I met with quite a few wireline service providers over the last couple of days, and one topic kept popping up again and again: SoHos. SoHos (Small Office Home Office businesses, or "pros" as we call them in France) are commonly considered to be businesses of less than 5 employees although the definition sometimes stretches to less than 20 and not too service providers define them the same way. In fact, if you want to have a bit of fun at a Service Provider's expense, just ask them if SoHos are handled by their residential or their business division...
The SoHo market, to me, is probably the most underserved market in the telecom space, partly because it pauses certain challenges and partly because no one has really been clever in covering it (at least that I know of and have witnessed). Some of the issues are as follow:
- SoHos expect to be treated as businesses but want to pay what residentials pay
- SoHos expect a direct (and if possible named) relationship with their service provider which is too costly in the context of the amount they're willing to pay
As a consequence, SoHo offerings are often little more than repackaged glorified (and a little more expensive) triple play offers. And the consequence of that consequence is that in most Western European markets SoHos massively stay with the incumbent which may not have a sexy offer but usually carries along a perception of trust which is crucial to professionals.
To illustrate the lack of creativity that goes into SoHo offers, the one "differentating" service that you see on every SoHo wireline offer is "Fixed IP". I'd be interested (and amused) to see the proportion of SoHos that know what a Fixed IP is, let alone need one...
But it seems that service providers are waking up to the fact that this is a largely untapped market. About time too! The potential is huge. This is, after all, a mass market, and promises the rewards of any mass market when it's addressed correctly: oodles of revenue. The nagging doubt that I have still is that this is not the first time I've seen this "sudden realisation", and it never really came to much in the end...
Let's hope they get it right this time. I think the emergence of NGAs changes the game to some extent: it means there's sales teams in the field, it allows for interesting new (and business specific) services to be added to the portfolio and it's an opportunity to rejuvenate dusty telco or cable images.
I've been looking into this space now for a while, and it looks like I'll be continuing in the coming months. If you have experiences to share in that space (great service ideas, clever niche players, horror stories, you name it!) please feel free to comment or email. And meanwhile, if you're one of these service providers looking into this to refresh your approach, do get in touch, we might be able to help!
