MCI INTERVIEW
sential for operators, Johnston says. “We don’t need to create the services and there is no chance that a depart- ment within an operator that’s also developing 16 other services is going to do a better job on a specific service than a very focused bunch of people in a garage somewhere. It’s just human nature; the guys in the garage, their whole future depends on getting it exactly right, whereas we can afford to make mistakes.” The notion that the success of the
mobile operator community relies on its performance as an enabler of suc- cess for other organisations is a theme to which Johnston returns. While Steve Jobs didn’t have the time or inclination to visit MWC this year, Google CEO Eric Schmidt (a future awards candi- date if ever there was one) seized the opportunity to present an hour long keynote. Google represents one of the most serious threats there is to the mobile operator establishment and Schmidt’s presence at this year’s event was variously read by commentators as evidence of the industry’s doors beginning to open or an exercise in keeping your friends close but your enemies closer. Johnston’s feeling, though, is that
carriers’ approach to Google needs to be blunt. “The best thing to do is to say to Google: ‘Look, our cards are on the table. How can we make you more successful while still giving us enough return on investment for it to be interesting for us to build better and faster networks?’ I think that’s really the question that the mobile operators need to ask everybody,” he says.
Because Google, as far as John-
ston is concerned, is clearly eyeing up the kind of assets that operators have historically leveraged. Schmidt’s presentation at MWC was concilia- tory in tone and full of praise for the achievements of the mobile industry. From a development perspective, he said, Google’s new mantra is ‘mobile
career history
» Garett Johnston is the director of strategic marketing at MTS, which operates in Russia and the CIS. He is responsible for the formulation of marketing strategy and innovative marketing solutions.
» Previously, he served as the chief marketing officer at Ukranian operator Kyivstar.
» Johnston has international exposure to the mobile, fixed and internet telecommunications markets. He has a 15 year track record working on customer facing assignments with blue chip ICT employers.
» He has lived and worked in 12 different countries around the world covering both emerging markets such as the former USSR, China, Middle East and Latin America as well as advanced markets such as the UK/Ireland, Western Europe and North America.
» Garrett is fluent in eight languages with intermediate capacity in several more.
pay your bill in advance or in arrears. It’s just not relevant to anybody but the operator. “When I walk into a supermarket
to buy tomatoes, I’m not going to be offered a choice based on whether I pay now and eat them later or the other way around. It’s just an example of throwback thinking. There are few more customer-centric aspects to an operator’s business than flagship retail stores and if they are still being designed based on how an operator’s billing system works, then we have some room for improvement; all of us,” he says. He has a similar point to make
first’. And he showed deference to the leadership of the operator community in customer billing. “But less than an hour after Eric finished his speech,” says Johnston, “Google announced the recruitment of a very talented lady called Stephanie Tilenius from eBay to a new position in Google called global vice president for commerce. A hiring at that senior level is not being done so that Google can interface more successfully with operator billing systems,” he says. Operator billing models are, in
Johnston’s view, dangerously crude and exposed (it’s interesting that it was in this category that MTS was recognised in the GSM Awards). “Op- erators need to wake up,” he says. “Just look at prepay: You can walk into the flagship retail outlet of any major European or US mobile brand at the beginning of the second decade in the 21st century and those stores are still segmented based on whether you
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about the way that the exhibition at MWC is laid out. “If you’re a CMO visiting the show for two days you may have just a few hours to look around the exhibition. You want it to be structured in such a way that there’s a section in one hall for all the products and services that can help an operator increase ARPU. There’s another section for anything that helps you improve on your customer retention. I’m not saying it’s bad, just that it could be better.” And Johnston probably has more
direct experience of this than many others; He visited 117 different stands at the exhibition, looking for products that could help MTS improve its business. When on these walkabouts, he says, he always asks the people manning the stands the same ques- tion; requesting a single sentence explanation of the benefit to the end user of the product or service they are promoting. Of the 117 stands he visited this year, he said, only six fea- tured people who were able to answer his question. “The sales messages on a lot of
these stands are geared towards technology buyers,” he says. “That’s a process step rather than a results step but a lot of marketing folks and sales and customer services people are walking round that exhibition with »
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