Here is a tiny news snippet that caught the eye. Ericsson have reportedly offered to provide business consulting services to help India’s largest operator, BSNL, with customer segmentation and marketing of 3G. It sounds like no small deal. A BSNL official reportedly said
“Ericsson has offered a proposal where it will manage the entire marketing of BSNL’s 3G services including fixing tariffs, promotional campaigns and consumer feedback. We are considering it but no final decision has been made…”
What does this have to do with RA? In the source article for the story, the explanation for why Ericsson are qualified to offer help goes as follows:
“Ericsson has done similar projects in network consulting, revenue assurance etc with operators such as Telephonica (sic) and AT&T.”
This is a new development in the perceived status of RA. The implication is that executing a major revenue assurance project might now be considered relevant experience for managing the marketing of services. This should please my pal David Leshem, who often cites how RA should be repositioned as validating the marketing proposition, and not just plugging the holes in operations. The real question is whether this is just a superficial association of two big projects that Ericsson does not really think have that much in common, or whether this is an indication of a more fundamental shift in how RA is pitched relative to other business objectives.
