Tectonic Shift in Telecom Industry to Accelerate C3 Model

The telephone industry and its landscape had undergone through an upheaval of changes in the past 141 years since Alexander Graham Bell invented telephone in 1875. However, the pace of change accelerated to a new high in the past decade or so. Now, the underlying nature of the telecom business is going through some seismic changes as the landline business is experiencing a precipitous shrinkage.

The key strategic initiatives that the telecom industry is adopting to adjust to these ever changing business and market tumults are aimed at positioning itself to positively impact and integrate the so-called C3 (Content-Consumer-Connectivity) Model. Telecom companies have begun to focus on business models geared toward veering off the traditional telephone business and driving an integrated strategy to deliver customized content to the consumer in an ever connected world. The industry, especially the giants such as AT-and-T and Verizon, is reinventing itself as Omni-channel provider of video streaming and cloud services.

How much C3 business model is influencing the operational and strategic goals of the telecom companies can be gauged just by looking at the ongoing consolidation sweeping across the industry. AT-and-T's acquisition of DirecTV and its potential bid for Time Warner are the latest examples of such consolidation that's shaping the industry. To make a sustainable and sizable impact to drive the C3 (Content-Consumer-Connectivity) Model, telecom companies need to evolve and reinvent themselves to provide cost-effective and high-quality video streaming and cloud services.

To successfully drive the C3 Model, telecom companies are most likely to pursue a three-pronged approach that is already being tried by leading telecom firms such as AT-and-T:

* Alliance-based Approach: The industry is going to pair with technology companies, including many start-ups, to provide cloud computing solutions to the clients. Since time is of essence, starting from the scratch is no more a viable option. As there are so many players with their niche area of business focused on cloud computing, collaborating with such players makes perfect sense for deep-pocketed telecom companies. On October 6, 2016, AT-and-T announced a similar such deal with Amazon Web Services to provide cloud computing solutions to the customers. For AT-and-T and Amazon, the strategic tie-up adds up to not the one-plus-one equals to two, but more than two.

* Open Source and Partially Open Network Approach: Since content is one of the key components of the C3 Model, creating rich content has to be a continuous and constant business process. To achieve this goal, telecom companies have to open up, even partially, their network so that external developers can provide contributions and feedback. While the telecom companies have to be guarded to protect their "secret sauce", they can not afford to close their network to outside developers anymore without jeopardizing rapid-speed innovation of rich content.

* Skills Pivot Approach: The most valuable asset of any company, irrespective of size, scale and domain, is its people. For telecom companies, many, if not the most, employees have skillset and expertise that's more aligned with the yesteryear's technology. As the telecom business landscape is changing rapidly and robustly, companies have no choice but to invest in their employees by providing training in the newer and evolving fields such as cloud services, data science and machine learning.

As the telecom industry is going through a top-down disruptive upheaval, companies have to formulate and put into action appropriate strategies and focused execution to drive C3 Model.

Rise in Texas Maternity Death Rate Alarming

Two recently released reports on Texas maternity death rates are truly unsettling, to say the least. The maternity death rate has spiked almost 100 percent in a span of four years. According to The Dallas Morning News, the rate in 2010 was 18.6 per 100,000 births, and in 2014, it had spiked to 35.8. The Dallas Morning News culled the data from a recently issued report. A separate, second report showed the maternity death rate for African-Americans was twice as high as White mothers.

Maternity deaths are the ones that happen within a year of giving birth, and collecting such data are crucial to understanding the level and ease of accessibility to maternal and pregnancy-related health care. The dual reports shed a bright light on an otherwise dark spot that represents shortcomings of a vital healthcare component. The reports by themselves do not address these problems other than reporting. Because of a 2011 ruling by the then-Texas Attorney-General, and now the Governor, Greg Abbott, it is not possible for any news outlet or any of the state's concerned citizens to ask for and access to more information in order to analyze and identify what has caused the spike in maternity death rate. Although the goal of the 2011 ruling was to protect the privacy of patients, it had unintended consequence by restricting any effort to carry out a root-cause analysis for any trend of adverse healthcare outcomes.

The state department of health and human services, instead of hiding behind the cloak of privacy, should immediately take on a thorough and comprehensive endeavor to find out the causal factors behind the spike in maternal death rate. It may not need to compromise on the privacy factors as much it wants us to believe. First, it needs to identify whether there is geographical concentration of hotspots where the spikes have been observed. Second, if that's the case, it needs to zero on the primary sources of maternal deaths in those hot spots. Third, it needs to assess the degree of easiness of and accessibility to the family planning and maternity-related health care there. As there is concerted effort in recent years to curb abortion in Texas, one unintended consequence has been the increased difficulty of state's minority, poor and rural population to affordable family planning pregnancy and maternity care. It's not an option for the state to stay mum and on the sidelines in the face of these two embarrassing reports.

Outcome of Potential Disney-Twitter Marriage: Customized Content Distribution

As the speculation over a possible Disney acquisition of Twitter is making the circle in business world, it's the latest, but not definitely the last, example of how technological disruptions are blurring the lines of traditional media outlet, social media platform and entertainment industry. In post-cut-the-chord era, it's the distribution play that is going to be a key differentiator in choosing the winner from among the content providers. It's no more possible to have a successful content provider to survive, leave alone succeed, without being a smart distribution player in this disruptive marketplace. In this context, if Disney-Twitter merger goes forward, it is likely to be a case in study for
(1) How successful a traditional media outlet integrates a social media platform as part of its distribution strategy
(2) What degree of personalization it brings in terms of content richness

As the cable viewership is declining precipitously by the day, traditional media company and content providers are reinventing themselves as an integrated content and conduit enterprise in order to provide a rich and personalized experience to consumers at a cheaper price. In the context of this disruptive and evolving business climate, social media like Twitter will play a key role to help traditional media outlet such as Disney to know at a very personal level who its customers are, their personal taste and preferences, and most important, key customer propensity patterns.  The granularity of these voluminous information will help traditional media outlet to create customized content for consumers. The level of customization is likely to vary by the degree and depth of information to be collected from the social media channel such as Twitter that would play a twin role of content distribution and customer data collection.

Poll Defeat of the Colombian Deal a Setback to Peace Process

As things began to move in the right direction in more than five-decade-old civil war, a concerted right-wing effort combined with a skeptical population and less than persuasive argument by the government helped lead to the defeat of a landmark peace deal between the government of President Juan Manuel Santos and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in an October 2, 2016, national referendum.

To begin with, it was a high-risk, high-stakes move on behalf of Juan Manuel Santos to open negotiation with the largest rebel group of Colombia soon after assuming presidency in 2011. The intense negotiation that has ensued over the next five years at Havana yielded an agreement on August 24, 2016. The deal was announced with much fanfare by the chief negotiators of the government and FARC, Humberto de la Calle and Ivan Marquez, respectively, with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguz basking in the glow of a successful mediator to bring warring sides to reconciliation after 52 years of an intractable civil war that had killed at least 220,000 people and displaced at least 5 million. The following day, August 25, 2016, Colombian President Santos hand-delivered the 297-page agreement to Congress and called a nationwide vote on the deal for October 2, 2016. Juan Manuel Santos staked his personal reputation and legacy on approving the deal in nationwide referendum and bring one of the oldest civil war to a logical end. In recognition to his tireless effort, this year's (2016) Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Juan Manuel Santos although his signature achievement received a jolt in the poll, with 50.25 percent of the voters saying NO to the deal.

Failure of the deal in nationwide vote forebodes an uncertain political future for this Latin American nation. Although there are many fingers pointing at the president for blame, it was undeniable that all the right-wing groups had ganged up prior to the polls behind former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. Uribe's prescription to bring peace was hinged on defeating and destroying FARC by military means. Most of these right-wing political parties and their leaders saw the very deal as the one having the potential set back their political future. They propagated effectively, days before the referendum, that this deal would pardon the crimes of FARC and provide the guerrilla leaders a golden opportunity to rule the country one day. They effectively reopened the old wound by reminding millions of Colombians who had been directly, or indirectly, impacted by the FARC brutalities--although there were voluminous reports of excesses and abuses perpetrated by the military and right-wing paramilitary too--and convinced them that FARC was actually being rewarded for the brutalities of the past. The pro-deal campaign was driven with less than persuasive logic, while the NO campaign in the run-up to the polls were driven by raw emotion, fear mongering and portrayal of a dark future.

Now, Colombia must deal with the fallout of the unexpected outcome of the vote. This is also a setback to Obama administration's policy to bring Colombian civil war to an end. Apparently the famous comment by Bernard Aronson, the chief U.S. envoy to Colombian peace talks, on June 23, 2016 that the "finish line has been defined" in the Colombian civil war seems now overoptimistic. Obama administration's pledge of $460 million a year is now in a limbo. An emboldened Alvaro Uribe and his allies will try to put hurdles every step to roll back the gains and positive political landscape that has arisen out the deal. Juan Manuel Santos more than ever needs to be assertive and persuasive to push forward toward implementing the deal. International community should provide moral support to Juan Manuel Santos' effort to end the civil war. FARC should keep in mind that what it didn't achieve militarily had almost won it without firing a single shot, and resorting to old-style guerrilla war against the state would be a mistake of disastrous proportion. Although the October 2, 2016, vote was a setback to the Colombian peace process, not all was lost. All parties should work hard, including Juan Manuel Santos to reach out to Uribe, try more determinedly to bring the process back on track, and revisit and renegotiate the deal if that's what it takes to save it from complete collapse.

CMO Roles Upended in Retail Universe by Disruptive Innovations

The traditional roles and responsibilities expected from the chief marketing officers are being upended like a stack of cards in the retail world. It's now more than driving the brand equity and merchandising strategy as part of winning the market share and charting out sustainable growth.

One of the key roles of retail CMO in the present digital age is to drive a sustained strategy that provides an intimate and engaged customer experience. Often this evolving strategy takes precedent over the traditional roles of CMO in the era of digital and disruptive marketplaces. In this age, CMO plays partly the role of a cheerleader and partly the role of a counsellor to impress upon a know-it-all customer.

Customer now has the opportunity to sift through merchandises sitting on the couch in the comfort of home, order online and get it within hours without leaving her home. In the context of such disruptive changes, it's not a hypothetical discussion, but rather a reality for retailers to take the retail experience to the customer any place, any time and by any means.

The changing landscape of the retail world forces CMOs to be innovative and disruptive, and pushes them to adopt a strategy aimed at understanding the customer psyche that may provide deep insight into how customer makes a buying decision. The recent spurt in hiring of retailers from consumer product companies to fill in the roles of their retiring CMOs is just the confirmation of this disruptive change.

The challenges posed by the disruptive changes to the retail world have created a unique opportunity for the retail CMOs to drive an Omni-channel strategy to deliver an all-pervading customer experience. It's all about an Omni-channel journey that a retail CMO has to formulate to win a new customer, retain an existing customer and help cement a bond of engaged partnership--instead of old strategy of deep loyalty--between a customer and a retailer. This is a journey that needs to be planned with an adaptable and agile execution strategy with measurable business goals.

Peres, the Powerful Voice of Middle-East Peace, Leaves an Unparallel Legacy

Shimon Peres, former President, premier and quintessential public servant, passed away on September 28, 2016 at the age of 93. Peres' life chronicled the events and evolution of Israeli society since the birth of the Jewish nation.

Shimon Peres was also the last of the founding fathers of Israel and one of the most outspoken elder statesmen in the region. His political life of more than seven decades can not be separated from the nation of Israel itself. His life--along with his evolving political position over the years--has come to epitomize the changing landscape of middle-east.

Shimon Peres has held all possible public offices and numerous government portfolios--including premiership and presidency--in a span of 70-plus years of public service. It was Peres who was the chief advocate and champion of Israel's nuclear weapons program. His hawkish stand in 60s, 70s, and 80s was a source of much of Arab indignation. Peres was also a leading voice of Israel's settlement building and expansion plan in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Many Arab leaders still harbor animosity against Peres because of his past hawkish stand, and they have expressed strong displeasure over Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' decision to attend the state funeral of Peres on September 30, 2016.

However, Shimon Peres and his then-Labor ally Yitzhak Rabin seized a rare opportunity to explore peace with PLO in early 90s. Prodded by the U.S. President Bill Clinton, Peres spearheaded an intense negotiation with the Palestinian side that led to signing of Oslo Accord in 1993. In 1994,  three key figures of the Oslo Accord--Peres, Rabin, and the PLO leader Yasser Arafat--received the Nobel Peace Prize. Since then, Shimon Peres played the role of an elder statesman, emphasizing time and again the significance and benefit of a two-state solution. He was seen as the only remaining powerful voice for middle-east peace since the November 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin at hands of a Jewish extremist.

Shimon Peres sensed the shift in the attitude of international community toward Jewish settlement activity, occupation of Palestinian land and Israeli step-motherly policies against its own Arab citizens. Peres tried to do his best to counter the adverse international opinion by constantly and consistently advocating for peace and reconciliation with the Palestinians. As former U.S. President Bill Clinton said of Shimon Peres, the beloved Israeli elder statesman was first a bright student of Israel, then a bright teacher of his country and eventually the best dreamer of Israel. His vision for peace and two-state solution will serve as a beacon of hope to both Palestinians and Israelis for their common pursuit of the dream to have an independent Palestine thriving alongside its neighbor, a secure and prosperous Israel.