Consumers have an insatiable demand for bandwidth-hungry applications, and there are a multitude of challenges in trying to appease them. Researching behaviors through its application enablement program, Alcatel-Lucent has developed a series of four recommendations for network providers on how best to meet consumer demands:
Build a holistic financial case. Look beyond app store revenues and take into account indirect benefits such as brand loyalty, lifetime value of customer, and cost reduction through greater insight into customer behavior. In addition, make sure your incentives are aligned with your developers’ incentives. The type of motivation will often depend on the size of the development team. For example, a small team may respond to a contest for recognition and money, unlike an enterprise team. Also accept two-sided business models that allow room for low-priced, ad-supported, or free applications to survive.
Explore new business models. Across all its carrier partners, Alcatel-Lucent has seen the emergence of five different models: operator-led, aggregator, mass wholesale, trusted partner, and enterprise customer. Each model varies in how transactions are held, the responsibilities of the partners, and how close the network provider is to the customer.
Industrialize processes. You may not be able to predict customer demand, but you can create scalable processes to deal with that demand.
Lessen fragmentation to achieve scale. If carriers work together to build standardized development platforms, then a single instance of an application can be deployed everywhere.
For more, read the Alcatel-Lucent papers on “Delivering a compelling online experience” and “Driving the application explosion.”
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