Allen Lew, CEO, Group Digital life at SingTel: "Let Someone Else Be the Dumb, Fat, Pipe" - Levi Shapiro

SingTel is the world39s second largest wireless group owning all or part of 8 APAC wireless carriers and 462 million subscribers In April the company restructured into three business units Consumer ICT and Digital naming Allen Lew to transform SingTel into a multimedia market leader At the HTIA conference in Jerusalem last week Allen discussed reinvention Asian markets and areas of strategic opportunityOn Disruption quotTelcos have to do something drastic to make sure we do not lose our engagement with customers The fixedline world of telcos are increasingly big fat dumb pipes These implications were looked at seriously by SingTel and we decided we had to transform ourselves We see the changes happening in the internet space as an opportunity for companies like ours with the unique assets we have accumulated over the years We welcome partners who share the same 39blue ocean open sky39 view even if they are disruptive in the shorttermquotHistory of Reinvention SingTel39s history dates back 130 years and is the largest telco in Singapore In the late 198039s the company embarked on a regionalization drive investing in leading Asian markets Today SingTel has more than 462 million customers across 26 countries and a footprint covering 2 billion people second only to China Mobile One example is entering the Pay TV market in Singapore Now we have around 8 million Pay TV customers across our marketsDigital Growth Opportunities Digital includes permissionbased information about customer preferences Network intelligence enables our services to be truly targeted Together with key technologies we have we can shape the future of the connected society This is an ambitious goal to define the way people discover share and communicate First we will leverage the assets we have analyzing consumer preferences to come up with relevant and distinctive services and tapping the creative community around the world for innovative productsAsian Growth One of our key strengths is understanding the consumer in Asia and APAC Asia and APAC is 1 the most populous region in the globe Majority of that is in developing markets APAC continues to be over the last 5 years and for the next 5 years the world39s fastest region for growth The population across Asia includes over 50 youth percentage of population under 25 years of age There is a vociferous appetite for digital products and services not only by Gen YEven in the emerging markets of Asia we see cheaper Smartphones and the impact of mobile and fixed broadband networks China overtook the United States in Q2 as the world39s largest Smartphone market The demand for high quality digital products is growing with network expansion Our consumers want choice personalization and immediacy so our priorities are based directly on customer needsFocus 1 Redefine the TV video experience In developed markets that means coming up with the ability to read customer viewing behavior and present targeted relevant content In developing markets we plan to bring TV through better encoding techniques to feature phones The mobile handset is the only device they use to access the internet and get informationFocus 2 Use mobile devices to discover happenings in the real world That includes using the personalized effect of mobile to reshape the shopping experience with targeted deals and scanning the environment to redeem loyalty With the mobile advertising platform from Amobee SingTel39s 321 million acquisition of the Israeli mobile advertising technology platform we will be able to add context for customers in both developed and developing marketsFocus 3 Create a personal digital lifestream There is value in creating a layer that allows people to better manage their content and allows them to prioritize moments that matter from people that matter to them It is like having a personal assistant that works on any deviceThree Factors for Ongoing Success Besides making strategic acquisitions including Israeli mobile adtech company Amobee earlier this year our continued success requires three things Open Partnerships investing in innovation and bold execution of our plans We are taking a risk a giant leap into the digital space We need to tap the creativity and resources across the world That means entering into complimentary partnerships with other telcos and OTT providers SingTel has already built sizable scale and customer reach through such partnerships It is also means investment through a 200 million fund 164 million USD called Innov8 Our attitude is 39go far stay long see deep39 To be a truly great company we cannot be afraid of traveling in search of new opportunities We are a telco with a transformed mindset to be a multimedia ICT companyLevi Shapiro is a Partner at TMT Strategic Advisors a research and strategy firm focusing on the technology media and telecom sectors He can be reached at levitmtstratcom or via twitter levshapiroRead all Levi39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Unleavened MediaCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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Allen Lew, CEO, Group Digital life at SingTel: "Let Someone Else Be the Dumb, Fat, Pipe" - Levi Shapiro

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