It Feels Good To Be A King : Thumbs Up To Healthy Competition

On a daily basis, I smile when I see the telecoms operators in Nigeria scramble to please me with their different offers. At a point, I told a friend that very soon they will come to my house to give me their products free of charge. Yes, absolutely free!

Interestingly, I use the all the major networks - Glo, MTN, Etisalat and Airtel. So, it would not be wrong to say that I am one of those that is being lobbied on all all fronts for loyalty on a daily basis. If you ask me, it feels good to be treated like a king - the feeling of indispensability. That is the beauty of competition.

Well, for the avoidance of doubts, competition only occurs when there is more than one producer or seller of a product in the market. When this happens, such producers and traders MUST make me and the other consumers, not only happy, but also convinced that their product is the best amongst those available in the market. If we refuse to fall for their lobbying and appeals, then it is certainly ''aure voir'' or ''bye bye'' for them. 

Non wonder then that the telecoms service providers have overhauled their lobbying strategies to outplay one another - price and tariffs cuts, internet offers, blackberry offers, increased corporate responsibility and even entertainment. All of these are targeted at  one thing - SURVIVAL in a highly competitive environment. I love competition.

Price of SIM cards

I really smiled when I bought an MTN SIM card for my sister for just N200 late last year. This is the same card I bought in 2003, with serious begging, for N13500 ; and this is even after searching the whole for the card. The cheapest I saw was N20,000. The other day I saw Airtel’s SIM card being sold for N120! Glo and Etisalat SIMs also sell for between N200-N250, depending on the number. Who says prices of things cannot crash in Nigeria. I love competition!

Internet offers

The sudden increase in internet access in Nigeria has also made the Strategists of all the service providers to think towards that direction. The offers has really been interesting. New offers are made almost on a daily basis. Even as I was typing this post, I got an SMS from MTN telling me that they will give me 200MB for the price of a 100MB data plan. For being on MTN Pulse, I used to get 10MB for each N100+ recharge, valid for a week – meaning I cannot get another 10MB until after seven days. Now I get 10MB for every N100+ recharge.  I actually left Family and friends platform because of the 10MB.

Of course you know why MTN is doing all of theseA - other networks are not sleeping. Aitel has been  giving me 10MB for my recharges. But not as immediate as MTN. Etisalat also gives me 15MB for my N200+ recharges. Now, Etisalat has a daily 1MB, courtesy of the Easy life 3.0. With it also comes a tariff of as low as 20kobo per second.All these is to make me and other consumer happy and win over those who are not singing their praise.

Tariffs

The most interesting aspect of these offers is the drastic reduction in tariffs. When Econet (which went through metamorphosis to become the Airtel of today) and MTN were calling the shots in 2002-2003,  I used to pay N50 per minute. I remember making a call for one minute and one second and had to pay N100. Thanks to Globacom for initiating the per second billing system which MTN could not do before Gloacom joined the race. If not for competition, I am very sure we would have continued to be sen subjected to the wicked per minute billing system. I love competition.

Today, I have lost count of the different tariff plans I have had to switch to, on all the networks. Thanks to the tensed competition going on in the telecoms market. Even the CDMA networks like visafone and Starcomms are not left out in the show of supremacy. Recently; we have heard Pulse, Family and friends, F&F  Xpanded, Funklink and much more. Etisalat has has fought back with Easyblaze, Easy Cliq, Easylife and much more. Globacom has lobbied with Infinito, G-Bam, Gista and much more. Airtel has not been sleeping all this while. They has competed with Club 10, 2Good, Big Family and much more.

By now, it is obvious that competition is good for everyone - the consumers and the service providers alike.

Blackberry services

I am one of those who felt blackberry services was over priced at N3000 per month. Like good servants, they responded by introducing the blackberry Complete services. Even at that while MTN, Etisalat and Airtel charge N3000 for the full blackberry service, Glo charges N2800.

For the Complete version (monthly), MTN charges and Etisalat charges N1500, while Globacom and Airtel charge N1400. I was on MTN blackberry Complete but had to drop it for Globacom's. Apart from being cheaper by N100 a data allowance of 3GB goes with it. I acn also have access to my data balance whenever I wanted. It seems to me like a football match where you are constantly watching your opponent’s moves and devising strategies to counter every one of them. That is the beauty of competition.

Entertainment
One  of the greatest advantages of competition is that it forces the businesses to be innovative. This innovativeness has made all the telecoms operators to incorporate entertainment into their appeal strategies. MTN's Project Fame and Who wants to a millionaire, as well as Airtel's Nigeria's Got talent, are household events and have succeeded in winning over subscribers to the service providers that organises them.

Benefits of competition
All these are responses to a tensed competitive environment. Thus, competition forces businesses to be innovative and consumer-centered. This eventually leads to increased earnings and profits in the long run.Thus, businesses that cannot stand the competition fizzles out of the market gradually and eventually. A good case in mind is NITEL and its subsidiary, Mtel.

The same applies in other sectors and sub sectors of the economy - banking, aviation, postal services, education, consumer goods trading, insurance and others. Its simple - businesses that cannot see and treat the consumer as king is shown the way out.

I therefore cannot wait to see day I will have a choice between PHCN and several other electricity  providers. A day when I will be begged by electricity companies to buy their electricity supply. A day when efficiency and competitive power will determine which electricity company stays and which one is chased out of the market. A day when we will start celebrating no-power-outage anniversaries. I am just looking  forward to that day. I hope it will come during my time on earth.

For the consumers, we now he have options to choose  from. We also have better products for our money. Competition has also forced down prices and has made the us to be the focal point in every  decision being taken by telecoms operators. It makes the consumers the ''air'' that they (and other businesses) ''breathe in'' and the "blood" which flows in their ''veins.''

It Feels Good To Be King. This is the beauty of healthy competition.


Related posts :
Decision making :The most sensitive and far reaching function of a manager
Small businesses' practices and the issues of stagnation and collapse