Q&A: Iain Gillott, Founder and President of Wireless and Mobile Research Firm iGR

Welcome to PR Vibes™, created by Calysto Communications to provide you with key insights into the publications and events in the telecommunications  industry. Today, we’re featuring an interview with Iain Gillott, the founder and president of iGR and iGR Semiconductor Research. Gillott has been involved in the wireless industry, as both a vendor and analyst, for more than 22 years. Before founding iGR, Gillott was a group vice president in IDC’s telecommunications practice. Prior to joining IDC, he served in various technical roles at EDS (now HP). Enjoy!

Since we’ve covered iGR in the past, let’s start with some new stuff. Any interesting trends that you foresee on the horizon?

I think there are three main trends that the wireless and mobile industry will have to contend with in the next few years and these will change the ecosystem’s perception of “value”:

• Virtualization in the network (both for RAN and in the packet core) will reduce the costs and allow operators to offer new services around the world. Virtualization on mobile devices will change how enterprises offer services to their employees and customers.
• Demand for mobile bandwidth continues to grow. The growth is actually accelerating and the lack of new spectrum means that the mobile operators have to be very creative and resourceful to develop their networks to meet end user needs.  And bandwidth needs to be provided where users require it, not just where the mobile operators are able to provision services.
• Differentiate on content and services, not hardware. It is very difficult to differentiate a product based on hardware today and even harder to make money. So, differentiation comes from the content and services you can deliver, including OTT.

I understand you recently did a survey of the telecommunications and mobile industry about the trends in research. What did you learn?

iGR and Calysto recently surveyed PR, marketing and research professionals in various companies around the world.  We had been planning this survey for a while and the results did not disappoint.  On the research side, we found that people want (and value) end-user surveys and fact-based forecasts.  Secondly, customers also value analyst firms with deep experience in the industry – I believe this is a backlash against the Internet in some respects and all of the unexperienced bloggers and commentators out there.  iGR is able to support both of these needs well – we conduct extensive end-user surveys for our research and we have been in the industry (collectively) for about 35 years.

What types of services do you provide?

iGR offers a full range of research services:

• Reports and studies can be purchased directly from our website and cover a wide range of subjects.  We typically publish about 50 reports a year – one per week on average!  Each report usually includes a market forecast and profiles of the vendors involved in that segment of the market – we know from talking to our clients that these aspects of market research are important.
• Subscription services for “Wireless & Mobile Industries”, “Small Cell & Hetnet Architectures” and “Mobile Virtualization”.
• Custom consulting includes primary research surveys, focus groups, competitive analysis, new opportunity analysis, white papers, and content creation for marketing campaigns.
• Mobile network traffic modeling – iGR is able to compare data bandwidth demand to network capacity and show not only when a particular market is likely to experience data capacity issues, but also what can be done to address the issues. For example, the model can show how the deployment of small cells would provide additional mobile data capacity or how shifting users from 3G to 4G LTE devices would impact the market characteristics.
• Honoraria for various events, including user groups, executive presentations, trade shows, etc.

What sets iGR apart from other firms?

We differentiate on three things:

• Understanding of the industry – We have been in the wireless and mobile industry a long time and understand the technologies, networks and ecosystem. We have a lot of detailed research, forecasts and segmentations which is what our customers are looking for. For example, at present we are working on three new research reports: our annual Worldwide Mobile Connections Forecast; a view of the current status of IMS and RCS; and an analysis of bandwidth utilization across various wireless network types in the hetnet.
• Primary research – iGR licenses its own survey software and has close relationships with panel companies. This allows us to quickly (and very cost effectively) conduct primary research surveys for our clients. We can survey down to the zip code level or conduct surveys globally. In 2013, we completed surveys in the UK, Germany, France, China, Australia, India and Brazil, as well as, of course, throughout the U.S.  And just in the first quarter of 2014, we have nine separate surveys scheduled for consumers and small businesses in multiple markets across the U.S.
• We are easy to do business with – iGR is small, focused and responsive. We have completed projects in the past in less time than some of our competitors have taken to write the proposal. Our client renewal rate is more than 80 percent. Clients like what we do and keep coming back for more. And, we do not go out of our way to make things overly difficult with bureaucracy and overhead.

What can you tell us a about iGR?  How did it come about?

iGR was founded in December 2000 as iGillottResearch to research specifically the wireless and mobile industry.  At the time, wireless and mobile meant the mobile operators (of which there were many!), the infrastructure and solution vendors (lots of those as well) and the few handset OEMs. Since then, there has been significant consolidation in the carrier and infrastructure vendor space, but new infrastructure vendors, device OEMs, application developers, and content providers have emerged. In addition, the number of companies interested in wireless and mobile technologies has expanded exponentially. So the audience for our research has expanded significantly as well.

What’s your technology/market focus?

Easy – wireless and mobile!  We tend to not look at semiconductors as much, but we do look at most other aspects of the industry. In 2013, we have researched a wide range of infrastructure technologies and issues and have published studies on femtocells, metrocells, picocells, DAS, Wi-Fi offload, mobile bandwidth demands, het-nets, mobile virtualization, LTE advanced, LTE carrier aggregation, LTE infrastructure capex and opex, and LTE broadcast.

We have also conducted in-depth research on the global smartphone and tablet markets for some years, and have always studied the mobile operators and their competitiveness in the industry. For example, in 2013 we published studies on Net Promoter Scores (NPS) for both the U.S. mobile operators and the major smartphone and tablet OEMs.

Who is your target audience?

Simply, those that wish to understand more about the wireless and mobile industry. Typically, we do not sell to end users but we do target infrastructure vendors, mobile operators, broadband service providers, solution vendors, application developers, cable MSOs, OTT providers and anyone else providing solutions in the wireless industry.

How many analysts are associated with iGR and what do they cover?

Right now we have five people working at iGR and all are engaged in some aspect of the research.  Matt Vartabedian and I are the main analysts and guide the research. We usually divide up a specific project or study, and have different people work on the various components. To keep from getting stale, we do not dedicate specific analysts to specific technologies or segments of the wireless and mobile industry. This way, everyone gets exposure to multiple aspects of the industry.

Can you share with us your future growth plans?

Growth for iGR is very simple – expand the audience we market and sell to. We plan to keep researching the wireless and mobile industry; that is what we are good at. For the last two years, we have worked hard at expanding our marketing and it has worked – we have three times as many clients now as we had in 2011.

So, I do not expect major shifts in what iGR researches (although of course we will keep up with new emerging technologies), but you can expect to start to see more of iGR in the media.  For 2014, we are planning to take a deep dive into the costs associated with small cells and hetnet deployment, as well as continue to look at the emerging mobile virtualization space.

As an analyst, how much value do you place on information that you get via social media channels, such as blogs and Twitter?

OK, so let’s get this out of the way – I am old!  I love technology, but initially didn’t see the attraction of the social media apps/services. Twitter is a good example; I really do not see the need to know what some people (so called “stars” for example) are eating for breakfast. Personally, I do not use Twitter at all. And I only got a Facebook account to keep an eye on my teenagers . . . then they both “de-friended” me! And, I’m not that interested in “re-connecting” with people I knew 25 years ago. The friends I have, I have known for a while. Plus, I travel a lot for business and have more than enough to do at home. A Facebook-addiction would just mean a lot of wasted time. However, my kids are both Instagram users and they keep showing me photos and videos of stupid stuff! I find it interesting that they have almost entirely left Facebook in favor of Instagram.  My daughter is now in college in the UK so we have become big Whatsapp and Instagram users – much easier to communicate that way than by phone! That said, our company does use Twitter. We put out daily tweets on all our research and actually have quite a few followers. LinkedIn is different. I use that a lot to find people who are knowledgeable about the industry and generally find it very productive and useful. Plus, I get more than 20 invites from people every week and iGR uses it to send out notifications on new research, studies, and things like that.

On a personal note, how did a graduate from the University College of North Wales end up in Austin, Texas?!!! Can you tell us a bit about your hobbies and interests? Any good book recommendations? 

As anyone who hears me speak for 30 seconds can tell, I am a Brit! I actually came to the States 25 years ago with EDS for a training course and I ended up staying, met my wife, had a couple of kids . . . the rest is history J Hobbies include cycling (road and mountain), CrossFit, cars (I change the oil myself. Nothing better than getting dirty under an old car), and keeping up with my kids’ basketball schedules. Plus, I am the pool guy, maintenance guy and part-time yard guy for the house. I tend to watch movies and TV series on planes or in the evenings to get some peace and quiet and I watch live TV perhaps twice a year.

Good books? “A brief History of Time” by Stephen Hawking; “When Angels Wept: A What-If History of the Cuban Missile Crisis” by Eric G. Swedin; and any of the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child. Right now, I am reading “Making Aston Martin” by Ullrich Bez. 

Closing thoughts?

We like to have fun. The wireless and mobile industry is very dynamic and challenging, and is therefore an interesting industry to be in. We like that and we enjoy what we do. Sometimes you just have to sit back and smile!