Karan Chadda

Global digital marketing and communications leader

BlackBerry – a managed decline?

RIM’s chief executive has announced his new strategy for the ailing mobile devices firm: they are going to focus on the business sector. For RIM’s new strategy to work they will need to subvert some key IT trends, some of which have already taken hold and will be difficult to uproot.

BlackBerry smartphones, although still selling in large numbers and a leader in some segments, have seen their popularity decline in the face of competition from Apple, Samsung and others. Something had to change. Moreover, with BlackBerry’s heritage as a provider of devices to businesses, it makes sense to focus on a market you know and one where you have a strong foothold.

There are two challenges, however, which might make this new strategy one of managed decline rather than renewed growth: tight IT budgets; and the consumerisation of IT.

In terms of IT budgets, the story is simple: money’s tight and there is lots to do. According to Gartner, budgets are still below their peak and, as economic uncertainty persists, companies are keeping a tight rein on costs. This problem is compounded by the need for companies to keep up with the changing IT landscape. The rise of cloud computing, trends toward home working, the need to integrate tablet computers and securing networks from data loss – both internal through the greater use of cloud computing and external as hacktivists overtake hackers in their strike rate – are all big issues that need addressing. Shortly, in Europe at least, there will new data protection legislation that will require new compliance regimes. This all points to tight IT budgets becoming tighter.

Many companies have found that there’s a way to minimise some costs and get a boost in productivity: let your employees buy their own mobile devices and use them for work. Indeed I’m writing this on a tablet computer, from which I can also access work emails and my calendar. I have similar functionality on my phone. When working from home I can access the work network from my laptop using a virtual desktop.

The trend, which encompasses a number of other factors such as the development of more consumer-centric software, is grandly called the consumerisation of IT. My employer isn’t alone in doing this. A recent study by Accenture found that 40% of employees use personal devices to access work information. That number is set to grow and will do so rapidly; it has more than doubled in the past two years.

There are security issues in allowing employees to access work data on their personal devices, but systems exist and will continue to develop which minimise or mitigate these. The benefits are clear: a flexible, responsive, always connected workforce.

As people use their personal smartphones, tablets and laptops to access their work data, it is inevitable that IT departments will spend less and less of hardware and more on systems that prevent data loss while enabling access from a variety of personal devices.

Blackberry used to set the trends, then they tried to follow them with the launch of touchscreen phones and tablet computers, now they’re trying to fight them. I’m not sure they’ll succeed.

This post originally appeared on the Huffington Post.

Europe’s technology centre?

Europe’s Technology Centre?

Chancellor George Osborne announced his intention to ensure Britain becomes Europe’s technology centre in his Budget speech. In order to make this a reality he announced support in two areas: Digital Content; and Infrastructure.

Digital Content

The Chancellor announced the corporation tax reliefs from April 2013 for the video games, animation and high-end television industries. These reforms will be subject to consultation and will need to pass state aid rules. The film industry already enjoys reliefs of this kind.

The aim of this tax relief is to try and retain these industries, and the jobs they create, in the UK. It is also hoped that it will encourage inward investment from the likes of Disney into the UK. Last autumn it was reported that animation studios were planning to leave the UK because of preferable tax breaks and subsidies in countries including Ireland and Canada. This move is clearly designed to address that issue and signal to similar creative industries that they are valued.

Infrastructure

On infrastructure, the Chancellor confirmed the selection of Belfast, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle and London to become broadband Super-connected cities. This move is part of a previously announced £100m investment. The Treasury says that this investment will this will deliver ultrafast broadband coverage to 1.7 million households and 200,000 businesses, and high speed wireless broadband for three million residents by 2015.

In terms of mobile networks, rural areas and selected A-roads will see an increase in the quality of coverage. There will also be a government review to decide whether intervention is required to improve mobile coverage for rail passengers.

The UK’s broadband and mobile phone infrastructure isn’t exactly the envy of the world and improving it is essential. As my colleague Charlotte from our Hong Kong office noted recently, we don’t even have wifi on the Tube. The Chancellor also alluded to the fact our network is sub-par when he noted that, “Two years ago Britain had some of the slowest broadband speeds in Europe.”

Verdict?

At first glance, the creative industries can be broadly pleased with the outcome of this budget. The video games developers and animators, in particular, will feel their voice is being heard and the benefits they bring to the UK are being recognised.

On infrastructure, it’s all a little less clear cut. Additional investment is, of course, welcome but until the details are reviewed, it’s hard to judge how significant these announcements are.

The announcements for technology were underpinned with additional announcements about youth training, business loans and development zones. There were also measures supporting scientific and engineering research. It all pointed to the Chancellor wanting to lessen the economy’s reliance on financial services but keep Britain very much as a service-based, intellectual property creating economy.

This post originally appeared on the Huffington Post.

Big game: HK vs. LDN

Charlotte, my counterpart in Hong Kong, was in London for a couple of days last week. It was interesting to learn about the differences between what she does and what I do.

First up: the commute. Her seven minute bus journey initially looks favourable to my hour-long, two train shuffle from Surrey to London. However, Charlotte doesn’t clear her inbox and read two newspapers before arriving in the office. So, although I have a longer commute, I make it work for me. We’ll call it a score draw on that one.

Next on the list is the price of coffee. “How much?!” I exclaimed when told a cup of this wonderful, life enhancing nectar would set me back about £4.50 over on the island. Hong Kong living would require me to part with around £15 on a good day, possibly nearing £30 on a bad one. Cripes! Definitely one up for these Isles.

Time zones. We’ve all got them. Some are conveniently situated between the US and Asia, others aren’t. Hong Kong’s is very awkward for global calls. When I sit on a call at 1400, happily shooting the breeze and eager to discuss the minutiae with colleagues in the US and Asia, poor old Charlotte’s sitting at home at 2300 wanting to go to bed. So far, so good for the UK.

Moving on from the day-to-day practicalities, let’s look at the market place. Over in the UK the global social media networks dominate, there’s Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Everyone knows them, and when something new pops up, it’s easily picked up. Over in Hong Kong, as well as the global players, they also have Chinese equivalents. A lot of them. There are facebook equivalents, there are Twitter equivalents. And it’s all changing. And it’s all different on mainland China, which Charlotte needs to cover too! It sounds like she’s got a lot to do, but in my book that’s a good thing. It sounds busy and it sounds exciting. The more tools and channels and networks the better, I say. Others may disagree. So Hong Kong’s finally scored a goal.

Finally, Hong Kong is the gateway to the biggest emerging market of them all: China. A market growing at a rapid rate. Companies springing up from within and moving in from abroad constantly. A market growing and changing so fast no one can say they’ve cornered. From a marketing point of view, that’s massively exciting. Lots of companies to meet, people to pitch, networks to build. That’s a massive goal for Hong Kong.

It looks like a draw where HK scores the interesting goals and London’s just plodding comfortably, but hang on a second, London’s not exactly lacking for opportunity.

Despite anaemic growth and a mature market, there are tech start ups, lots of pitches, loads of ideas and creativity. Many companies use London as their hub for Europe. I get to liaise with partners across Europe, speaking with people in France, Italy, Norway or many other nations on any given day. I say London wins with a late goal in extra time. Not sure Charlotte will agree.

This piece was orignally posted on the Asian Insight blog.

Smart money on smartphones?

 

panasonic eluga

 

With less than a week to go before #mwc12 kicks off, both Fujitsu and Panasonic have played their hand and announced that they’re breaking out of the Japanese smartphone market to conquer Europe. It’s possible that both companies were emboldened by the record quarterly profits announced by Samsung last month, which were driven by its smartphones division, and Cisco’s recent projections that there will be 10bn handsets globally by 2016.

Android-based smartphones are clearly the product category to be in at the moment. HTC’s rise a few years ago and its subsequent decline in the face of Samsung’s dominance shows that, as technological development continues apace and people adapt to new interfaces, no one has really cornered the market just yet.

It’s worth keeping an eye on the margins though. Apple makes a 37.4% operating profit on its iPhone. In comparison, Samsung makes just 11% on its handsets. As volumes grow, it’s reasonable to expect component prices to fall. There is a danger that the companies that only make handsets will rapidly fall down the value chain and see their profits squeezed.

The situation may not be too dissimilar to that currently being witnessed in the market for TVs, where manufacturers are operating on slim margins and many are losing money. Still, that’s no reason not to make money while it’s there and, unlike 3D TVs, smartphone technology looks to be something consumers can’t get enough of at the moment.

IMAGE CREDIT [Panasonic]

This piece was originally posted on Racepoint’s #mwc12 blog

Social influence and social media

This morning I went along to Like Minds’ Social Media Week debate on Trust and Social Influence.

The good people at Like Minds pulled together a great panel and the debate was very wide reaching, so I’m only going to focus on a couple of the useful points I took away with me.

Behaviour, not values

The first point is that the tools that currently measure influence base their scores on your online behaviour, not your values or work or your offline behaviour.  Now, I love watching rugby, I used to love playing rugby, I still play squash, however, I rarely ever tweet about either sport.  I’d like to think I influence some people about rugby and squash, but no tool that uses social media as its data source is likely to pick that up.

Margin of error

For PRs it’s important to note that tools that provide influence scores or assign which topics someone is interested in, work best when aggregated.  That is to say that individually they’re either right or wrong, but across 1,000 or 1,500 of the vast majority of people they’ve highlighted as being influential on topic X should indeed have some influence on topic X.

Don’t shoot the messenger

Azeem Azhar from PeerIndex made a point that perhaps is the most important one to note on a personal level.  Tools like PeerIndex, Klout and Kred all publicly tell you what they think of you.  Other tools, some developed for proprietary use by large brands, judge you and assign a value to you without you ever knowing what they think of you.  A good, recent example is American chain Target figuring out a teenager was pregnant before her father knew.  So, as much as people knock PeerIndex and its rivals for inaccuracy, at least they’re making their mistakes in the open.

This piece was originally posted here on the CommsTalk blog.