Presse / Medienecho

An article about the results of the 12th edition of the joint annual telecoms report from Arthur D. Little and Exane BNP Paribas. The report says it does not expect the European telco sector to return to growth in the next three years and that LTE services need to generate monthly data ARPUs of at least €17 by 2016, in order to halt the overall decline in European mobile revenues. Didier Levy, Director of Arthur D. Little’s TIME Practice, is quoted as saying “Current 4G LTE pricing is more-or-less in line with 3G. Some players are pricing it higher and some have publically said it will be the same as 3G. To reach €17, the challenge is extremely high; and even then, the figure would only be enough to return the sector to flat growth.”

The 12th edition of the joint annual telecoms report from Arthur D. Little and Exane BNP Paribas has revealed that although moving to 4G LTE is a no-brainer for European telecoms operators, it is unlikely to restore better pricing conditions in the European mobile industry. Didier Levy, Director of Arthur D. Little’s TIME Practice, is quoted as saying “4G will be a commercial success in Europe but is unlikely to restore pricing power in the industry. To deliver business growth there are a number of innovation areas European operators should focus on, including introducing shared data plans which are already successful in the US.”

An article written by Michael Kruse and Julia Heizinger of Arthur D. Little about offshore wind energy. Europe continues to be leading in the global offshore wind market – with the United Kingdom leading the way as one of the most experienced. However, the challenging development goals set up until 2020 need to be corrected while continuing to be ambitious. In the article, Michael and Julia the discuss current challenges, the offshore and maritime industry as well as the outlook for offshore energy developments.

An article written by Rick Eagar, Partner at Arthur D. Little about innovation. The article draws on the results of Arthur D. Little’s 8th Global Innovation Excellence Study, which sought to explore the processes and approaches used by companies for innovation management, show how these companies contribute to innovation success, and enable participating companies to benchmark themselves against peers. Rick says that innovation performance is actually worse now that it was three years ago and has significantly decreased by up to 25%.

In recent years, the term “crowd innovation” has been used many times in the press, articles and companies. It describes the process of sourcing ideas and solutions from a large crowd of people. Arthur D. Little has defined an implementation approach for crowd innovation initiatives.  In this approach, the organization should first decide if crowd innovation is the best option for creating ideas and solutions to a given problem. Once this has been decided, there is a defining phase, preparation phase and execution phase. The ideas are then analyzed. During the implementation phase, the innovation is launched into the market or the new solution is incorporated into the organization. Advantages of this approach are low costs, the multiplier effect and a growing innovative culture in the organization.

As the consumption of data rises, Austrian mobile operators see an opportunity to end the price battle that has been weighing on their results for years. So far, Austrian operators have mainly offered flat rate tariffs, however Telekom Austria AG has now introduced new tariffs, charging customers based on the transmission speed and volume of data they choose. Karim Taga, Managing Partner at Arthur D. Little was quoted saying that clients have to pay for consumption rises.

Collecting and developing new ideas is not enough to strengthen know-how and creativity of German medium-sized companies. They have to be put into practice. In the “Global Innovation Excellence Study” Arthur D. Little evaluated more than 650 answers of global board members concerning their innovation management’s best practices. “As a general rule, ideas management and product- and portfolio management are the most important dimensions”, says Markus Achtert, co-author of the study. Companies have to foster an innovation culture. Achtert: “When an employee notices that no attention is paid to his idea the source will dry up.”

They are young, flexible and ambitious – within a few years, Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE have become world class companies as well as a few other Chinese firms that frighten German companies. Markus Achtert, China-Expert at global management consultancy Arthur D. Little, expects quite a range of Chinese World players in the long run. “They will forge strategic alliances and new players with considerable size will no longer be limited to the high-tech sector.”

An article written by Nicolai Schettgen and Karim Taga from Arthur D. Little about Mobile NFC. The article draws on results of a recent global survey comprising of 70 interviews and sheds light on the highly controversial topic. Nicolai and Karim discuss the potential and risks of NFC, financial benefits and key success factors.

In an interview in Germany’s business daily Handelsblatt, ADL’s AMG-Partner Carsten Kahner sheds light on the car-sharing markets that all major German automotive companies are trying to get a foot in. “OEMs know: They cannot only sell cars anymore. They have to sell mobility, too.” The strong growth in the German car-sharing market over the last years is mainly due to price reductions and vouchers. Now it’s all about increasing profitability and retaining customers.