Innovator's Dilemma - My Comment to CEO Karen Webster's article in PYMNTS.COM: "Do Android Pay, Google Wallet and Samsung Pay Have What It Takes To Win In Mobile Payments?"

Karen Webster - CEO Market Platform Dynamics - is a regular writer on PYMNTS.COM (R) ['what's next in payments and commerce (TM)'].  Here latest article is entitled: "Do Android Pay, Google Wallet and Samsung Pay Have What It Takes To Win In Mobile Payments?" ... a very good article that also inspired me to respond with a comment. http://www.pymnts.com/news/2015/does-android-pay-google-wallet-and-samsung-pay-have-what-it-takes-to-win-in-mobile-payments/#.VPRmL-ko74g

My comment (posted at Karen's article on pymnts.com too):

While this is a very good article on key developments in the mobile wallet space (albeit rather US market -centric in its perspective), fuller analysis of ‘another day in payments’ merits consideration of the following other key evolving developments that are part of global trends to address what I call the emergence of ‘uCommerce’ (Ubiquitous Commerce) – that has flavors of overlap with the mobile wallet space:

1) The closing paragraph of Karen’s ~4,000 word article introduced late the reality of other key environmental variables that are part of the bigger payment picture: PayPal, AliPay, Amazon, Visa Checkout and the vast array of merchant branded apps.  From the perspective of at least many US Consumers, these solutions too are indeed part of the mobile wallet landscape and merit scrutiny in a fuller matrix representation of the mobile wallet landscape than the passing mention here.

2) Beyond headline dominating Apple, Google and Samsung … on the global payments landscape last week there was another important development:  Boku announcing their new ‘Phone on File’ solution.  Akin to ‘Card on File’ but for the growing global Carrier Billing of Commerce alternative payment juggernaut, Boku is one of several solution providers partnering with Carriers globally in building a globally ubiquitous Carrier billing footprint (thanks in part to the Google Play application that has been instrumental in helping establish breakthrough deals with Carriers).  Along with Bango, Fortumo, Dimoco, Net-M DoCoMo, Danal BillToMobile, SLA Mobile, NeoMobile, Mobile Embrace, ipayy Verse, infobip, ArpuPlus and others, Boku has helped build – rather quietly - a $12B Carrier Billing market, projected to about double in the coming years.  Since credit card penetration 

dominates in the US market, Carrier billing of commerce in the US continues to receive little respect – and even regulatory hostility [in spite of Carriers having direct billing access to >98% of US households, and,  ample evidence that even in the US, merchants offering the Carrier billing option realized a lift of 15-30%+ in incremental revenues and Carriers realized stickier customers].  Globally however, credit card penetration is generally minor, especially in emerging markets.  While consumer spend-potential in emerging markets are not on a par with top consumer spending tiers in the US today, trend lines of booming middle and upper-middle classes in emerging markets are on trajectories that are the reverse of middle and upper-middle classes in the US (now further helped by more open minded and visionary regulatory bodies outside the US that see the promise of wise policy that can contribute to facilitating this growth engine for their respective economies).

3) The paradigm of “control” biases thinking and thus handicaps decision making, investment and innovation.  The global pie for uCommerce is huge and growing - 

an opportunity for a variety of solution providers and paradigms to tap ample rewards for their respective investors - short and long term.  Of course every industry has shakeouts over their respective life cycles, but over cautiousness on hitting a home run and/or achieving control early on can cause opportunities to be missed.

A matrix that fully assesses the global payments landscape merits quite a few more columns and rows to represent both the fuller picture of global commerce, and, a more insightful understanding of their relative weights:

A)     Not only add Merchants into the matrix, but with sophistication that shows Merchants:

a.       Exclusively selling online

b.      Exclusively selling offline

c.       Multichannel … and specifically what channels

B)      Add dollar equivalent size of every cell on matrix (to accompany percentages)

C)      Other solution providers and their respective solution-paradigms including but not limited to:

a.       PayPal, Amazon, Visa Checkout and the vast array of merchant branded apps.

b.      Boku, Bango, Fortumo, Dimoco, Net-M DoCoMo, Danal BillToMobile, SLA Mobile, NeoMobile, Mobile Embrace, ipayy Verse, infobip, ArpuPlus and others.

c.       Other wallet providers and wallet paradigms such as AirTel Money, Vodaphone/O2/m-pese, OxiCash, CardMobili, PayU and so many others.

In respect to Karen, her article was mainly focused on where Apple, Google and Samsung are with their mobile wallets under the premise of control (mainly US) while again I am looking at more than just these three giants. 

Maybe semantics, what Karen and many reasonably characterize as ‘blurring’ of online and offline commerce, consider also the notion of ‘umbrella-ing’ as existing

and emerging solution providers continue their quests to see around the corner and innovate for not control necessarily of just online and off line retail, but strive to anticipate, serve and meet trending marketplace payment needs spanning on, off and multi-channel retail, IoT, as well as other forms of physical and digital pre and post transacting (i.e.: various roadway and mass transit scan-pay systems, monthly and ad hoc bill paying, etc.).

Again, a wonderful article by Karen, I just posit that there’s a bigger global commerce picture to factor into thinking, plus other attributes that can hold greater sway in decision making if factored more thoroughly into assessment of this space and the bigger, long term global opportunities.  Online, offline, multi-channel, domestic and global commerce trends/outlooks were a cornerstone of a $.7B, 5 year plan back in 2000 at a successful AT&T Labs Commerce-Payment incubator.  Phase 1 launched and scaled successfully but as SBC’s acquisition of AT&T neared, short term home run/control criteria killed the effort … yet the outlook then is indeed becoming today’s 'blurring'.

Strategic developers and Product developers have a duty to not only do their due

diligence in vetting opportunity, but to challenge conventional wisdom, as well as ‘other forces’ that are trying to shape the debate and framework of emerging paradigms.  However, overcoming the trumping power of decisions that demand ‘control’ near term is a challenge that increasingly retards growth potential.                

Innovator's Dilemma indeed.