delivered within seconds. Because
messages are pushed to the handset by the delivering network's SMSC and do
not rely on the recipient retrieving it from a server, it is an extremely
reliable means of getting time-sensitive messages to recipients.
- Automation: Should an organisation need to integrate SMS with its
existing (legacy) database environments automating the SMS is easy. For
instance, MDSPs allow for generic protocol integration such as email, HTTP,
SMPP, XML, and Windows application systems to their servers.
- Reliability: SMS is now an accepted means of communication.
Reliability of SMS delivery is extremely high with MDSPs committed to
achieving 100 percent reliability. It is fast being accepted as a new
channel of business communications.
Potential Use
The SMS-based mobile data services are being used by several forward-looking
enterprises for the following three types of uses.
- Request: Any authorized user can make requests from mobile phones
on internal company information, i.e., company phone list, stock/ warehouse,
latest prices, internal news, customer facts. These services are used by
internal customers (employees), extended customers (vendors, partners) and
end-customers.
-
Group transmission: The user can send messages on
mobile phones of a group of people at the same time (i.e., employees,
customers, etc). The messages can be same for everyone in the group (a mass
broadcast) or different for everyone (a narrowcast with each person getting
a different message).
-
Push/Notification Services: If you want a request
to be set up automatically, you can have a periodic request, e.g., generate
a request every morning at 8 am for revenue of the previous day, or stock
status. This could be an event-based or a time-based notification.
Processes where SMS-based mobile data services are being
commonly used are:
There are several benefits for enterprises that first look at
the internal organization of work and then assess SMS-based mobile data services
in terms of adding value to the existing way of working. Enterprises world over
are benefiting using SMS-based mobile data services.
Vijay Shukla
Country Manager, ValueFirst
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