Redefining Smartphone Retail: A Fresh Perspective

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Redefining Smartphone retail

For telecom operators, the various geopolitical and macroeconomic influences have posed significant challenges to their smartphone-related expenses. Inflation in particular has surged globally in 2022 and is projected to remain elevated till 2026, albeit gradually decreasing. In this blog we explore what factors are causing financial strain on telcos and the ways to mitigate them by combining the extensibility of Odoo ERP and the engineering prowess of Aarav Solutions.

Inflationary pressures could reduce telco earnings

In response to several geopolitical and macroeconomic influences, inflation has surged globally. Central banks worldwide reduced interest rates to stimulate spending post-COVID-19, fueling inflation growth across sectors. Factors like escalating energy costs and unavailability of key minerals for tech production in Europe due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict have also contributed to inflation. Countries like the US, Germany, and France, historically known for stable inflation rates, are now facing some of the highest inflation levels in recent decades due to the global inflationary impact.

Inflation across countries
Inflation across countries

Moreover, with the advent of 5G networks, the transition to 5G-enabled smartphone devices may incur higher costs compared to past consumer hardware upgrades. In a period where smartphone-related expenditures already place pressure on their profit margins, several telcos find themselves unable to bear the additional financial load of enhancing smartphone affordability for consumers.

 

What are some of the ways telcos can overcome the financial strain caused by smartphone-related expenses?

  1. Implement a comprehensive End-to-End (E2E) Device Life-Cycle Management approach:
    • This involves tightly coordinating activities across supply chain, sales, marketing, and procurement teams to drive synergies and optimize costs.
    • Key levers include securitization, re-commerce (repair/resell), and insurance programs.

    E2E lifecycle

  2.  

  3. Leverage the secondary market for used smartphones
    • This involves tightly coordinating activities across supply chain, sales, marketing, and procurement teams to drive synergies and optimize costs.
    • Key levers include securitization, re-commerce (repair/resell), and insurance programs.
  4.  

  5. Implement insurance and other value-added services
    • Offering branded insurance plans bundled with additional services like password protection and cloud storage can generate ancillary revenues.
    • These services can also help increase customer “stickiness” and reduce churn.
  6.  

  7. Optimize procurement and marketing coordination: Tight coordination between procurement, marketing, and supply chain teams can lead to better negotiation with OEMs and more effective promotional campaigns.
  8. Team Coordination 

  9. Revamping processes to raise customer satisfaction, lower costs: Poor customer experiences, excessive expenses, delays, and mistakes often stem from ineffective processes. The remedy appears simple: revamping processes to minimize or eradicate inefficiencies by:
    • Generating the required insight to gain a deep understanding of the customers, followed by Activity baselining & Volumetrics and Value stream mapping & process mining.
    • Utilizing agile methodologies, a holistic cross-functional strategy is employed, organizing teams to cover the entire change life cycle and the complete customer journey.
    • Enabling lasting change by embracing End-to-End workflow orchestration and Gen AI-enabled automation and co-piloting.

By adopting a comprehensive E2E approach and leveraging these strategies, telcos can mitigate the financial strain caused by rising smartphone-related expenses and ensure the sustainability of their handset business.
 

How can Odoo ERP help telcos address the key challenges they face?

  1. End-to-End (E2E) Device Life-Cycle Management: Odoo’s modular structure provides the necessary tools to manage the entire device life-cycle:
  2. E2E device lifecycle management
     

  3. Leverage the Secondary Market for Used Smartphones: Odoo’s flexibility allows telcos to:Secondary market for smartphones
  4.  

  5. Integration with third-parties to offer value-added services: Odoo’s modular design allows telcos to seamlessly integrate with third-party applications to provide insurance and other value-added services: Third-party integration
  6.  

  7. Optimize Procurement and Marketing Coordination: Odoo’s integrated ERP system enables better coordination between procurement, marketing, and supply chain teams.
  8. Optimize internal team coordination  

  9. Transformation that is truly transformative: A truly transformative digital transformation program focussing on generating the required insight, setting the delivery process up for success, and enabling lasting change.
  10. True digital transformation

By leveraging Odoo’s comprehensive ERP capabilities, telcos can address the key challenges they face in their mobile/phone launch operations, streamlining processes, reducing costs, and enhancing customer satisfaction.

 

Business benefits

The benefits of offering smartphone subscription programs for telcos include:

Business benefits
 

By leveraging these Odoo ERP modules, telcos can streamline the implementation of end-to-end smartphone lifecycle management by offering subscription programs, and effective value-added services and tapping into the widely used smartphone market. This allows customers to use the best smartphones without breaking the bank and being concerned about reliability issues.

 

Why choose Aarav Solutions as your implementation partner?

Domain Expertise

  • Extensive industry experience: With years of experience in the telecommunications sector, Aarav Solutions deeply understands the unique challenges faced by telcos.
  • Understanding of Device Lifecycle Management: Aarav’s team comprehensively understands smartphone assets, including procurement, refurbishment, maintenance, and decommissioning.

Technology expertise

  • Accredited Odoo partner: As certified Odoo experts, Aarav Solutions excels in implementing and customizing Odoo solutions to meet the specific business needs of telcos.
  • Engineering prowess: Aarav’s engineering expertise has been proven in high-volume commerce transactions, which they are now bringing to Odoo-based solutions.
  • Seamless integration and customization: Aarav Solutions has the ability to create accelerators for micro-functionality while retaining the value of connected ERP systems and leveraging Odoo’s high customizability.
  • Expertise in Gen AI: Tailored to business needs and specifications, we can craft bespoke Gen AI models that seamlessly integrate with business processes.

Global Presence

  • Aarav Solutions is present across the world, enabling them to support multi-country operations for telcos with their Odoo-based solutions.

 

Conclusion

By combining domain expertise, technology proficiency, and global reach, we are well-positioned to deliver a tailored Odoo-based solution that addresses the unique challenges and requirements of telcos in the dynamic telecommunications industry. Join us to overcome the financial stress caused by smartphone-related expenses with the power of Odoo and the capabilities of Aarav. Register for a demo today to explore how we can streamline your business journey. Contact us at contact@aaravsolutions.com for further details.

 
Read our blog on how to transform Telecom Roadshow Management with Odoo.