Author: Bill Best

There was – of course – a lot of stuff about LTE at MWC this year, and a lot of stuff about WiFi off-load. I haven’t yet figured out how those two co-exist… Build a very expensive LTE network but then off-load all the traffic? It’ll come to me I’m sure.

What I did find fascinating was looking at small cell technology. The Small Cell Forum’s – ex Femtocell forum – stand was very popular and also very informative. Gold star to them. They reported on an Informa forecast that there are now more 3G micro nodeBs than macro and by 2016, 90% of all base stations deployed will be micro/pico or femto, and this is by no means just for indoor coverage/capacity. Have all mobile operators got a strategy for small cells? I can see it being a big part of what they do in the next decade if they start planning now.

Telefónica, Alcatel-Lucent and Samsung announced their collective LTE-readiness and a live demonstration network. In the 2.6GHz band it provided download speeds of 100 Mbit/s and upload between 40 and 60Mbit/s.  It’s using Alcatel-Lucent’s self-organising LightRadio technology which mixes conventional macro network base stations with an underlay of small cells for indoor coverage. The Alcatel-Lucent’s LightRadio solution won the Best Infrastructure Technology Award in the Global Mobile Awards. This is a clear indication that LTE has arrived and emerged into commercial readiness far faster than 3G did. It’s probably too soon for many Operators but this particular genie isn’t going back into any bottle.

Nokia launched the 808 PureView – a mobile phone that comes complete with a 41 megapixel camera! Imagine the file size!! Don’t worry; Nokia have come up with a magic compression trick as well. The 808 won best device launched at MWC and runs on, wait for it……Symbiam. Is their clock running backwards?

MS have put Skype and Skype video on Windows Phone OS – no surprise there but it also means Voice OTT is just round the corner. For operators still reeling from the impact of OTT messenger clients this isn’t the news they wanted to hear.

Rich Communication Suit e 5.0 is now called Joyn. Lapel badges available. We saw a commercial launch in Spain during congress but it seems not all Operators joined in due to – whisper it softly – interoperability issues. Interoperability issues? On RCSe, the interoperable platform? Oh dear!!

The Cloud is omnipresent – even under the clear blue skies of this year’s MWC. Some predict the Cloud will be raining on MNOs’ parade but some MNOs themselves hailed it as their saviour. Seems that OTT was the elephant in the congress hall.

The EU Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, Neely Kroes, is still playing the same old broken record, claiming that reducing roaming charges and termination rates are still the big issue for the industry. Vittorio Colao, made a call for the EU to: “Get on board and help create jobs by supporting mobile in Europe”. Kroes then issued a statement. Specifically called a “message to Vittorio and Vodafone”, she said that she is: “Calling Vodafone’s bluff”, “Takes the side of the Vodafone customer” and “Doesn’t respond well to threats.”

Meanwhile, thousands of jobs were lost in the Mobile Industry in Europe last year. I can remember a time when the EU was at the forefront of creating a mobile industry in Europe and with it investment, jobs and wealth. They seem like bygone days now.

I said to someone at the GSMA that it’s a pity that there isn’t a start-up and small vendor package for congress. He said, “There is – an exhibition pass and the coffee bars!” OK I take the point but has congress become too focussed on the number of CEOs attending and lost a bit of the buzz on the floor that used to make it so exciting? AIthough, I did come across one enterprising outfit that used the forecourt area to create a street art exhibition tool. Very clever, very funny, zero cost, very original.

It has been my honour to act as chair of the judges for the Global Mobile Awards (shameless plug). This year I got to present the technology awards and got to meet the host, comedian Tim Minchin, who was brilliant.

This was the last year at the Fira de Barcelona and although it’s a bit decrepit, I will miss it. It had a certain charm and the location was excellent.  Starting in 2013, the Mobile World Congress will be held at the Fira de Barcelona Gran Via, a move which will provide approximately 50 per cent more space and will accommodate continued strong growth and demand for the event. The 2013 Mobile World Congress will be held 25-28 February, 2013. I think that the location might turn out to be a bit of an issue. A bit off the beaten track and certainly way off the Metro lines, the new centre looks bland and boring but is, perhaps, a fitting venue for MNOs in this decade!

This year’s MWC also saw the passing of power within the GSMA from Rob Conway to Anne Bouverot, and what should read into the job title change from CEO to Director General? Rob spent 12 years at the GSMA and was instrumental in modernising the association which represents all the world’s mobile operators using the GSM family of technologies. Rob was brought in when the Chair of the GSMA rested with the new world and had a mandate to move the GSMA on from a quasi-standards body to an effective trade association able to represent the industry at senior levels and to lobby regulators, ministers and governments around the world on things like spectrum and taxation. Rob also gave the GSMA an effective commercial arm – responsible today for MWC amongst other things – and launched the Development fund, Connected living programme and Mobile NFC initiative. But in these changing times and with the Chair of the association reverting back to Europe it seems the emphasis now seems to be to get the GSMA back to its roots, with a focus on member services and dealing with the issues of interworking and interoperability of new services between operators. So is it a case of out with the new and in with the old?

See you there in 2013.

Bill Best

Having been put back by two weeks from its usual place in the calendar MWC enjoyed the breaking Iberian spring; and the difference this makes to the event is astonishing – as all those poor wet-through souls who attended last year will testify.

Enough about the weather, the GSMA said that more than 67,000 visitors from 205 countries attended the 2012 Mobile World Congress, a new record and 11% up on last year. This was a surprise to many people I spoke to who were talking about downturns, credit crunches and declining revenues. But this view fails to recognise a theme of recent MWC gatherings: With the mobile world changing so fast, many of the exhibitors and attendees are a new breed of mobile species, and one operator’s declining ARPU is another App developer’s opportunity.

I always begin a definition of MWC by looking at who’s there – and who isn’t. So, many of the usual suspects were present: Alcatel-Lucent, ARM, AT&T, Bharti Airtel, China Mobile, Cisco Systems, Citigroup, Ericsson, Facebook, Foursquare, Google, HTC, Huawei, Interpublic Group, ISIS, Juniper Networks, Nokia (back this year after a 2 year boycott – hmm that did them a lot of good didn’t it!), NTT DOCOMO, Sprint Nextel, Qualcomm, Telefónica, Telenor Group, VimpelCom, Vodafone and ZTE. But – and here’s where we detect the changing nature of our industry – some of the not so usual suspects were also in attendance: Best Buy, Citigroup, Booze & Co., eBay, Ford Motor Company, Visa. As for who wasn’t there: Apple (too arrogant?), Amazon (can’t find Barcelona on a map?) T-Mobile (too cost conscious these days), and Openwave (a surprise no-show).

Again with thanks to the GSMA I can report that more than 50% of this year’s Mobile World Congress attendees hold C-level positions, including more than 3,500 CEOs. The trending here is clear – more and more, MWC is a major networking event than an exhibition of mobile technology. That said, MWC 2012 saw 1,500 exhibiting companies in all – clearly a figure not to be sneezed at.

The theme for congress this year was Redefining Mobile. It was left for us to decide exactly what Mobile was being redefined to or as. Some cynics – and there were many – were heard whispering: “redefining mobile – as a utility!” A bit harsh I feel. Perhaps MNOs are set for more industry norms when it comes to EBITDA margins and the heady days of 40% margins are gone forever, but most of them remain strong businesses generating lots of cash, if not lots of new ideas. Hmm, maybe that is a utility!

Up the hill looking down at the rest of congress, both geographically as well as metaphorically, is App Planet. Over 50,000 people visited the hall. It was the most fascinating place and a lot of fun too.  One can see where a lot of future revenue will be generated but how the MNOs get into the value chain is less certain. (Unless they buy up some of these companies).

Google have their view too of course, looking at the mobile world as one large cookie jar. Eric Schmidt was confident that “there will be an Android in every pocket”. (No, that’s not an Android in my pocket Eric, I’m just glad to see you).

And on that note, I’ll finish up now, but you can continue reading about my MWC experience and highlights in part 2…

Why Azenby? It’s a question we’ve been asked a lot recently.  Hopefully we’ve answered this question in this post, but if not, then just drop us an email – we’ll be happy to tell you more.

1. Clients come first

Of all the names in all of the world, we chose ‘Azenby’ after doing what any card-carrying user-centric company would do, and carried out some user research. The ‘users’, in this case, were senior decision makers of choice companies we‘d love to work with across different areas within the mobile ecosystem.  “Speak freely… no hard feelings,” I said. Our interviewees didn’t hold back, offering up honest, sometimes brutal feedback which was exactly what we wanted.

The research started with 7 statements of what we thought we could offer – our value proposition. The questions for respondents were
a) Does this remind you of anyone else?
b) Who have you worked with in this space – what did you like and not like about the experiences?
c) Why might you engage outside consultants?
d) How do you make your supplier selection?
e) Rate each of the 7 statements – how important are they as our value proposition

For obvious reasons, I cannot publish the insights, but I can say that as usual, each conversation took a really interesting turn. We found out some common issues with consultants, our perceived key strengths, potential risks and market opportunities.

I presented the insights back to the group with a revised value proposition. It was really important that we all felt we could sign up to the proposition. We were very clear about what we did and did not want to do. In addition, we worked through our tone of voice – how did we want to be perceived and how did that map to what our respondents had told us.

The User Insights gained from this initial research were key to helping us start the process of building our brand; and now help inform and drive every decision we make around branding, strategy and communications.

2. Finding the Name

I then brought in Katrina Damianou to help establish our brand tone and visual identity. We were looking for a name that was clean, elegant, short and memorable. We also favoured names as near to “A” as possible. Based on one of the key insights from the interviews, we began by working on “Explorer” analogies – playing with words such as “light”, “pilot”, “path”, “torch”, “polar” “route” and guide”, however, these analogies are widely used; and also felt very “done”. We hit a dead end. Katrina suggested a brand brainstorm. Known as “Forced Relationship” this is a fun exercise that forces you to think of your organisation’s brand in terms of another product or service.

Asked, “If your company were a brand of coffee, which would it be?” We were inspired by Monmouth Coffee – something of a favourite with coffee lovers “in the know”; purveyor of speciality coffee, one of the first London coffee shops and with clear, elegant, simple branding. Their name is derived from the street in Covent Garden on which their first shop opened. We loved the street name concept and started searching out possibilities for our own company. Very quickly, Azenby cropped up. It instinctively felt right.

As well as starting with an “A”, the name is an excellent fit with our original Explorer analogies:
• “AZ” = A-to-Z = map /directions = we can help you navigate the mobile landscape.
• The As and Bs = the alternatives = The As and Bs (and A to Z) of mobile = what we know and what we can offer.
We also really like that:
• “ZEN” – implies “relaxation” – serious but relaxed = That’s our style.
• “BY” (pronounced “be”) = to be present & current = Yes. Always.
• Azenby Street also happens to be in Peckham, where Founder and CEO Bill Best grew up. Which is quite a nice little tie-in we thought.

3. Design remix: Creating the logo

We appointed graphic artist, Stuart Crawford, at Inkbot Design to design our visual identity. Armed with a fully-comp creative brief and mood board, Stuart got back to us with a bunch of creative concepts within a week. Here’s the first logo we picked out:

We loved the “beacon” above the “y” (we named it the “beacon” as in: the light on top of the lighthouse a torch that guides the way). We were also into the edgy-looking “z”.  We also liked elements from this concept:

The split “A” in this logo reminded us of an arrowhead, symbolising the “direction” we offer clients. And we really liked how the same arrowhead, inverted, could be used to construct the letter “Y”. We were also excited by the observation that Stuart had used the very same arrow to form the shape of the beacon insignia from the first logo concept. Brilliant, we thought; let’s combine the two logos and see what comes out. Et voila! The eventual Azenby logo was a veritable mash-up of two original designs and we love it!

4. Colour

“If Azenby were a type of food, what food would it be?” “Sushi”, we replied. Why? Because sushi is understated, minimal and intricately constructed from the finest, freshest ingredients. Sushi thus became our inspiration for the Azenby colour palette. Introducing: our main colour, Tuna Sashimi Red; and our accent colours, Rice Grey, Wasabi, Seaweed, Prawn, and Salmon.

5. Developing the Website

With the help of Todd Halfpenny at Gingerbread Design, we took all the visual elements Stuart had created and the user insights and got to work on our website. Katrina produced the copy, establishing a tone of voice to support our visual identity. As the entire look and feel of the site is, of course, based on our user insights, we’re delighted that, so far, the feedback we have had has picked up on some of the key points we aimed to get across:
“When I look at your Home Page I want to read more”
“You look very different from other consultants – they look like they use the same template and mostly say the same things”
“It’s clear from the content that there is a lot of experience here”
“It is clean and simple…”
“Very open and transparent approach”

And that is the story of how we got to Azenby’s name, branding and proposition. Not that our work here is done. We want to ensure that the Azenby brand remains fresh and relevant. With this in mind, we’re continually listening and taking feedback on board…