Telco + Bank = dream team as identity provider, but can they partner?


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Drawing by Hugh MacLeod (@gapingvoid)

Orwellian utopia theory:  Google, Amazon, Apple will take over the entire world, control everything and the free market will end.

Let's imagine that :

  • Nike, Sony, Ford, Samsung, AT&T, Vodafone, Paypal, HP, Visa, Coke, Nestle, BA, Intel, Microsoft, Telefonica, Band of America, Chase, Philips, Marks and Spencer, Ebay, Pepsi, Tesco, Walmat, Real Madrid, Hilton, Amex, McAfee, Oracle, Disney, Hello, News Corp, Levi, Toyota will still be valuable and credible brands who have a close relationship with customers.
  • Value and supply chains will be more complex but efficient as anyone can offer terms for products and services to anyone
  • Telecoms, Banking and Media are fighting a rear guard action on business models and relevancy in the value chain
  • Customers can decide but there is not perfect knowledge
  • Local is as important as national/ global
  • Detailed insightful, explicit and knowledge about a customer is business critical
  • Identity provision will become a highly regulated business with significant penalties brand and cost issues for failure
  • Identity will resemble the security, access control and authentication market structures and dynamics
  • Regulated market Innovation is slow, complex and costly..... innovation using "identity" is fast, dynamic and fun
  • Paying for products and services is still the bed rock of a stable economic platform
  • Speed of data be approaching real-time

Therefore could be possible for several other players to partner and take a leadership position

  1. Telco and Bank as an identity provider
  2. Brand and Bank as trusted party
  3. IT company and Telco as end to end secure provider
  4. Retail and Utility company as data store

Ignoring the issues of culture, business models, margin erosion, regulation, valuation, brand value, trust, free cash flow, shareholder expectation and CEO persona; is there enough left (of either business) to protect (from a partnership) or has so much already been eroded that they cannot get back……and therefore it is about building something new?