The second annual GSMA mWomen Seminar at Mobile World Congress, sponsored by Qualcomm’s Wireless Reach and AusAID, was a great success, with a fully-packed agenda and standing-room only crowd ready to discuss both the challenges and opportunities for creating commercially successful, relevant mobile offerings for underserved women. Lee Epting, Director, Content Services, Vodafone Group moderated a distinguished panel of mobile industry executives, which included Mary McDowell, Executive Vice President, Mobile Phones, Nokia; N. Rajaram, Chief Marketing Officer, Bharti Airtel; Shawn A. Covell, Vice President, Qualcomm Government Affairs and Laszlo Barta, Director & Chief Commercial Officer, PT Indosat Tbk.
The panellists discussed both their personal experiences in commercially targeting women and also those of their organisations. It was clear that the panel felt it was vital to understand the cultural context, needs and wants of female consumers in emerging markets to make viable solutions which women were willing and able to pay for.
Laszlo Barta discussed how Indosat’s research had shown that women felt it was important to know where their family was and how the company had used that customer insight to develop a woman-focussed friends and family tariff that had attracted one million subscribers with its first three months. N. Rajaram highlighted how access is the single biggest barrier to women’s mobile ownership. He said that in emerging markets, very often it was the woman who sacrificed perceived luxuries when family spending had to be curtailed. Therefore, understanding this cultural dynamic and making telephony as affordable as possible reduces the guilt women feel in using services and enable them to access more of its benefits.
The need for cultural sensitivity was also highlighted by Shawn Covell, who shared key learnings of projects Qualcomm had worked on. When able married women dropped out of empowerment programmes, it transpired it was because their husbands were uncomfortable with the change in household dynamic. Obtaining husbands’ explicit support of their wives’ participation reduced drop-out rates considerably.
The panel felt that a greater understanding of women’s lived environment also enables operators to offer relevant value added services (VAS) and to increase the benefits women can access through the mobile channel. For example, women’s position as entrepreneurs in their communities was highlighted, with both Mary McDowell and Shawn Covell discussing their organisations’ offerings that enabled women to deepen and expand their business skills.
Mary McDowell also highlighted how Nokia had refined their handset design process to better suit users in emerging markets whilst also focussing on the opportunity associated with connecting handset these users to the mobile internet.
Above all, the panel emphasised the business benefits of targeting the women’s segment in emerging markets. Lee Epting highlighted how Vodafone Group viewed mWomen as a distinctly commercial opportunity.
“At Vodafone Group we recognise a commercial opportunity where women are concerned. [They] are 50 per cent of the world’s population and [they] represent a 28 trillion USD spend over the next several years, according to the Harvard Business Review.”
To watch the panel in full click ‘play’ on the video above.
Click here to watch Trina DasGupta present the latest GSMA mWomen research and tools released at Mobile World Congress 2012.