Mobile operators around the world are becoming more involved in mHealth every day. Last year the GSMA conducted research that determined that 794 mobile operators globally were involved in mHealth in some way. The research also showed that there were 269 mHealth products and services that were led by mobile operators. In fact, operators that were involved in at least one mHealth product or service presented 3.7 billion connections around the world!
Today, the number of operator-led mHealth products & services has increased, and according to conversations I am having of late in Africa, the number will be much higher next year.
So is there a business model for an operator?
Vodacom had a very interesting presentation at a recent conference I attended in Johannesburg, South Africa, where Kirsten Miller-Duys presented ‘The role and value of mobile operators in mHealth’. According to Vodacom, the business model depends on where a mobile operator chooses to play in the value chain, below from lowest to highest in value:
- Communication Systems: One direction content push
- Information system: Bi-directional information flow
- Management system: Support ID and audit
- Decision support system: Assist clinical & admin decision-making
- Expert system: Intelligent cross-platform partnerships
The higher up the ICT value chain an operator goes (i.e. a decision support system or an expert system), the more progression mHealth enables. And the drivers for operators? According to Kirsten Miller-Duys, there are several drivers for operators’ involvement in mHealth:
- Diversification of revenue streams
- Move away from sole reliance on data and voice
- mHealth global market is estimated $10 billion by 2015
- Leverage capabilities
- Leverage strengths of M2M, mMoney
- End-to-end services – hosting, cloud services, etc
- Competitive differentiation
- Brand loyalty, reduced churn.
- Preferred provider of ICT health services.
- Improve health outcomes
- Contribute infrastructure, resources and capacity to allow health providers to deliver their ROIs
- Support sustainability of economy
Vodacom can prove that through various commercial products and services in the South African market and elsewhere, there is a business model for operators.[1] However, despite Vodacom’s strong involvement in mHealth in Africa, many other operators are still proving the value of mHealth. This is one of the reasons for GSMA’s Pan-African mHealth Initiative where one of our three objectives is to demonstrate the business case for long-term investment into mHealth and broker partnership opportunities for mobile and health stakeholders to collaborate through developing a per country, interoperable, inclusive, sustainable implementation plan for mHealth services.
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[1] You can have a look at mHealth products and services in emerging markets here.