Strategic Telecommunications Marketing (STM)
We have found Mr. Bergman to not only be an expert in the telecommunications field, but he also is a very creative yet practical thinker. He is not "ivory tower" and realizes the financial limits that any emerging or expanding business must work within. To put it simply, Steve just steps in and saves us money. 
Molly Flanagan, President
Compusec Corporation
Strategic Telecommunications Marketing (STM) applies when the telecommunications focus expands from satisfying internal operations requirements to include the generation of new revenue streams. Examples of such capabilities are resale of telephone service within a building or local area, providing virtual or actual call center capabilities, and providing telecommunications business continuity services to partners up and down a client's supply chain.
Section Content
Tenant Services Help Pay the Rent deals with resale of telecommunications services, from sharing a telecommunications system with subtenants to offering services throughout a local area and beyond.
Turning a Business Contingency Plan into a Business Opportunity discusses how to leverage an investment in contingency planning into a profitable service for others who have the need but who don't have a plan.
If your Plans or Aspirations Go Beyond STM...
At times, client management may decide to turn a Strategic Telecommunications Planning or Marketing application into an independent venture or profit center, entering a new business as a manufacturer/service provider or distributor/reseller. Marketing assumes greater importance, the technology becomes more secondary, and the scope of Teleconvergence‘s assistance broadens considerably into the marketing discipline we call Full Cycle Business Development
Tenant Services Help Pay the Rent
Many companies sublet their rental space to others or they rent out unoccupied space in buildings they own. Given the right circumstances – or rather, in this case, creating the right circumstances -- adding telephone service, ranging from telephone lines to full system capabilities, in addition to bare space, can make excellent financial and strategic sense for everyone concerned. The owner receives incremental income while the tenant or sub-lessee pays less with fewer obligations while getting more than he or she could hope to obtain otherwise.
Win-wins are indeed possible, but only if designed properly from the start. Moreover, newer technologies enable farsighted telecom entrepreneurs to extend their coverage area past the building to the local area and beyond.
The same capabilities can also be extended up and down the supply chain and elsewhere, enabling virtual enterprises if desired, both traditional and VoIP-based, and financially justifying the addition of such otherwise cost-prohibitive applications as direct inward calling to individuals, unified messaging, call centers, automated call screening, and multilingual voice mail.
These capabilities not only provide excellent ROI, but create a long-term secondary income stream as well.
Please note that these are existing business services being extended to other businesses. For extending the reach of the business to residential services, please see the section on VoIP Business Opportunities.
If the concepts of potentially building out your organization’s telecom capability to turn it from a cost center into a profit center is of interest to you, be sure to also read the companion piece, Turning a Business Contingency Plan into a Business Opportunity. Part of the responsibility of offering such telecom services is striving to ensure that they continue to function during adverse conditions, or worse. And a good part of the validation of your business proposition is that you’ve added value by incorporating contingency planning without charging an unreasonable premium for it.
If this way of looking at the technology as a business opportunity appeals to you, please include it in your agenda when you contact us.
Turning a Business Contingency Plan into a Business Opportunity
Either during or after a client creates and implements emergency/disaster contingency plans – and if it’s made part of the plan – the client has the opportunity to recapture (or at least partially offset) of the cost of that plan and turn it into a recurring profit center.
While Telecommunications Continuity Planning tries to ensure that a client remains in operation, it’s not something that can be outsourced unless the client plans plans to share his or her communications system as well. And if that’s also a possibility, then be sure to also read Tenant Services Help Pay the Rent.
However, a client can provide Business/Natural Disaster Continuity Planning and Preparedness services to his or her customers and/or suppliers for mutual benefit without also having to offer resale of telecomunications services.
Here’s our advice to our clients in this position:
There's no reason to keep this wonderful strategic capability a secret. You’ve become a more reliable, hence more valuable strategic partner to both your suppliers and your customers. Make sure you publicize the fact that you have additional capacity and are willing to allow a limited number of strategic partners to share it. You are not going to become or pose as disaster recovery experts. You can tell them to have their Plan A in place, and all you are offering is a Plan B that they don't have to develop themselves. Those with plan As will appreciate and will be grateful for the opportunity, whether or not they choose to avail themselves of it. Those without Plan As will (or at least should) be doubly grateful.
Your suppliers will be interested in what you've done because you've strengthened your part in their distribution chain. By informing them in detail about how you've secured your operating continuity you will make them feel less secure and more vulnerable about theirs.
The key point is, you are not proposing to assume any responsibility for their operations. You simply can make available to them the same tools with which they can secure their own operations, and as part of your service, you will help guide them through the training and implementation process. Why does this make sense for them? Because they will not have to undergo all the learning and implementation issues you faced. Since they will not have the exact same needs, they will not use the same resources as you. If they are in a different time zone or operate over different time zones, they may be affected while you are not. And once the relationship is in place, your supplier will have an additional incentive to help you during difficult times.
Your customers will have similar incentives. Those too small to have the financial or technical resources to forge their own plans will be receptive to a cost-effective solution. Those capable of implementing such plans by themselves may not have the time or budget for it. Equally, they may decide to take advantage of your platform because you are now perceived as such a reliable supplier.
Ultimately, you may get enough businesses on board to justify adding additional features, robustness, and redundancy, the cost of which your new partners should be more than willing to help you shoulder as part of their ongoing service charges.
It's an open, honest, win-win for all. And aren't those the best investments?