Decision-Making Model and New Services Development Approach in Telecommunications

Alfredo  C. Panizales,

Decision-Making Model and New Services Development Approach in Telecommunications

Abstract:

The study presents a decision-making model and new services development approach in the telecommunications sector. It affirms that Customer Demand, Foreseeing Business, and Technology are the three most important driving factors in the Philippines and in the Asia Pacific Region. The model posits that new services development, initiated by the Business Group is directly influenced by technology push factors and by top management, engineering, marketing and financial considerations. Government Regulatory Body and Foreign Administrations indirectly influence new services development. The study includes thirty-four (34) senior executives from the telecommunications sector who responded in the 2000 Survey. Thirteen (13) respondents are President/CEOs, ten (1 0) are Vice Presidents and Country Managers and eleven {11) are Unit Managers to Senior Managers. Face-to-face interview and mail surveys are conducted, and collected data are cross-tabulated and tested for significance using Chi-square test. The study indicates that telecommunications services providers had better foresee business potential by screening a number of business opportunities as a result of idea generation process. There have been changes in the order of importance from Customer Demand (1960-1980) to Foresee Business (1981·1990) and a shift to Technology in 2000. Functional considerations with emphasis on product features and high technology dominate driving factors or motivants towards telecommunications services introduction. With regard to relative importance of decision factors influencing introduction of new services, the study suggests that more emphasis should be given to market demand and its acceptability, product usefulness, competition and high technology. The conclusions are that relative importance of these motivants on new products and services launched in the market change through time for more than a decade. There are actually apparent differences (controlling for the respondents who did not mention technology in 2000) among motivants across time from 1986 through year 2000; that the development of telecommunications products and services in the Philippines are not focused on market-driven factors alone; and that the dominant decision-making factors and procedures for product development in the Philippine telecommunications market do not conform with trends and developments in the Asia Pacific Region.