business today customer service
Customer-oriented technological innovation is
playing an increasingly vital role in ensuring
that broadcast firms become more efficient
and effective organisations and provide better
Joe O’Halloranservice to customers. reports.
Up close and personal
he gamut of technologies To paraphrase the poet Rupert cost of technology, quality of
deployed in the broadcast Brooke, Philips offices around the technology and time to market.
industry is indeed very wide, world are more or less some corners Whereas all product manufacturers
encompassing the largest of a foreign field that is forever would claim that their technology was
broadcasting solutions costing Eindhoven. That is to say they share a of the highest quality, it’s the latter
T
tens of thousands of pounds characteristic stylised industrial steely that he believes could be most
right down to set top boxes (STBs) vernacular. Yet adding an equally important of all.
costing tens of pounds. From an Avid, characteristic je ne sais quoi to all “Price is a global phenomenon and
to an ‘ave it cheap, you may say. things Dutch in the Paris bureau is everyone has the capability to buy
Yet even if the Argos catalogue is Pace France. The Gallic arm of the [STB components] globally and get the
currently featuring, among other Yorkshire STB manufacturer has been best price. But time to market and
goodies, Freeview set top boxes at the resident for only just around a year at being local means that you can be
less than princely sum of £18.99 a the offices located merely a few closer to your customers [and their]
unit, it would be a mistake to assume furlongs from the famous Longchamp needs.”
that the whole of the STB market is racecourse but in this short time has And also getting closer to each
characterised by cheap as chips initiated far reaching strategies to individual firm’s separate needs even
products. That would in fact be a
Employing
boost service to its key customers. in the same country. For example,
wholesale and wholly wrong This may not seem the best of Pace supplies different looking devices
highly
assumption. times for STB manufacturers. The for different companies even if they
People will put their hand in their creative global recession has resulted in people have the same basic functional
pockets for products that deliver
teams of
slashing their discretionary leisure components. That is to say there exist
obvious value and that look good. Just
engineers &
spending and logic would have separate CANAL+ STBs and different
look at iPhone sales. Therefore
designers in
dictated that they‘d balk at signing up ones for, say, UPC, even if they
employing highly creative teams of for premium TV services requiring a accomplish the same thing. And in
developing
both engineers and designers in the not-so-thin, and not-so-cheap to make many cases these different products
fully-development of fully-formed, (nor own) client devices to support are priced the same.
functionally-rich fashioned boxes that
formed,
them. Furthermore, European STB Hautefort also disagrees with the
fit the needs of a local audience can
functionally-
manufacturers must surely be casting accepted, received wisdom that there
be a very smart move by the
rich,
a nervous eye over their shoulder is a price premium associated with
operators that deploy them. It could
fashioned
towards China where local supplying dedicated services. “There is
potentially not just shift more boxes; it manufacturers are closing the usually a cost arbitrage between
stbs that fit
could do something more subtle and innovation gap that European localisation and optimised price. That is
potentially more rewarding. Such a the needs of manufacturers could rely on to offset as a supplier becomes more ‘localised’,
move could form an intrinsic part of an
a local
the lower unit costs that Asian optimised price falls. We believe that
effective service strategy that can
audience can
technology usually boasts. optimisation increases as you get more
reduce churn and ensure much
be a very
Yet even if he would agree with this local.” Yet he accepted that there was
needed repeat business. analysis, Mathias Hautefort, president a key caveat to the theory. “To work
smart move
This dynamic of reaching out to a of Pace France, evokes a congenial this way [successfully] it’s important to
by thelocal audience is not the sole preserve sang froid. Cost is indeed an important deal with big companies and to win
of the operators trying to boost
operators
factor, he says, but only one key big deals.” And by big, this means
customer reach. It’s also one that has
that deploy
parameter that he believes will govern deals that number in the millions.
been successfully unleashed by STB
them.
the success of Pace throughout France. Which is itself a challenge for Pace
manufacturer Pace in its key markets, Rather fittingly for a country renowned France as it is actually a small company
especially France, where the raison for its mathematicians, philosophers in itself. Yet Hautefort is well aware of
d’être of the firm is to be as close as and high-level technicians, Hautefort his P&L responsibilities to the group
possible to local customers, in terms of believes that success is dependent and he admits that he’s in a fortunate
service operators and end users. upon a triangular relationship between position to leverage the corporate
6 l ibe l september/october 2009 l www.ibeweb.com
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