SME/SOHO MBB propositions show a staggering lack of differentiation

I've been looking at SME/SOHO MBB propositions this week and it's flabbergasting how little MNOs in Europe are doing to differentiate the offers from those for consumers. Worried about being a bit pipe? How about just offering a single flat-rate tariff to all your customers, regardless of who they are. Crazy. Segmentation is the key to profitably providing MBB. Business users are prepared to pay for reliability and additional features, so make sure you're selling them those tariffs rather than just a rehashed version of consumer tariffs. Admittedly operators in some markets, such as France, are still focusing largely on an enterprise market, so there is little risk of consumerization of enterprise customers. But in markets like the UK where the MBB market is consumer focused, putting in place an appealing set of SME/SOHO tariffs is absolutely vital to mitigate ARPU decline. MNOs have always been bad at selling to SMEs and SOHOs but it surprises me that there is such a lack of dedicated SME/SOHO-oriented tariffs.

I'm not going to point any fingers here as everyone's about as bad as everyone else. My dissection of individual MNOs' offerings is reserved for the piece I'll be publishing via Analysys Mason in the next week or two. It'll be called "MNOs must differentiate SME/SOHO mobile broadband propositions" or words to that effect. I'll also include some detailed recommendations about how to do it. For instance SME/SOHO plans should make use of some or all of the following: time-based pricing, sharer plans, bundled WiFi, dedicated customer care, additional service features and ultimately differentiated grade of service.