It wouldn’t be an understatement to say that the Fibre wholesale industry has undergone something of a transformation in the last few years.
In analogous terms, it’s been like watching a band you really like, playing to a handful of diehard fans down at the Dog and Duck for years only for them to suddenly catch their break and then everyone’s clamouring for a ticket to their next Wembley show.
Suddenly everybody wants a piece of the action. And rightly so, Fibre helps make life better for everyone.
A huge part of this change in fortunes has been the rise of the Alt-Nets, vibrant young businesses fuelled by big investment and Government grants, all intent on helping to spread the joy of full fibre networks to every nook and cranny of the UK. It’s been a full-on Klondike - style frenzy of digging and building as established incumbents and new disruptors alike eye up potential virgin areas for expansion, all staking their claims for new territories and prospects as they go.
This creation of a patchwork of networks across the UK is inevitably good for customers in the long term – competition is healthy and the benefits of having ultrafast downloads speeds delivered to your doorstep will long outweigh the disruption and complaints that always follow the trench diggers and cable layers.
But in the race to be first to stake our claims it’s important not to run before we can walk. While speed is good it’s not always everything. Just ask the hare and the tortoise.
KCOM’s own deployment of fibre, initially in the Hull area over the past 10 years, and more recently across Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, has taught us the importance of having the key building blocks in place ready to deliver the best customer experience even before the diggers move in. The whole team needs to be aligned from the beginning, from early demand stimulation to pre-sales promotion, order input, in-life support, network availability and capacity, engineering nous and robust provisioning processes.
The temptation is to be hostage to the ‘speed to value’ mantra – build, market, sell. However, this must be resisted! Full stress-tested end to end processes must be in place before the first order is taken.
Also, having a clear go-to-market strategy goes without saying – is it to retail or wholesale? Or both?
Do you sell into the consumer market or business? Or both? If you are going to retail, how will your brand land on the doorstep? – After all you’ll be up against the big boys.
This is where the true value of the channel comes into its own. The UK Reseller channel is hugely diverse, with CPs offering their own unique interpretations of value differentiation to their particular customer segments, which is a blessing to a truly proactive wholesaler. However, the channel also demands quality and it is the reputation of the reseller partner’s business that is on the line if the customer experience is sub-standard.
After all, that band may be playing at Wembley these days – but one duff gig and they could end up back on the club scene with the also-rans.
For more information go to www.kcom.com
