When faced with a shifting market, business leaders have two options: expand the business into new markets, or take advantage of specific expertise and dig into established niches. A group of leaders in the ground segment business gathered at the “Ground Segment Business Focus: Diversify Your Markets or Drill Deep into Your Niche?” panel at SATELLITE 2017.
Marzio Laurenti, CEO of Telespazio Brazil, described his company as “technology agnostic.” “We see a lot of cheap bandwidth coming to the market and that could be put to good use for us, especially in the short term. This will, in principle, unlock new market segments.”
Explore the Show Daily 2017 Day 4 Issue
Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.
Vince Matherne, vice president of strategic development at Encompass Digital Media, said: “Are you a services provisioning company focusing on a specific market, or are you a teleport [operator], where you may need to shift your business model to chase dollars?”
Koby Zontag, vice president of media sales and business development at PCCW Global, noted: “Our core business is telecomm connectivity. We have a very vast fiber network, but on top of that we also have some teleports — one of them is probably the largest teleport in Asia.”
For James Trevelyan, head of sales at Arqiva Satellite & Media, the risk inherent in diversifying broadly is only worth it when he’s confident the company “has a right to win in whatever market in which it’s playing.”
Regardless of direction, the group agreed that working together with other teleport operators is very important. Trevelyan noted it’s “almost impossible to do everything yourself on a global scale.”
Matherne concluded: “If you diversify across everything it’s harder to be an expert in anything. If you don’t diversify, when that area hits the skids, you’re in trouble as well.” VS
