Integrated strategy essential in the evolution towards the operator as an enabler

An interesting addendum to yesterdays blog on the importance of M2M and the operator as an enabler.  Essentially this article says that if you are going to invest in M2M then go for 3G technology as opposed to 2G.  While 2G is a lot cheaper in the short-term the whole life cost over the expected lifetime of 25 years is punitive.

This is a good example as to why the next phase of telecoms needs to be driven by an integrated strategy, rather than a set of individual departments making short-term tactical decisions.  For example, the whole industry approach to exploiting the games and entertainment market over the past 3 years has been plagued with this sort of tactical, short-termism.  Separate islands of functionality were set up by operators with their own very limited budgets and P&L's. And when these islands failed to deliver significant short-term revenue (of the scale that impacted the whole organisational top line) they were starved of resources and eventually outsourced to low cost managed service operators.  

Operators need to ensure that they don't make these same mistakes when going after the M2M business and the other B2B opportunities in healthcare, automotive and finance.  If they leave the exploitation of these opportunities to different business units going after distinct tactical opportunities then they are likely to fail.  This phase of their evolution has to be driven by a top-down strategic vision and plan!