With the new Directory Services in place, Simon Moores
advises businesses to make sure they know what number will offer
them the best value.
If you make a mobile phone call in the city, I am told
your position can be reliably fixed within 50m, through
triangulation of the mobile phone nodes.
I was visiting 192.Com and was having a demonstration of the
technology it plans to add to its Directory Services (DQ) offering
in what will become a highly competitive market from next
month.
Only about 30% of the population realise that this month, thanks
to deregulation, the old directory enquiries services 192, will be
switched off and we’ll have to choose from among 10 new DQ services
with variations on the number 118, such as BT with 118500, the Gay
& Lesbian Directory with 118453 and the tightly
business-focused 192.Com with 118119.
Most businesses, it appears, haven’t given much or any thought
at all to the costs of using the directory services and which
offers the best value.
Some will be in for a nasty shock when their first phone bill
arrives, because new "added-value" services with call completion
and other attractions could make a directory enquiries call feel
more like a premium rate service.
Strangely enough, of the 10 principal DQ providers, only 192.Com
is focusing exclusively on the enterprise market and it’s the only
one with 87 million records and the electoral roll, cleaned and
grid-referenced to support the arrival of location-based
services.
From their website, by telephone or direct to the corporate Lan,
192.Com hopes to offer business a powerful information service.
An example of this might be a businessman going to a meeting in
London, and wants to locate the exact address of his client.
A call to 118119 identifies his position and the operator offers
to send a map and directions to his iPAQ. Our man is early and is
waiting for a colleague and wishes to find a Starbucks with a
wireless point to catch up with some work while he waits, and so
the operator sends him the positions of the nearest coffee bar to
his position and offers to send the same details to his colleague’s
mobile phone or PDA.
Business-directed DQ calls account for more than half of the UK
market, generating more than 160 million landline minutes per year.
Typical corporate DQ services span number search, consumer and
business list broking, address verification, electoral roll
licences, demographic data, company and director reports.
Future corporate services will include a much broader range of
data, which may include customer e-mail and IP addresses and
third-generation services, which can include video clips.
However, the problem for business lies in knowing how much these
benefits will cost, particularly, as 192’s director Ian Green
points out, if you happen to be a government department making just
under a million calls each year.
My advice, and I’m carrying out detailed research on the market,
is for business to start thinking how it's going to make use of
these new services without paying over the odds.
A great deal of money is going into making these numbers
memorable, such as 118118 and it’s likely that many people will
dial on memory and not on cost.
The best solution for business appears to lie with a hybrid,
phone/Lan/internet information service of the kind that 192.Com is
planning and which appears to offer better control of costs which,
otherwise, might spiral out of control.
The collision of directory-based information with a range of
different identity, mapping and location-based services is about to
create an industry which business will, increasingly, rely upon for
a number of integrated information services.
In theory, such services should be instantly available at the
edge of company Lan - and they soon will be. The problem, however,
lies in the costs management implications of something which was a
previously known quantity with BT.
Is this an IT issue, a telephony issue or a business issue? In
fact, it’s a mix of all three and with August upon us, if you don’t
yet know which of the new DQ services best suits your business
needs and your IT function, then now is possibly a good time to
find out.
What do you think?
Do you have a DQ strategy in place?
Tell us in an e-mail
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Setting the world to rights with the collected thoughts and
opinions of leading industry analystDr Simon
Mooresof Zentelligence.
Acting globally, Zentelligence (Research) advises
governments, suppliers, business and the media on the evolution,
application and delivery of leading-edge technologies and
specialises in the areas of eGovernment and information
security.
For further information on Zentelligence and its research,
presentation and analyst services visitwww.zentelligence.com