| Telecom services, bundles and channels |
 The Dutch telecom market changed significantly over the past years. The crash in the early 2000's seems to be forgotten and in the past couple of years a series of major mergers and acquisitions among Telecom operators has taken place. Convergence of the telecom and IT industry is one of the reasons for this consolidation to happen. The coming together of telecom and IT services also made new competitors enter the telecom industry. In addition, government regulation and fast technological innovations made this relatively competitive industry hard to survive. All parties in the industry need to re-evaluate their market positions. New business models and propositions for telecom operators are to be considered.Nolan, Norton & Co. initiated this research in order to investigate the effects of the industry convergence for Small and Mediumsized Enterprises (SMEs) in the Netherlands. The approach for this market segment is largely undefined by telecom operators, while there are major opportunities. SMEs are responsible for 58% of total business turnover in the Netherlands and telecom and IT services are increasingly important for them. In contrast, the go-to-market model of telecom operators for the business-to-consumer market is highly mature, with integrated bundles, including television, internet and telephone. This approach is potentially appropriate for some SMEs as well, but research is needed to sort this out. Particularly as larger SMEs are more similar to large companies, for which telecom and IT services are merging into a completely new concept. This Research Memorandum gives insights in the telecom preferences of the Dutch SME market and focuses on service, bundling and channel preferences. As an addition to the often qualitative research in this domain, a quantitative research approach is chosen to let the numbers speak. Download
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