The business challenges that we hear most often from network providers are:

Differentiation: "It's so competitive, and it's getting harder and harder to differentiate ourselves ... there's too much churn of subscribers ..."   Declining ARPUs: "There's increasing pressure on our ARPUs (or ARPGs) ... our airtime charges keep dropping, and we haven't been able to replace that with other services that our customers are willing to pay for. Noone's really willing to pay for content ..."

Everyone agrees that there is enormous untapped potential in the enterprise market, but there are special challenges too:

Where's the ROI?: "Some of our enterprise customers are slow to move ahead with wireless data services because they don't understand the ROI, or see the success stories .... "   Fear of Getting Locked In: "Other enterprise customers are slow to move ahead with data services because they are afraid of getting locked into any one technology ... seems like there's always something new coming out ..."   Resistance to 'Mystery Boxes': "Our enterprise customers are reluctant to make big investments right now (in time or $$), and resistant to installing some new wireless 'mystery box' inside their firewall"

Do you agree, or do you have other challenges? We would to hear your feedback on this - please tell us!

Solutions

To an enterprise customer, nothing makes your network look quite so good as their custom application, running on your devices and network.

Custom applications can differentiate you from your competition, and create 'stickiness' that prevents churn. These custom applications provide the key that unlocks enterprise opportunities that would otherwise be out of reach.

However, there's more to this than just writing software...

To establish credibility early in the sales cycle of an enterprise opportunity, your sales people need to be backed up by technical experts that can speak knowledgably not only about your products, but also competing technologies, about success stories and ROI factors, and about software development and integration processes. It's also important to help your client visualize - to help them quickly conceptualize, to prototype, and to develop their ideas.

Example: A nationwide network provider asked Outr.Net to get involved in a number of enterprise opportunities involving field service applications. Outr.Net worked with the provider and the clients' IT departments (or 3rd party IT providers) to 'storyboard' and prototype each application ... generating excitement and confidence with each client to proceed with the development of their ideas.

During the 'specification' stage, it's important to characterize the capabilities and limitations of your network relative to wireless data applications. It's also important to to able to choose between the best off-the-shelf solutions vs. custom solutions, and combinations of them.

Example: A nationwide cellular network provider asked Outr.Net to help test the rollout of a new GSM/GPRS network. Outr.Net developed test applications to help characterize the reliability and performance of data services, and worked with the providers' technical and sales teams to deploy initial enterprise applications.   Example: A network provider developed an email system based upon the products of a wireless middleware provider, and Outr.Net was brought in to develop the email client for one of the targetted platforms. Outr.Net worked closely with both organizations to deliver a platform-specific email client which was compatible with the selected middleware and over-the-air protocols.

In many cases, a quick, inexpensive custom application is the right first step, if not the final solution. It eliminates the 'mystery box' hurdle, and gives the enterprise client an opportunity to become familiar with your network and devices.

Example: A nationwide network provider directed a client with a field service challenge to Outr.Net. The client ordered their application using the 'building blocks' of Outr.Net's Overnight AppsTM. Outr.Net developed the custom application virtually 'overnight' for just $995, and the client's field force has been using it ever since to track the movement of equipment in the field.

Of course, once any project is underway, it's all about executing - arriving at real-world, maintenance-free solutions as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Example: A nationwide network provider involved Outr.Net in an opportunity with a medical information provider. After participating in design, specification and prototyping, Outr.Net proceeded with the production development of a large-scale end-to-end system.   Example: A nationwide network provider asked Outr.Net to help with some technical roadblocks on a system which was being developed by another software provider whose expertise was on non-wireless environments. Outr.Net was able to identify the causes of the roadblocks and suggest a number of performance and maintainability improvements in just a one-day code review.

In short, Outr.Net does much more than just develop software. We provide technical and business support at every stage of the sales, design, development and deployment process.


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