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Telecommunications as a Service: A World of New Opportunities

By Nicolás Girard - OXIO
CEO

STORY INLINE POST

By Nicolás Girard | CEO - Thu, 07/07/2022 - 13:00

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After a rough two years for the sector, supermarkets and department stores are beginning to recover the sales they lost during the pandemic. According to ANTAD, the revenues of its members increased by 23.1 percent in January 2022, totaling MX$107.4 billion (US$5.2 billion).

Supermarket chains, such as Soriana, Chedraui and La Comer, informed investors in their reports that they intend to invest more than MX$8 billion (US$387 million) in the opening of new stores, renovations and technology.

It is clear that the pandemic accelerated the sector’s digital transformation and placed e-commerce and an omnichannel approach at the center of its main players’ strategies. According to the study, "The Future of Retail" by Euromonitor, online purchases are expected to increase by 226 percent by 2025.

The global trends indicate that department stores and supermarkets are already concentrating their efforts on initiatives that allow them to have access to first-hand data without intermediaries (first-party data assets) in order to provide more customized products and services and adapt to changes in consumer preferences with greater agility. In this sense, loyalty, rewards and sales programs have been gaining relevance, becoming centerpieces of the customer acquisition and retention strategies of today’s commercial establishments.

Sales in the digital age have represented a real challenge for the consumer goods sector, especially in the face of a customer who has access to all competitors with just one click. In the past, a good advertising campaign was often enough to attract new customers and sales. But today, brands must be present on all channels and provide truly differentiated services.

According to Emplifi, brands have increased their investments in social networks by 25 percent, with the aim of maintaining online interaction with their customers through as many points of contact as possible and generating data that allows them to launch the most effective marketing campaigns. However, they are becoming increasingly dependent on these platforms to access data on their consumers' behavior and this outsourcing results in a delay in the brands' ability to react.

In addition, brands must consider the target audience, message content and timing. Marketing efforts are made more complex by having to consider so many variables. 

For this reason, telecommunications as a service (TaaS) has come to revolutionize business models, placing the mobile phone at the center of the marketing and sales equation. In simple terms, TaaS allows any business to function as a mobile operator without the costs and complexities associated with the traditional telecom operators. It unbundles the wireless infrastructure from these operators into a custom-purposed, asset-light network. By dramatically simplifying telecom, OXIO allows businesses to be the closest to its consumers 24/7 by being their mobile carrier.

OXIO's platform is a white-label turnkey solution that allows the brand to be always present through TaaS. One of the main benefits for businesses that incorporate TaaS is the telecom-driven business intelligence that it can provide. This actionable data provides a brand with detailed insights on their customer's persona, interests, and behavior. This allows them to adapt offers based on customer needs with data directly obtained from the client, as well as enhanced loyalty programs, connecting the mobile phone service with a brand that the consumer knows and trusts while creating an entirely new revenue stream.

According to Fortune Business Insights, the Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) market will reach 123.40 billion by 2028. Cutting-edge technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence, and a bigger appetite for faster internet connections, streaming, and online gaming will increase the demand for reliable and cost-effective wireless networks.

Data also becomes relevant in this new scenario. Those companies that acquire and manage data that enable them to develop predictive algorithms for consumer behavior will have a significant competitive advantage. In this sense, telecommunications as a service allows brands to constantly contact customers and obtain business intelligence to adapt to market changes.

The business intelligence derived from this direct connection with the consumer opens the door to a world of possibilities to increase competitiveness, explore new lines of business, lower costs and facilitate a digital conversion.

The leading dominant players have long blocked off the world of telecommunications. However, Statista.com forecasts this will change soon. The number of mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) subscriptions will reach 21.1 million in 2022, up from 9.22 million in 2017. This means we are now entering a new technological landscape in which businesses of all types have an opportunity to take advantage of the endless benefits of being a mobile operator.

This represents a massive transformation of the telecommunications industry, where the wireless business model will shift to an embedded experience within existing ecosystems. In this scenario, businesses can completely control their data and generate value through it, all within a few clicks’ reach.

Photo by:   Nicolás Girard

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