The Committee to elect Tomi Ahonen for Vodafone CEO

Link: Communities Dominate Brands: Reiterating: It is utter folly, Vodafone to fixed.

Once again Tomi’s published an excellent commentary on Vodafone. I picked out this paragraph on SMS to quote:

Here is what Vodafone should do rather than blunder into fixed telecoms. Its current SMS text messaging revenue is 14%. Its leading rivals like O2 have nearly 20% of total revenues out of SMS. Text messaging is the MOST PROFITABLE service ever created. If Vodafone had one ounce of intellect, it would pour all of its efforts into catching O2 and then passing it – pursuing Norwegian and Irish levels of SMS usage (and then spy on the South Koreans, Singaporeans and Philippinos to find out why these send even more messages). In SMS text messaging Vodafone has a captive audience who are addicted to the service. SMS is so severely under-utilized and mis-marketed and misunderstood, that with the simplest moves Vodafone could raise revenues, profits, AND loyalty.

You have to wonder what some of these big companies are up to. I also wonder what Vodafone would look like taking strategic input from the likes of Tomi.

I reckon they should setup a strategy week session and invite the members of the mobile blogosphere in on a bit of a junket (you know, free sandwiches etc) and learn from them. In order to qualify for an invitation, you’d have to write an opinion piece like Tomi’s. A valuable experience for Vodafone?

I wonder if they’ll pull another Vizzavi with this broadband thing. I remember using and watching that service. I knew it was total bollocks from start to finish. Now, if *I* knew this, what are the highly paid brain surgeons at Vodafone Strategy thinking? It’s always annoying when you see big companies, that are supposed to be dynamic and always-right, screwing up.

Well, I’ll continue to watch and As Tomi points out:

You can rest assured I will return to this theme with time and we’ll track Vodafone’s misfortunes on this lost cause.

I will be watching, reading and soothsaying from the sidelines too 😉