Rozee again - A mature recovery

This is a followup to one post I made about Rozee.pk, a Pakistani online job hunting site.

From the previous post, I started out with a hopeful view of Rozee which was shot down when I started working with them.

Yesterday though, I was actually impressed by them. Their product manager emailed me and showed me that:

• They actually read my feedback in detail
• They made concious efforts to improve the areas I pointed out to them
• They emailed me very professionally about my comments.

I must say, I really appreciate that, Rozee. Thanks Abidoon. I hope with your continued effort your site becomes the channel of choice for employers in Pakistan.

As additional feedback, I do hope you are able to capture a bigger slice of candidates from non-IT areas. We saw very poor applicant response for Graphic Designing and Marketing posts. I think Brightspyre boasts a greater applicant pool for non-engineering posts.

Generally though, it goes to show, that a little attention to the customer can go a long way in the respect you get for your business.

Err… wha?

This is an actual ad from Dell encouraging companies to partner with Dell on open standards.. I think.

Gee, so someone else got impressed by our jingle ads to make one of their own? What is this world coming to?

Quote from the ad: [Intel and AMD CEO sing]: “…and our Quad-Core Ninja tools will be our remedy…”

Local Company goes head-on against Apple?

Well ok, it’s not exactly a local company, and its not precisely taking on Apple, but its certainly worth discussing over coffee.

Streaming Networks is one of the few offshore development arms in Pakistan of companies focusing on Embedded System Software. They just recently announced the iRecord, a curious device that lets you record your TV directly into your iPod or PSP device. They are pricing it at $200 and seems to be positioned fairly directly against Apple’s own product line in the area.

Right now, the device only lets you record directly to the flash-based media storage devices, and has no internal storage. Some 100GB of flash-based internal storage and basic application software could have made this a decent PVR device. As it is, it doesn’t quite excite me.

So what about Apple? Well Steve Jobs had announced a very similar Apple product called iTV in August. That device, however, does the reverse path — it can take iTunes / iPod media and shifts it over to your TV. Apple announced this in their development conference and clearly that was meant to generate third-party applications for the platform before the January launch.

So although the two products differ in functionality, on paper they do look quite similar. It would be really interesting when the next revisions of both products each add the missing features and become practically the same thing.

I do see problems with SN’s product and their positioning strategy (SN : Please lighten up your website so it doesn’t feel like Spock giving an orientation to the Enterprise), but I wont discuss them here (call me if you really need to know). For now, it’s a good thing that a local development team built a product that was featured on Gizmodo.

I just hope that it doesn’t become another classic case study where “the engineers made something for which there was no consumer need”. I fear it may be so, but remain cautiously encouraging.

Kudos Series - 4: Mobilink PCO — Excellent business and market strategy by telecom operator

Now here is something that I can happily extend kudos to. This is a small lesson in good strategy.

Telecom companies are running commoditized businesses these days. So locking in the most volumes in the shortest amount of time is the key to success.

So, what do you do if you are a telecom operator and you find that some upcoming competitors have technology that can help them roll out networks faster and cheaper than you?

If your target market for rollout is the vast rural landscape of the country, what do you do if you know that the total cost of implementing your technology for network rollout is higher than the competition, and will probably take longer to actually do so with a traditional approach? What do you do considering also that in your target markets, the comparative value of your brand is only nominal

Answer : You focus on the edge (well atleast to a basic extent)

1. Take out all traditional costs from your rollout plan, by engaging the people at the very edge of the network. Considering the market is rural people, give them a direct financial incentive to consider your products.

In case of Mobilink, convince the people at the edges of the network to operate their own self-serving calling facility.

Results: Your total spend on marketing and sales for the edge would be next to nothing compared to returns. You could get a free slew of micro-franchises with people constantly promoting the usage of your services within communities of trust

2. Adopt a “minimum deterrance” strategy for technology roadmap to make the rollout costs comparable with competitors.

Rather than marketing micro-service plans (i.e. individual cell-phones), offer single products for communities themselves. If a village of 15 houses can share a single connection, so be it.

In case of Mobilink, positioning the product as a PCO rather than an individual connection.

Results: They only need to support one-to-two channels per 15 or so houses. This requires a lot less infrastructure to cover large areas, and the network can be rolled out very rapidly

3. Open up the revenue model based on the value of the money at the edge

Rs.1000-2000 may not mean much at all in cities, but it is significant money elsewhere.

People within the rural target market will be willing to pay premium for phone facilities, but their premium will still be insignificant perhaps to the telecom operator itself.

However, it will still be significant to the people at the edge.

So, you open up your revenue model and make the people part of your risks / rewards structure. They promote and sell your services, and operate your products responsibly. They are able to keep the small premium that the other people in those micro-communities are wiling to pay.

Sharing revenue with these people could perhaps be the best marketing tool for the target customers.

4. Take the right message to customers

Take time and care to understand exactly what would actually peak the interest of your customers from an advertisement.

It is not a jingle, not some silly demonstration of heroics or dominance — it is a human-to-human message about a better life.

The story should clearly describe the business case to the edge. The story should touch on the emotional undertones of a better life. The store should be clear and straight — in fact, it would be more of a sales call than a marketing one.

In short, you would do what Mobilink did. Its a great ad for the product and strategy.

Coffee is good

Apologies to the people that actually follow the blog for not having time to post recently.

For the moment, I thought this was nice. Thanks for forwarding it to me.

Xbox360 in India - Great Ad

I was waging a war against sleep with coffee yesterday when I came across this Ad on TV, and I think its fantastic (couldn’t find a better quality one tho):

Watch it here

The ad’s great because it makes their indian target customers proud of their own heritage while embracing the new, which from what I’ve observed is a good way to sell something in India. The key messages are:

• So what if you think we’re (i.e. indians) all farmers and people in huts? We can be cool too
• We (i.e. indians) aren’t so far off from all the fun and excitement in the world… with the xbox we’re just as good as anyone else.
• The xbox360 can complete transform your life and fill it with all the joys of the world you can imagine

The right message for the audience, resulting from good local market knowledge.

Now, what is stopping PK ads to be as original as this one? Please, someone from the industry tell me.