The telecoms tech trap

In a typical financial year, a staggering 88% of telecoms companies experience the failure of a highly anticipated new product..

During the final development stages, top management becomes increasingly convinced that this could be the make-or-break product that comes along once in a generation. The whole company is geared for the launch. Feedback from beta test sites is phenomenal; the buzz on social media and initial reviews on the specialist websites are little short of ecstatic. The product is introduced to the salesforce. There’s a highly motivational product boot camp. During the next few weeks, everyone holds their breath waiting for reaction from customers. Salespeople report great initial enthusiasm from the marketplace and, with a sigh of relief, management begins to wonder whether the early sales projections that seemed so ambitious before the launch should now be revised upwards.

The average telecoms company sees 5.58 products on average failing each year and not selling as well as hoped. This results in a vast waste of resource, not to mention money, that in some cases can prove fatal for the company.

When asked why telecoms sales professionals struggle with introducing new products to market, the most common response (42%) was around ‘customers being resistant to change.’