This post is of two parts:

1.) m-commerce musings from an interview I gave to a Singapore consultant

2.) Telco musings about new markets, preparing for a meeting this afternoon.

So much in my mind, it’s good to download into a blog
m-commerce trends in the Philippines 

Last month, I was interviewed by an m-commerce consultant based in Singapore. When he called me on the phone, I was pleasantly surprised to find out he was Pinoy!

Anyway, he asked me about m-commerce trends in the Philippines, where the industry is going or should go.

I share here my thoughts. I’ve added a few things apart from what I described to him. Here goes … 

a.) The partnership of Western Union with Smart Padala and G-Cash was a big win for m-commerce in the Philippines. With Billions of pesos coming in to the Philippines, the remittance segment is surely a good place to be for m-commerce. If only they would enable it na (it’s still in planning/development stage, I surmise).

b.) The online m-commerce partnerships help too. G-Cash partnered up with eBay.ph and Auctions.ph . They actually just formalized what many pinoy merchants and buyers were already doing with G-cash. G-Cash came in at the right time, thus they won almost 95% share (1 in 20 transactions use G-Cash) in online commerce transactions.

c.) Smart uses Smart Money for all their e-load distributors. This is a huge market for Smart Money, having thousands of e-load distributors using Smart Money. This makes it an easy step for Smart to “activate” these e-load distributors into Smart Money “merchants” allowing them to be “Money Changers” between cash and Smart Money. I’ve described in a previous article how to incentivize this: Give those Smart Money Changers some free airtime load when they convert from cash to Smart Money.

d.) The Philippines is a great place to make m-commerce a part of daily life. In an archipelago like ourse, the mobile phone is what keeps our communications tight. It is also what can keep commerce active. Quicker transactions, means more transactions, means more progress!

e.) Bring together the two technology islands. I discussed this in 2005 in my thesis.

There are two technology islands: Smart Money and G-Cash. These two technologies do not talk, they’re not inter-operable. There is a huge advantage in making these two technologies inter-operable. It increases the network of users manyfold.

I see a third party as the intervenor to bring the two technology islands together. It could be a private company or maybe even Sun Cellular. All this third party needs to do is create a “clearing house” that will exchange between three currencies: smart money, G-Cash and Cash.

You know what else could be beautiful — when the common tao the man on the street finds a business that enables this kind of money changing.

That’s a lot of imagination. That’s focusing on m-commerce.

 Telco Industry new markets 

Now what I’d like to write is about new markets for the telecommunications companies. I’m actually writing this to prepare myself for a discussion I have with an online friend.

Question:
Where will the Philippine Telcos find their next 5 Million subscribers?
Where will the Philippine Telcos find their next 5 Billion Pesos in revenue?

Here is what I would do to find answers to these questions:

1.) Environment scan
a.) External Environment — What is happening in other countries? What are the trends? What are the upcoming mobile technologies. How are developed countries using mobile technology? How is Japan using their mobile technology?

b.) Internal Environment — What are the needs of the Filipino? What technologies are being developed by our small mobile apps developers? What questions are in the minds of Filipinos that we can help answer?

2.) Synergize technologies - social networking + mobile commerce, WiFi + blogging, Radio + VAS, TV + low cost IDD, Transportation + cellphone wallet, e-Learning + recorded messages via cellphone. Create something out of what exists, put two or three together and see how they could address a need of Pinoys.

3.) Synergize industries/sectors - Telco + oil industry, what’s there to create? Telco + radio, what’s there to create? Telco + agriculture, what’s there to create? Telco + government, what’s there to create? Telco + entertainment, what’s there to create? Telco + motorists, what’s there to create?

4.) Serendipity walk - the next 5 million subscribers are not in the cities. We are missing out in providing telecom services to more than half of the population — and they are not in the cities. with 50 Million subscribers, how do we reach the next 5 million subscribers?

5.) Keep the top-line moving. The early adopters of technology, keep feeding them with the newest technologies. This has an effect of trickling down the technology to the masses.

6.) Encourage the third-party creation of new applications, new uses of technology. Don’t horde. Give developers an SDK. 50 employees in a telco cannot do what 500 students around the country can. Enable those 500 students.

7.) Encourage user content creation - Just like blogging put journalism in the people’s hands, allow Pinoys to create their own mobile phone content.

8.) Create platforms for collaboration - allow multitudes of people to interact in your platform. That’s what friendster did, that’s what ragnarok did, that’s what secondlife did, that’s what facebook did. The created platforms and people came and used the platform. What is the mobile version of that? What platforms can we create for Filipinos?

Conclusion 

These are a lot of ideas. If I were to take just one most important idea from the above, it is to go out and discover the pressing concerns of the Filipino. That is where the next market is.

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