Following their upbeat financial results, Indian vendor Subex has announced a change in the direction of their business, positioning themselves as a “telecom analytics solution provider which will help CSPs embrace digital transformation.” CEO Surjeet Singh was quoted in the company’s press release as saying:
Subex has been at the forefront of helping telcos through our industry-leading solutions. Since our inception, we have been sitting on a gold mine of data which is gathered across networks, customers, and systems. This, coupled with our domain knowledge and technological capabilities puts us in the best position to draw meaningful insights for telcos and hence help them to drive new business models, enhance customer experience and optimise enterprises through Subex 3.0.
That Subex are repositioning themselves as a provider of analytics should come as no surprise. They have previously indicated that they want to increase sales in areas like business intelligence and the internet of things. However, this diversification also suggests the business is hedging its bets, unsure of which products and services will be successful. One of its new IoT offerings focuses on security, which is not a purpose that readily comes to mind when thinking of uses for analytics.
A business strategy that involves selling all kinds of data analytics to telcos will place Subex in direct competition with bigger rivals like TEOCO. Subex has also suggested they will emulate TEOCO in other ways too. TEOCO has a track record of purchasing niche analytics businesses; in February they acquired data processing specialists PreClarity. Meanwhile, Subex CEO Surjeet Singh recently told the press that he wants to make acquisitions as well. But perhaps the repositioning of Subex is designed to make them a more attractive target for a big bidder who can afford to acquire a business that generates over USD50mn in revenues.
Telco employees may not take notice of vendor behavior like this, but they should. Subex and their fellow RAFM market leaders were crucial to making winning arguments for fresh investment in previously unknown disciplines like revenue assurance. Anyone with the words ‘revenue assurance’ in their job title should be wary of firms like Subex refocusing their marketing efforts elsewhere. If Subex believes they cannot sell more revenue assurance to telcos, that also implies declining budgets for revenue assurance within telcos.
The change in Subex’s brand position was complemented by the adoption of a new corporate logo (pictured above). According to CEO Surjeet Singh, the logo represents Subex’s…
…vibrancy, energy and commitment, to create value for our customers in the digital era.
I cannot comment on whether the logo will give viewers the desired impression. You might want to try to join those dots for yourself…
