The Killer Service
By Amit Asaravala
It's been a while now since companies like Microsoft and IBM discovered that selling services could be as profitable as selling products. In fact, in many cases, services have been more profitable than products because the accounting department gets to keep billing customers on a regular basis. But this is no secret, and likewise, it's no surprise that there are now a number of service industries focused solely on bolstering the Internet and companies that do business there.
What is surprising, though, is the imbalance of business services when compared to consumer Internet services. The former boasts a long list of terms that can be easily reduced to acronyms, like application service providers (ASPs), Internet service providers (ISPs), managed service providers (MSPs), and Web hosting companies (WHCs). The latter, on the other hand, is mainly limited to ISPs like: AOL, MSN, and Earthlink. And as columnist Mimi Rosenheim points out in this month's "Corporate Strategist," the services provided by such companies are quickly becoming commodities.
To be inclusive and to keep up with media tradition of mentioning NTT DoCoMo whenever possible, i-Mode is one example of a consumer service success story—in Japan, at least. Those of us in the U.S. and other wirelessly repressed countries are wondering whether it's worth it to pay providers like Sprint an extra $10 per month to check our stocks while away from our desks. With the exception of day traders and financial professionals, how many times have mobile phone users initiated sudden stock trades after checking the latest quotes?
I should also mention the recent rash of bill payment services, like
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