Telecom Operators Business Model Innovation In The Mobile Internet Era

The communication industry is entering the mobile Internet era. The rapiddevelopment of mobile Internet has brought about not only huge changes to theecological chain of the communication industry, but also great challenges to thetraditional business model of telecom operators. In the mobile Internet era, telecomoperators are further "pipelined," and in terms of traffic operations they face aprominent problem that traffic flows increase but revenues do not. Moreover, theirmanagement and organization are obviously unaccustomed to the businesscharacteristics of the mobile Internet. How to realize sustainable development andachieve profitability in the mobile Internet era is a subject shared by global telecomoperators, and business model innovation has become a necessity of all telecomoperators in the mobile Internet era.Based on the fundamental theory of business model and general concepts ofbusiness model innovation, and by using the methods of investigation, research,induction, deductive reasoning, and case analysis, this paper discusses the developmentof the communication industry, the status quo of telecom operators, and thedevelopment situation and trend of the Internet and the mobile Internet, and analyzes theindustrial characteristics in the mobile Internet era, and the mobile Internet’s influenceon the communication industry and the challenges to the traditional business model oftelecom operators. By using the SWOT method, the paper provides a comprehensiveanalysis on the internal advantages and disadvantages of telecom operators, as well asexternal opportunities and threats in the mobile Internet era. In this paper, the basicconcepts, direction, contents, and general principles for business model innovation inthe mobile Internet era are derived by using the SWOT matrix analysis. Based on suchconcepts and principles, several specific cases and strategic suggestions about businessmodel innovation are proposed.This paper suggests that telecom operators should behave with caution in themobile Internet era. Building intelligent pipe and application platforms should be thebasic direction of business model innovation for telecom operators in the mobile Internet era. Specifically speaking, telecom operators should take user experience asbasic principle and traffic operations as main objective, and build intelligent pipe thatcan identify applications, manage traffic, and charge services, as well as viscousplatforms that can analyze applications, integrate businesses, and are optional for users.For this reason, telecom operators should consider pipeline management and useranalysis as key means and the win-win and operation along the industrial chain as basicrequirements, in order to realize new business value with personalized and differentiatedservices by building intelligent pipelines and application platforms. Cloud computing,big data, mobile payment, industrial application, and smart city among others should beconsidered as specific case businesses for business model innovation to be vigorouslycarried forward by telecom operators in the mobile Internet era.