Rethinking the mHealth Value Proposition

Over the past few weeks there have been a couple of thought provoking developments in the mHealth market. The first event was the withdrawal of two recently launched mHealth services by O2 UK on the grounds that there was inadequate consumer demand. The second event relates to Verizon Wireless which obtained FDA approval for its mobile health remote monitoring and personal health data platform.

These developments prompted me to revisit some earlier work I did on the value proposition in mHealth. In particular, I was investigating whether remote monitoring is actually a relatively minor, but necessary, element in the business model. My earlier work focused on diabetes care although I suspect that the arguments carry over to other chronic health conditions.

'Place' as an IoT Strategy

As with the case of ‘cloud computing services’ and ‘big-data’, Internet of Things (IoT) applications [1] have been propelled into the business mainstream as companies have jumped on the latest wave of business-press marketing.

For companies that actually want and need to develop an IoT strategy, however, the lack of clarity in distinguishing between IoT services (based on mash-ups of data from multiple and often un-related sources) and traditional M2M services (which involve connected devices within a narrow and well defined industry vertical) constitutes a source of long term business risk.

M2M Acquisitions and the Price of Growth

The topic of acquisitions in the M2M market has featured in several company announcements and several of my discussions with industry players. In late June Avista Capital Partners completed its $253m acquisition of Telular Corporation, an M2M event monitoring and reporting service provider.

During the month of May, the CEO of Sierra Wireless was quizzed about his company’s acquisition intentions by financial analysts at a Global TMT Conference organised by Jefferies, an investment bank. Following its divestiture of a non-core business unit to focus on M2M, Sierra Wireless holds about $160m on its balance sheet. Of this, about $100m is being earmarked for M&A initiatives. So, what are some of the considerations that will determine how these funds might be deployed?

M2M Corporate Initatives - Strong H1-2013

Over the first half of 2013, there has been strong evidence that companies in the M2M market are continuing to implement a range of business strategies to capture new M2M service and revenue opportunities. Specifically:

• the number of corporate initiatives is more than double that for the corresponding period in 2012

• the market is no longer entirely driven by supply-side companies; several enterprises have strategically embraced M2M connectivity and have either partnered with mobile network operators or they are taking the lead role in developing new services

Prices and Value of Consumer Data

The topic of personal data has interested me for a number of years because it is at the heart of new approaches to marketing and service development based on connected devices. I have written about the commercial potential of personal data from a business model perspective [1] for the GSM Association and introduced the concept of Stewardship and Platform Innovator strategies for companies in the mobile eco-system.

I was therefore pleased to see the Financial Times (FT) publish a series of articles on consumer data. Accompanying this series is an interactive calculator [2] that allows readers to determine a price for their personal data based on pricing benchmarks supplied by a data broker. After filling in the options for my own profile - in terms of demographics, family and health, property, activities of interest, and consumer behaviors - it appears that the price for my personal profile is about US$0.80.