MWC: Big Trust emerges as key issue
MOBILE
By BiztechAfrica – Feb. 26, 2014, 8:35 a.m.
As big data analytics creates new opportunities for monetizing customer data, the aggression in its exploitation is driving mistrust among consumers. This year at MWC, strategies for earning trust can be seen everywhere as the telecoms industry realises that to successfully monetize of subscribers’ big data they need to first earn far greater trust from them – Ovum calls this Big Trust.
Mark Little, principal analyst at Ovum believes: “Earning Big Trust will be essential if telcos’ fledgling digital units are going to balance profits with sustainability.”
In some of the most prominent Big Trust moves from Day 1 at MWC:
- In her MWC keynote, Chua Sock Koong, Group CEO for Singtel, said that a ‘key way operators can avoid disintermediation is to leverage their position of trust with customers in a climate of increasing concern over data privacy’.
- Swisscom’s partnership with WISeKey was announced providing Trusted Encrypted Personal Clouds stored in Switzerland. WISeID says their Personal Cloud ‘provides trusted digital identities via mobile and desktop apps for individuals and corporations performing confidential transactions on open Internet’.
- Orange makes an industry-wide call to action regards digital trust; to be more transparent about data usage and sharing, calling for tools to allow consumers to control their data, and for MNO’s to be the consumer champion.
- Today saw the launch of Blackphone, the latest in ‘counter-measure’ chic from the Silent Circle and Geeksphone joint venture, offering a full suite of applications giving worldwide users unprecedented control over privacy and security.
“These announcements show the industry increasingly understands that trading on trust-first rather than on data-first establishes a game-changing position against data-reliant internet giants,” says Little. “As operators are not reliant on the remarketing of subscribers’ data they can afford to give them more control of over their data and more transparency, building the trust-equity of their brand at the same time. Building Big Trust enables a more sustainable model for monetizing subscriber data as well as opening up entirely new opportunities for trust-based services.”
