My first proper job after leaving college was with a small and not very well known radio telecommunications company called RACAL.  As a fresh-faced wet behind the ears engineer but a wannabe Gordon Geckko (Wall Street 1987) I began my career as a mobile telecommunications Account Executive. 

As part of the package, along with a shiny brief-case that opened up – James Bond style – into a rather snazzy presenter that aided the complex explanation of a seven cell repeat pattern followed by the “FAB’s” of mobile communications (that’s features advantages and benefits, for those of you that didn’t attend the rather corny 1980’s school of selling delivered by an ex-double glazing salesman sporting a pale grey suite and pink socks) were the keys to a Ford Sierra complete with a hanger in the back for my new Moss Bros suit jacket and, screwed rather unceremoniously to the dashboard was my mobile phone! I’d arrived!

But it got better, much better!  When I wasn’t in the car driving in the ‘fast lane’ of the M4 to Newbury (actually it was the middle lane, so that people passing me in the outside lane could see that I was on the phone) I could ‘do lunch’ and in the evenings I would frequent a highly popular wine-bar in Guildford where I could rub shoulders with other shoulder padded jacket wearing, slick backed haired “dealers”. Only I went one better.  I would park the Sierra somewhere obvious, remove the handset of my car phone from its utilitarian (Russian tank utilitarian) dash board clamp and go to the boot where I would unscrew, unclip, disconnect, slide, pull and twist a metal box from another utilitarian clamp, connect this to the handset that I had removed earlier and then attach a leatherette carry strap – I was now in “Transportable mode”!  It is now inconceivable to imagine that when this piece of hi-tech, high fashion equipment was on the bar next to me I was “It”!

The reason however, for having this amazing piece of equipment, was not as I believed to look cool, but was in fact to go out and convince other people that having a mobile phone was a good idea; it might save time, money or make them more efficient. (These are FAB’s!)  In fact we had to make up loads of FAB’s in order to try and get people to part with money for what at this time was a gimmick!  I can remember sitting in people’s offices, wearing my shiny suite, using, with great style and panache my shiny briefcase, flip chart extoling the virtues of owning a mobile phone; and the biggest objection I would get… “Why do I want a mobile phone when I’ve got a phone on my desk?” 

Back in the day, I knew mobile would be big, I knew that in time it would catch on and when Racal, the small telecoms company that I worked for eventually spun out a mobile company called Vodafone and  celebrated it’s twenty thousandth connection,  we all knew that mobile was the place to carve out a career. What we had no way of predicting was the sheer  scale to which mobile would change the planet, and how it would alter our lives to an extent that now, mobile is so much an ingrained part of human existence, it is inconceivable to imagine life without it. 

The other day, while sitting in the office with a new client, by the way I have dropped the shiny suit and shoulder pads! I was reminded of my early days selling mobile phones, when a remark was made about PC’s “why will people want a PC on their desk” my client hypothesised “when they can do everything on a mobile” and that got me thinking; during those very early days of mobile, none of us were able to predict the extent that it would change our lives  nor were any of us  able to truly imagine the size, success  and impact that the internet would have, what then happens when you converge these two, I would like to say technologies but these are more than simply technologies now, they are two of the bedrocks of human life. 

Can we use the history of the growth of mobile and the Internet as a measure what will be, or will something far bigger, far more monumental happen?

Whatever happens, I think it’s pretty safe to say that mobile web is going to be huge, which just for the record, I have been saying for about three years and just like my early days in mobile when people genuinely looked at me and said that mobile would never catch on, until very recently most people I spoke to about mobile web said exactly the same thing, thankfully this sentiment has changed in recent months and now everyone’s talking about it!

I do try my best and take the responsibility of being Sales Director seriously, so when it comes to putting on the bemoko Christmas party it’s essential that everyone in the business has a good time!…feel the pressure??  Absolutely!  I have to do big pitches to all sorts of clients but these are nothing compared to the stress of making sure that everything goes to plan, the taxis turn up, the food is hot, the booze flows and Francis from accounts feels that coming out on a snowy evening, leaving the kids to the mercy of next door’s 14 year old baby sitter, is worth it!

And, this year was no exception, so you can imagine my delight when two of the stars from the XFactor arrived for a “quiet pre gig dinner” at the restaurant where we were celebrating and sat on the table next to us!

Wow!                                                   

Did I take the glory for arranging this extravaganza?!  Did I take the accolade for starting the chant…”Wagner, Wagner” which got the whole restaurant buzzing with excitement? You bet!

And this got me thinking…why did millions of viewers of the XFactor keep Wagner, a rubbish singer, wooden dancer and frankly long haired oddball in the competition for as many weeks as they did? And why…when he ventured into our party did he score such a hit?

I have concluded that popularity is not a sign of quality, sense or even value, so how do we, in the mobile world assess, determine and predict what is going to be the next big thing?  I remember not many years ago the Motorola Razor being the number one best selling mobile, not because it was any good, but because it was pink! The shops were sold out globally and the mobile networks were desperate to get their hands on an exclusive deal. 

The vagaries of the mobile market are going to pose a particular problem to any brand or retailer looking to break into the mobile space.  With the myriad of different mobile platforms, handsets and software versions, deciding which way to go is going to be a real nightmare.  I guess you could play safe, and go for max exposure in terms of “bang for your buck” … yep you’ve got it, do an iPhone App… but make sure you promote it hard and get the maximum exposure possible out of “having an app” – this PR should be your whole raison d’être for doing it. If you don’t invest in promoting it in this way, don’t be surprised to find that it makes no money and has few downloads; competing with ‘Angry Birds’ with an app that tells you where the local DIY store is, is never going  cut it!

Alternatively you could try and do a mobile web site, unfortunately most approaches take the form of developing for the easiest platform first and then tackling the rest later or at best resizing some style sheets to try and fit as many mobiles as possible, frankly both approaches are mediocre, but then based on the fact that millions of consumers voted for Wagner in the XFactor, maybe no one will care.

You could re-think your approach and decide that mediocre is not representative of your brand and that delivering ‘real’ value is what you are all about. You could develop a mobile strategy that works in conjunction with your sales and marketing plan, complementing it, driving market share and sales. You could take a fresh look at the technology available to deliver mobile web properly, and give an amazing mobile experience to your customers.

Multi Channel seems to be the Buzz on retailer’s lips, and so it should be.  I have been involved in retail technology and entertainment since the mid 90’s, back then the retailers were driving the technology providers, asking for ever more interesting and engaging products and services in order to entice and involve the customer. But that has all changed, technology has overtaken the industry and our customers are crying out for easier, faster and more efficient ways to buy from us!

So why should this be – perhaps the last 10 years of economic growth prior to the crash meant that we didn’t  need to invest in customer engagement?  We opened our doors, let the customers in and let the tills sing! Perhaps it’s that we have been investing but just in the wrong places – focussed on the “store”, blinkered by sticking to knitting, opening more and more outlets in order to cope with the customers thronging in – I live in a small town and I know at least five retailers that have two or more branches of the same brand not more than a mile apart!

Whatever the reason, the fact is that we’re well behind the curve. Customer expectation of what technology can deliver is so far ahead of where we are, it doesn’t matter what we do, at best it will be seen as nothing special and at worst be criticized and pulled apart publically across the very technology we are trying to embrace!

So what do we do? Firstly we need to stop being hoodwinked by our technology suppliers, another symptom of 10 years of growth has been complacent suppliers, giving us half rate technology at overinflated prices, in every other area of technology it’s a widely understood and agreed rule of thumb that over a given period, technology doubles in speed or functionality and halves in price – ask yourself a question; is the technology that underpins your business delivering twice the value and halved in price?  I have visited a number of international retailers in recent months that are being held to ransom, they have spent so much on certain technology they daren’t change! Imagine explaining to the shareholders you want to ditch a piece of technology that you’ve invested £20m in over the past 2 years! You’d probably want to take the keys to your company car with you so you can leave them on the way out of the meeting!

We also all need to stop thinking in the now, if we try and deliver what our customers want and expect now, by the time we’ve written the strategy paper on it and scoped out the technology, the project will be out of date!  We need to think “future” and I mean future, I’m not on about an iPhone app, anyone can do that and frankly whilst nice it’s hardly groundbreaking,  I’m on about SciFi technology, I’m on about stuff we can’t do now, stuff that will challenge our technology suppliers, and get them excited and drive them to deliver.

Back to the way it was when we were in control and drove the future technology of our business, back to when we “wowed” the customer.