Why Mobile SMS/Text Messaging?

What is Mobile SMS/ Test Messaging?

Mobile text Messaging, or Short Message Service (SMS), as we all know it, is the ability to send and receive text messages to and from mobile telephones. The text can comprise words or numbers or an alphanumeric combination. SMS was created as part of the GSM Phase 1 standard. The first short message is believed to have been sent in December 1992 from a Personal Computer (PC) to a mobile phone on the Vodafone GSM network in the UK. Each short message can be up to 160 characters is length when Latin alphabets are used.

Customer Usage and Market Growth

There is no doubting the success of the Short Message Service - the market in India alone has reached over one billion messages despite little proactive marketing by network operators and phone manufacturers. Key market drivers over the next two years such as the access of cheaper mobile technology to the masses will continue this growth path.

Mobile Messaging: How can your business benefit?

Enterprise Messaging

Enterprise uptake of mobile applications is set for phenomenal growth. By 2005, Gartner anticipates that 65 percent of enterprises will be harnessing the power of wireless applications to efficiently automate the existing business processes and use wireless connectivity for one or more user groups.

Statistics are already showing a considerable growth in the enterprise messaging, within the last seven quarters.

Where does enterprise messaging fit into your business

No matter what the nature or model of your business is, you can effectively exploit the potential of Mobile Messaging. Following are some examples of the application areas where Mobile Messaging is excelling:

1. B2B Messaging

Mobile terminated and mobile originated SMS and MMS via UCP, XML and PHP interface

Benefits: Using industry standard protocols provide easy integration with existing systems as well as a robust and scalable model for future technologies.

2. B2B Campaigns and list processing

Permission-based mobile marketing campaign of consumer goods, advertisement campaign, promotions etc.

Benefits: Mobile marketing provides unparallel advantage of effectively targeting specific audience level.

3. B2B Applications

Customized mobile applications conforming to a business rule and addressing a specific target audience. Example: MIS reports to mobile sales force, critical data to mobile technical work force. The possibilities are unlimited and the flexibility is enormous!

How to choose a high quality and reliable service provider for SMS/Text Messaging for your enterprise messaging needs?

The first option that comes to one’s mind is mobile operators. However, though they have complete control over network infrastructure, they are generally not too keen to service customer for meeting their messaging needs. The prime reasons for this are:

• Enterprise messaging involves complex integration with backend database/applications
• The volume of messages is typically not high (except in large B2C companies)
• The criticality of message delivery is extremely high
• Operators largely cross subsidise ‘voice’ with ‘data’ services.
• It a specific network is down, then the service suffers.
• The service need extra attention in terms of providing high service levels

There are many independent providers of mobile data services focussed in the domain of enterprise messaging that provide end-to-end SMS/text messaging service. For example, ValueFirst (http://www.vfirst.com) provides SMS/Text messaging services to enterprises.

There are several advantages of working with an operator neutral service provider:

• Easy and quick integration with back-end application/databases
• Connections with multiple operators ensure better service quality (i.e. service is continued even if the network of a specific operator fails)
• Single entry point into the mobile networks.
• Uniform application access - no duplicate efforts required
• Reliability and timeliness - Acknowledged mobile messaging with guaranteed message delivery information available
• Integrated payment - one stop shop for all billing aspects and
• Seamless and secure messaging environment.

SMS ME ON provides your new address on 56070

SMSMEON provides you the opportunity to acquire your own “FREE” unique Identity (commonly known as keyword on a short code) on the mobile. This Keyword could be a reflection of your personality or name. It is the first platform in India which allows you to choose and block a “Keyword” of your choice completely free of cost on your mobile.

SMSMEON- as the names says it all “You can SMS ME ON my Keyword which is my own personal address on the mobile to know more about me & be privy to the latest happenings in my life”. You can use SMSMEON either through the web or through your mobile.

Example: - if your name is Aakash then you now have the opportunity to block AAKASH as a keyword on the short code 56070. When someone SMSs the keyword AAKASH to 56070 then he will get the status message that has been set by AAKASH against his keyword. SMSMEON is simple to use and best way to reach out to your people even when you are on the move. Well now you don’t need to post messages in each of your friends’ pages or send a SMS to each one of them. Just update your status message through web or from your mobile, and all your friends seeking you out can get updates on you through mobile by just texting your keyword to 56070.

Priyaa Gupta CEO – SMSMEON.COM says “Just like email is a users identity on the web, SMSMEON.COM is a unique initiative which will for the first time allow both individuals and enterprises to get mobile identities of their choice on the mobile and will allow everyone the flexibility to use this identity for personal or business communication. Potentially this can be very disruptive as it will allow millions of users and thousands of enterprises to use the power of mobility in a personalized manner like they have never experienced before” SMSMEON has been launched by SpotOn Media Pvt. Ltd. (SpotOn), an initiative incubated by ValueFirst Messaging Private Ltd .

About ValueFirst Messaging:

ValueFirst empowers its customers to communicate between varied IT back-end systems and mobile phones using SMS Services. ValueFirst provides a unique, end-to-end, global carrier-grade mobile data service. Its mobile data service offering includes "plug and play" application
licensing and hosting. Employing a partnership with Mobile operators and a clear focus on SMS mobile messaging.

Vish Bajaj,CEO of ValueFirst applauded and expressed his confidence in the innovative initiative of SpotOn. According to him, SMSMEON will become an integral part of people’s business card. Apart from the fun element,consumers and businesses will be able to conduct meaningful information exchange with their target audience.

SpotOn Media is a digital media company aggregating opted in SMS inventory and is one of India’s first SMS Ad Network SpotOn via its platform & device independent approach aims to establish itself as a “platform agnostic”digital solutions company specializing in communities and new media advertising.

To know more, simply log onto www.smsmeon.com

Is Latam ready for MVNOs ?

In Latin America, market size and spending levels, opposition from mobile network operators (MNO) and regulations make it difficult for mobile virtual network operators to set up and get established, and no other region in the world has fewer MVNO subscribers as a percentage of total mobile telephony subscribers as Latin America. There are several start-ups in the pipeline but genuine subscriber base could be in the range of 100,000 only for the whole region.

Nevertheless, MVNOs are making inroads into regional markets through focusing on particular residential or corporate segments, and could stand to gain from technology convergence and regulator support as means of broadening competition in the mobile telephony industry. Latin America, which already has a strong mobile base, could be expected to offer similar MVNO opportunities as other parts of the world. Let’s see where Latam is standing at in the first part of our market overview:

Emergence of MVNO in Bolivia is been driven by local fixed line operator cooperatives. These cooperatives lease network capacity to mobile operators.

Colgate Palmolive wanted to increase the brand recall of Colgate toothpaste through ValueFirst

Introduction:

Founded in 1806, Colgate Palmolive is the global FMCG giant with 200 years of spectacular performance behind it. Its revenue in 2005 was around $1.5 billion dollars, with multiple brands in different sub-segments of FMCG

Business need: Colgate Palmolive wanted to increase the brand recall of Colgate toothpaste amongst the telephonic shoppers. From a survey, it found out that 68% of the kirana stores in India offered home delivery as an option and 21% of the business of these kirana stores was generated through home delivery.

Scenario: Since it is difficult to aggressively push a brand over phone in the form of sms, retailers normally deliver the customer what he/she orders over phone. Colgate Palmolive wanted to create an incentive for retailer to push Colgate to tele-shoppers by using sms gateway. Also, it wanted to increase its brand recall among the tele-shoppers.

Mobile was chosen as a medium of communication to connect with the customer and run a loyalty program because of the high penetration of mobile phones.

The mobile messaging solution which Colgate Palmolive was looking for was supposed to meet these all requirements:-

• Secure information transfer and reliable enterprise grade infrastructure
• Operator and handset independent
• Easy integration with their existing CRM and scalable for future requirements

Solution: After carefully analyzing the needs of Colgate Palmolive, it was proposed a solution based on Web services platform. It was also proposed to develop a desktop based monitoring and admin tool for the marketing department of Colgate Palmolive.

• Web-services can be configured with short-code mobile messaging for receiving dynamic responses through sms.
• Web-services are also suited to the needs of the enterprises where data security is of high concern

With the help of Valuefirst messaging the custom development and the configuration were done for Colgate Palmolive in 6 man-days.

Read more case studies: http://www.vfirst.com/sms-case-study.php

Value Added Services (VAS) contributes more in the exponentially growing Indian telecom sector

In the exponentially growing Indian telecom sector, Value Added Services (VAS) contributes over 7% of the total revenue for operators. SMS is the highest contributor to VAS in India. Easy to use, instantaneous and reliable, SMS is widely used by individuals all across the country to communicate. Hence, it comes as no surprise that enterprises have also started incorporating SMS gateway based services to suit varied communication needs.

Enterprises have realized that improving efficiency within the organization requires improving efficiency in their communication systems. Mobile messaging services are enabling enterprises to send emergency alerts and notifications to support various aspects of their business. Be it customer service, marketing, IT or SCM, these solutions have found invaluable applications in the various departments of an enterprise. Organizations are continuously experimenting with how these SMS gateway based services can help improve workflows within their enterprise and also enhance customer experience. The most common use of mobile messaging services is believed to be for promotions.

M – Enabling Distance Education

A system and a process that connects learners to distributed learning resources other than attending courses in person, students may communicate at times of their own choosing by exchanging printed or electronic media, or through technology that allows them to communicate in real time. Distance education courses that require a physical on-site presence for any reason including the taking of examinations is considered to be a hybrid or blended course or program.

India has a large number of Distance education programmers in Undergraduate and Post-Graduate levels. The trend was started originally by private institutions that offered distance education at certificate and diploma level. By 1985 many of the larger Universities recognized the need and potential of distance education in a populous country like India and launched degree level programs through distance education. The trend caught up, and today many prestigious Indian Universities offer distance programs. Two such universities are;

Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, centered in Bangalore, India, is a unitary university set up in 1996 by the government of Karnataka, for the regulation and promotion of higher education in health sciences throughout the state of Karnataka. About 276 colleges throughout the state are placed under the Rajiv Gandhi University in order to establish uniform standards in academics and administration.

MGR Medical University, Chennai, India deals with all medical and paramedical degrees. Both of these and many private and public, non-profit and for-profit institutions offering courses and degree programs through distance education.

Solution:

After a thorough examination & analysis of the requirements, ValueFirst (a global leader in “Enterprise Mobile Messaging Services”) in collaboration with a technology partner proposed its best-in-class application ValueFirst Velocity. ValueFirst Velocity is an enterprise class SMS suite designed to create, process and transmit SMS in a complex database environment. It provides highly reliable automated mobile messaging platform.
ValueFirst application enabled the universities to send their critical messages on a Just-In-Time (JIT) basis onto the mobile phones of invigilators.
The mobile messaging suite in addition, offers complete automation of various communication processes such as College to Student communication, College to Parent communication etc at these universities.

About ValueFirst:


ValueFirst (http://www.vfirst.com) empowers its customers to communicate between varied IT back-end systems and mobile phones using SMS Services. ValueFirst provides a unique, end-to-end, global carrier-grade mobile data service. Its mobile data service offering includes "plug and play" application licensing and hosting. Employing a partnership with Mobile operators and a clear focus on SMS mobile messaging. ValueFirst’s Mobile Messaging Platform is capable of delivering SMS services to virtually any CDMA/GSM mobile handset. ValueFirst combines signalling information from the mobile world with innovative applications running concurrently on its own IT applications platform and thereby pave the way for mission-critical international messaging services.

MOBILE MESSAGING WILL HELP OVERCOME ISSUE OF MASS REACH

Enterprises are now moving beyond emails towards mobile messaging solutions.

Vijay Shukla, cofounder and country head, India, ValueFirst in an interaction shared the future of mobile messaging in the enterprises.

According to the study by Internet and Mobile Association of India, 68 percent of organizations have two or more mobile messaging applications in place.

ValueFirst recently forayed into politics by extending a solution to BJP for an SMS based communications network for all its members.

Excerpts:

In the mobile messaging space how are the enterprises accepting the new technology?

Enterprises are very excited by technology that can directly increase revenue or reduce costs or increase efficiencies and productivity. Mobile messaging provides one or more of all such benefits.

Therefore, enterprises are very keen to know about mobile messaging business and implementation perspectives.

Mobile Messaging will help enterprises and organisations overcome the physical and economical constraints of mass reach, thereby paving the way for greater efficiencies through real-time communication. What is driving the use of mobile messaging solutions by enterprises is continuous communications and collaboration, both with customers prospects and colleagues.

How is ValueFirst positioned in the mobile messaging space?

There are many players in the space, so what is your USP? With over 25 million transactions a day, ValueFirst is the single biggest mobile messaging company in India. Our unique selling point is end-to-end service, domain expertise, over 30 cities direct sales reach in India, cost effectiveness due to buying strength and global reach with coverage in over 8 countries.

What are the other applications you are working on?

There are many. V-Secure is one that we have been working on. Likewise, there are a few voice applications that we are in the process of integrating with mobile messaging.

How big is the market for location-based services (LBS) in India?

We have witnessed a lot of telecom companies planning to launch LBS, but it has hardly been made available for the subscribers? The LBS market in India is in nascent stage. The fundamental disconnect, is that the enterprises want operator neutral services and the operators want to go direct to enterprises with operator-specific LBS solution. That is the main reason for poor take-off.

Lok Sabha treads tech path

The Lower House of the Parliament — Lok Sabha — has tied up with enterprise mobile messaging services provider ValueFirst for staying in touch with its members.

“The Lok Sabha Secretariat would use the messaging services to communicate with internal stakeholders and public alike with critical information directly, using this service. The system would enable them to send messages to multiple mobile phones covering all service providers in India,” ValueFirst Country Head and Co-founder Vijay Shukla said.

All communication to the media would also be sent through this system. The messages through the system would be delivered and received in real time, he added.

“The Lok Sabha needed a unique solution to fulfil its communication and connectivity needs keeping in mind the members of the house and their limitation of regular meeting with each other.

Parliament of India was also looking for a solution to bridge the gap of communication during “no session period” between the members of both houses and Parliament of India. Another concern was to find an optimum solution for various routine communications; Secretariat to Members and Secretariat to general public,” Shukla added.

The political parties in the country and abroad had earlier experimented by sending SMSs to voters to garner votes. Recently, the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) had used such services for the party- members communication.

Use of SMS in politics made headlines with US presidential hopeful Barack Obama sending 2.9 million text messages to announce the selection of US Senator Joseph Biden as Vice-Presidential running-mate, according to the mobile arm of the Nielsen media ratings company.

Enterprises give thumbs up to “Mobile Messaging Services”

Point towards higher adoption of SMS, Bluetooth and GPRS technologies

ValueFirst Messaging, the leader in enterprise mobile messaging services in India, recently commissioned Symbiosis Institute of Telecom Management to conduct an in-depth research to understand the current scenario and to map future opportunities and trends in this space. With enterprises taking up mobile messaging to augment, complement and complete their communication; to both internal and external audiences, phrases like ‘Business Mobility’, ‘Mobile Messaging’ and ‘Enterprise Messaging’ have become buzzwords for IT professionals and marketers alike. Prior to this initiative by ValueFirst, there was precious little done towards understanding the various applications of mobile messaging amongst these enterprises or to map the future challenges and opportunities.

A three-month long research was conducted by Symbiosis Institute of Telecom Management, Pune, covering senior management at over 120 large and medium enterprise customers of ValueFirst from across India. The research report provides definitive indications of the benefits that have accrued to the early adopters and throws light on some of the key trends emerging and the challenges and opportunities that it brings along. Mr Vijay Shukla, Co-founder & Country Head, ValueFirst, said, “With a customer base of over 850 enterprises from diverse segments such as banks, insurance, automobile, FMCG, IT/ITES, manufacturing to name a few, ValueFirst was uniquely positioned to commission the first ever attempt to understand and gain useful insights on the current scenario and to map future trends in the enterprise mobile messaging services in India”.

Enterprise mobile messaging, though at a nascent stage in India, has shown exponential growth in the last few years. Features such as cost effectiveness, ease of use, wide reach, easy implementation and real-time messaging capabilities have driven enterprises to adopt mobile messaging services to improve their internal and external communication systems. However, the study revealed that the awareness levels of managers involved in the decision-making is minimal. About 41% of the respondents admitted that their knowledge about the enterprise mobile messaging services is either “average” or “poor”, implying a general lack of knowledge about the industry.

ValueFirst intends to run a series of awareness and education campaigns aimed at verticals such as Banking and Financial Services, Mobile Community, Manufacturing, Automobile, ITES, etc., The aim is to reach out to as many enterprises across various verticals as possible. “Any technology is successful on a large scale only when it‘s impact is measurable and it helps simplify tasks,. We at ValueFirst aim at educating the Indian enterprises about the utility of enterprise mobile messaging. This will, in turn, help enterprises to apply technology to improve their business performance. ”, said Mr Shukla.

About ValueFirst:
ValueFirst empowers its customers to communicate between varied IT back-end systems and mobile phones using SMS Services. ValueFirst provides a unique, end-to-end, global carrier-grade mobile data service. Its mobile data service offering includes "plug and play" application licensing and hosting. Employing a partnership with Mobile operators and a clear focus on SMS mobile messaging, ValueFirst’s Mobile Messaging Platform is capable of delivering SMS services to virtually any CDMA/GSM mobile handset. ValueFirst combines signaling information from the mobile world with innovative applications running concurrently on its own IT applications platform and thereby pave the way for mission-critical international messaging services

Current Scenario and Future Trends - Enterprise Mobile Messaging in India

A report on Current Scenario and Future Trends in Enterprise Mobile Messaging in India.

Enterprise mobile messaging has grown exponentially in India. The current stage of enterprise mobile messaging is nascent and a large number of enterprises that are currently using mobile messaging services are in a nascent stage in terms of its utilization. There is a critical need for the awareness of mobile messaging within enterprises for it to grow. Also, tracking performance metrics and wide scale adoption beyond customer services will help the enterprises benefit in a more effective manner.

Specifically,

• Features such as cost effectiveness, ease of use, wide reach, easy implementation and real-time messaging capabilities have driven enterprises to adopt mobile messaging services to improve their internal and external communication systems;
• Enterprise mobile messaging services have found critical usage in various areas of functioning of an enterprise, be it marketing, customer services, supply chain management or IT;
• The usage of enterprise mobile messaging services spans across verticals such as banking and financial service institutions, stock broking, automotive, IT/ITES, marketing services, manufacturing, health care, FMCG, real estate and retail.

CLICK HERE For downloading full report.

List of Short codes providers in India

Here is the list of famous Short Code providers in india:
58888 Indiatimes
56767 ACL Wireless
57272 J9Mobile (Jagaran)
56969 Rajasthan Patrika
56877 Niche Tech Services
54242 Hindustan Times
52424 AajTak(LivingMedia)
56388 NDTV
57333 Rediff
58243 Yahoo
57575 Zee Group
54664 Google
52525 Set India (Sony TV)
52622 CNBC(Network18)
53636 Active Media
54321 Sakal Papers
54545 Sify
54646 Virtual Marketing India (Hungama)
55050 Bharat Matrimony
56161 Air2Web
56263 IMI Mobile
56882 MTV
57827 Star TV
57007 People Interactive(MAUJ)
57070 Verseas Marketing
57777 DIALNET
57788 Albion Informatics
59090 Sahara India
58558 Contest2Win
56677 Cellnext
53131 Unisys Info solutions
56060 TechZone
55454 Big FM
56070 ValueFirst Messaging

Mirae Asset starts SMS services for NAV updates

Mirae Asset, South Korea’s leading independent financial services company has now started SMS based services to its customers by adding a transaction based alert system. All customers who transact online to buy or sell units held by them are now being sent SMS alert confirming their transaction.

Mutual fund services have undergone a sea change in the Indian market. Now, the asset management companies (AMCs) are finding their niche in delivering unique products and service offerings. Mirae Asset has integrated ValueFirst API to its core system there by enabling real-time SMS alerts to customers.

Many AMCs are now moving in this direction. ValueFirst is in the process of completing the integration with other leading AMCs who will offer the SMS services to all their customers, thereby making it an industry norm in the near term.

Air Deccan launches Mobile Ticketing (M - Fly)

In yet another first of its kind initiative, India’s leading low cost airline, Deccan, has launched m-Fly – a mobile-based ticketing and information system. Guests can now book, pay and generate an e-ticket using their mobile phones.

m-Fly is the Mobile Ticketing offering by Deccan for all its guests which is a convenient option to book tickets from mobile phone, sitting at the comfort of your homes, office or even while on the move, all without giving out any Credit / Debit card details! The service is available on GSM / CDMA phones for all operators in India.

Guests are required to complete a one-time registration process by logging on to the website or by calling a Call Centre. On registration, guests will receive a password (4 digit number) as an SMS. Once a guest is registered, he / she can go to any Oxigen outlet (40,000 outlets across the country) and recharge with a top-up of whatever amount one needs. On recharging, he / she can check flight availability by sending SMS: AVL to 56070 and Guests get a return SMS confirming the availability, he / she can then book tickets by sending the following SMS: bok to 56070. On sending the SMS to 56070, Guest will receive the Ticket Number in the form of SMS and at the same time will also receive the e-ticket as an e-mail. Guests can then directly go to the airport and get an e-ticket by showing the Ticket Number at the Airport ticketing counter.
Guests can also check their m-Fly balance by sending a SMS: Bal to 56070