In a massively competitive environment, businesses are racing to find new avenues for revenue sources. Experts are divided on whether businesses should focus more on monetization over optimization or vice versa in order to achieve this goal.
The Monetization Perspective
Big Data is becoming bigger every day and can provide a wealth of monetization opportunities. In the digital space, enormous data is produced through business processes, electronic devices, sensors, and users participating in the Internet of Things. This leads to a potential data mine for the achievement of business objectives, research, and the social good.
Using affiliate marketing to monetize a blog is a good example. Posting positive product reviews, banner ads, anchor links, or other value adding tools can help promote a product or service and lead to improved conversions and more sales.
In addition, data exchange or trading is now a common practice. This is especially beneficial for businesses that don’t have the time or expertise to produce, collect, and collate data that is important for their operations. With a minimal fee, there are platforms that:
- connect buyers and sellers
- connect or include a device or sensor into a data supply chain
- offer transmission services for uploading or downloading data
- and many more data-related operations
The Optimization Side
For the new players in the communications services providers (CSP) sector, they cannot afford to sit back and wait. Early adoption of innovative optimization has its risks, but CSPs don’t want to take the greater risk of missing out on an otherwise potential opportunity.
While earlier operators are finding new ways to generate revenue from customer data, the forward-thinking ones are more focused on how to leverage business intelligence and advanced analytics to optimize internal processes, services, and networks.
Big customer data offers a great opportunity to gain a real-time view of customer needs, problems, and challenges. An in-depth analysis of this data can help businesses optimize processes and services that have not been maximized.
Important Takeaways
While some analysts claim that monetization and optimization are on the opposite sides of the fence, optimization can be leveraged for monetization. In a sense, monetization and optimization have interlocking roles that have the same end goal.
A roaming service on a mobile phone is in itself an optimization application that comes with a monetary value. Pocket Wi-Fi on mobile gadgets — like phones, tablets, and laptops — are also important applications for users on the go. So while optimizing the gadget for a more improved user experience, businesses are also monetizing the service for added business revenues.
Doing business is not just looking for ways to make money, but optimizing the connectivity between users and products or services. Giving the best experience to customers through optimization is key to monetization.
Mobile operators need not be overwhelmed by today’s converging business environment. Instead, they should look inward to assess their existing resources and look for new options to strike a delicate balance between monetization and optimization.