Vodafone international HQ stated their basic business premise and reason
for its investment in Japan was to use the Japanese market place as a way to
help them to bring great fones to other parts of the its operations, since
the Japanese market was recognized as an advanced market.
What has happened in actuality is in fact the reverse. Vodafone, in this
much hyped launch of seven 4G handsets, has brought Nokia and Motorola to
Japan. And has failed miserably.
It has never been about speed or 2.5G being inferior to 3G. It is about
great handsets. The reason au was able to get people to switch to 3G cdma
flavour was due to better handsets with newer and better features. Not due
to increased speed. Au never to began to stress speed until Win. Now it is
trying to talk about speed advantage of Win. But, it is having a difficult
time in getting customers to switch. Its about great handsets that look
great, feel great in the hand, and solve real peoplešs needs. Not speed.
Vodafone doesnšt understand this, but it should! It was J-Phone that
pioneered new features including camera fones. Vodafone has systematically
and strategically tried to obliterate all references to J-Phone days. But
look at the success of 602T and 602SH. The new President of Vodafone Japan
should study these examples carefully. It shows that to sell fones to
Japanese people in Japan you need great features in a well-made handset.
Here is what Vodafone needs to pay attention to in Japan:
1. Vodafone has made 3G its stated platform. It will stop bringing non-3G
fones to the market in 2005. Big mistake. 3G means nothing. Stress cusomter
service or familiy plans or whatever. 3G means nothing.
2. Vodafone required common interfaces to the 902SH and 802SE. Rediculous.
Allow the handset manufacturer to develop great fones in their independent
ways. Allow SE to be a great SE. Allow Sharp to be a great Sharp. Proof:
602SH and the overwhelming popularity of only 902SH as opposed to the other
December/January releases.
3. Allow manufacturers to bring back features that are established or being
established in the Japanese market: QR codes; more user customization on
little things such as font size; screen display dimness controls; etc etc.
4. Totally revamp the way that non-owned shop people are trained. I visit
many of the blogs and forums by these shop people and they hate Vodafone. It
is really a bad situation. The company needs to do something about this
situation.
5. Develop sound pricing policies that donšt need to be changed: Happy Time
incident made many customers upset.
6. Spend less money on outside advertising and give more money to handset
manufactureres to develop more handsets within a shorter amount of time.
Again, to repeat: Its about great handsets. Period.
7. Use Japan to teach you how to develop the rest of the world.
n
Received on Wed Mar 9 12:12:44 2005