Cambridge

I worked on a project for a mobile network operator (MNO) involving the development of their business plan. The project team was split into multiple workstreams that looked at different aspects of the client’s business.

I worked as part of the new and adjacent businesses workstream (that is, researching new ways for the operator to generate revenue outside of core services). These new ways included, for example, smart city services, business process outsourcing (BPO) and OTT video services.

For this project, I conducted desk research to identify for each service:

• opportunities for the MNO
• case studies of other MNOs providing these services in other countries
• competition from both rival MNOs and non-MNOs
• potential next steps

This project was particularly interesting since it involved research into a broad range of distinct services. This gave me the opportunity to learn about the services that an MNO can offer besides voice and data.

I recently completed a project to analyse the adoption of 5G in the UK. Through desk research, I identified and categorised key 5G use cases, and the benefits, barriers and technical features associated with each. As a team, we conducted key stakeholder interviews, which helped us to develop an analysis of the impact of various barriers on the delay to adoption and initial take-up of each category of use cases. What I really liked about this project was how the categories I developed within the first few weeks became a central part of the analysis and deliverables, and that I was involved in a range of activities: research, presentations, interviews, numerical analysis, graphic design and report writing. As a recent joiner it was thrilling to see my work within the final deliverables, and it was exciting to have such varied tasks all within one project.

A project that sticks in my mind was for an operator that hired us to help to review a complex model built by the domestic telecoms regulator. This is the sort of project that Analysys Mason (and I) have done many times over the years in many countries, but the models involved are always different and need their own bespoke approach. The difference here was that, in addition to the usual Excel calculations, a large part of it was built using an open-source software called R. The team (me and an AC) needed to get a handle on how the part in R worked so that we could critique it and recommend improvements on behalf of our client.

I think the dynamic worked well here because I was able to guide the AC on the checks required and how they could be done in principle, while they focused on using R to undertake the checks. It was a learning curve for both of us, but we wrote a report in a matter of weeks that our client was very happy with. I think it demonstrates the kind of front-line project execution that ACs at Analysys Mason need to be ready for.

We conducted a study on the opportunities to deploy new submarine cables from French Polynesia to other parts of the world for the government of French Polynesia. The aim was to keep the internet flowing in case of damage to the single cable that existed at the time, and to reduce the price of local broadband plans by using the existing and new cable(s) for transit between different parts of the word (say South America to Asia via Tahiti) that would also pay for deploying/using the cable(s), rather than Tahiti being a dead end of internet traffic paying for a cable serving fewer than 300 000 people on its own. The project combined trying to solve a very concrete issue with meeting all the relevant local stakeholders (although I did not get to join the meeting with the intelligence service) and I spent 3 weeks in Tahiti in two trips.