INFORMATION-PACKED SESSIONS!

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

8:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.

The PELORUS Group: DA & Operator Services ’06 -- Dynamic market and technology forces are redefining DA and operator services in North America and Europe.  Online and wireless mediums are boosting usage while cutting into wireline habits.  Alternative business models present lucrative opportunities while pressuring traditional models.  New alliances and strategies are the order of the day.  In this always eagerly awaited session, The PELORUS Group will shed insights into the viability of traditional and emerging business models.  As it examines the next five years for the different market segments, PELORUS will also highlight the latest usability parameters to help DA and operator services providers craft tactical, long-term models and strategies.

9:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.

Operator Services Managers: Staying Power Amidst Challenges -- How to energize and monetize a receding market - That is the challenge for the operator services segment in 2006.  The demands on operator services managers are increasing in the face of smaller budgets, smaller teams, and technical advances.  Making money from core operator services for smaller telcos is also harder than ever.  Where are the new sources of revenue to come from?  The session examines newer avenues for operator services including technology reconciliations and renewed business models to create more staying power.

 

10:45 a.m. - 11:15 a.m.

DA And Operator Services:  The Canadian Perspective -- What is happening in the Canadian DA and operator services theaters?  Canadian wholesalers are looking beyond their borders, eyeing the lucrative U.S. wireless constituencies and European markets opening for competition.  Looking to expand its wholesale outsourcing and retail reach, Canadian operator TELUS is deploying advanced speech and VoIP technologies to cut its cost base and gain margins.  TELUS will present its benchmarks for success as it moves to become a full-scale North American DA provider on the retail and wholesale fronts.

 

11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.

Emerging Alternative DA Business Models: Can We Googlize Voice?  -- A plethora of market and technology drivers is giving rise to new lucrative business models that raise the stakes of new competitive providers.  Taking a page from search-engine advertising, several newcomers have in recent months unveiled advertising-supported, free directory assistance.  This model enables users to receive free DA while promising advertisers a different path to acquire customers – at a fraction of the cost of the Yellow Pages or traditional advertising.  The emerging free DA industry and the business models that are driving it will be highlighted in this exclusive executive discussion!

 

1:15 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.

The State Of The Carriers: A Paradigm Shift? -- The carriers are in a dubious state.  On the one hand, they are powerhouses that can leverage assets of wireline, wireless and online services, and enormously complex and powerful infrastructures.  But their very size and loyalty to traditional business models frequently slow quick-footed responses to emerging competition from smaller entities and start-ups.  This session offers to identify older winning strategies while exploring emerging untried business models in an effort to realize the best of both worlds.

 

1:45 p.m. - 2:45 p.m.

The State Of Speech & Multimodal  Automation: Is It Sticking?  -- After initial hiccups and cautious, gradual deployments, voice automation seems here to stay.  More than a year into implementations, DA and operator services providers report encouraging adoption rates.  Clearly, speech automation and related technologies have matured while consumers have been acclimatizing to automated responses.  This Session elicits some reality checks: What are the different adoption experiences?  How can we increase adoption rates to gain bigger margins?  What DA and operator services can be automated and what is the threshold for acceptance?  How quickly will the market for automated DA and related services trend upward?

 

3:00 p.m. - 3:45 p.m.

What’s New In Directories -- This session will examine the scope of the challenges in building and sustaining directories that can accommodate current and future DA needs.  It will explore the impact of multimedia content on existing and emerging directories while checking the status of wireless databases.  The play of cable and VoIP providers and their DA provisions is an emerging issue as well, as is the role of speech recognition and automation in wireless content directories.  This session will take a close look at the intricate forces pulling at the directories market, the issues that need to be addressed, and the solutions players can expect to turn to.

3:45 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

The DIS Landscape: Market Outlook And Opportunities -- Directory Information Services is here to stay.  Clearly, DA providers recognize the window of opportunity and are ramping up efforts to capitalize on this potentially multi-million-dollar trend.  In fact, many DA providers see DIS as the future of DA.  However, the DIS rollouts in Europe and the U.S. are clearly in their infancy.  What is the potential market size and growth opportunities? What competitive challenges do DA providers face in the new DIS landscape?  How can you make the emerging competition work for you through new partnerships and pooled resources?  What challenges do voice DIS providers face vis-à-vis real time wireless information services?  This Session will offer an insider’s perspective on the DIS opportunities and introductions that are shaping the DA industry on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. 

Reception Sponsored By:

                                             

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

9:00 a.m. - 10:15 a.m.

Wholesale DA And Outsourcing Opportunities:  Firing On All Cylinders?  Wholesale DA is definitely on an upward track.  Advanced technologies along with burgeoning wireless constituencies are fueling demand despite price pressures.  Meanwhile, offshore call centers are becoming viable options, yielding cost margins to keep prices competitive.  Regardless, some strategies have worked while others have fallen flat.  Bending to competitive pressures, will the carriers jump on the offshore bandwagon as well?  This session offers insights into market trends that are driving outsourcing strategies, and examines future opportunities and pitfalls to avoid.  It will also explore the movement of call centers offshore, and how that trend might impact RBOC wholesale efforts.

10:30 a.m. - 11:15 a.m.

The Regulatory Equation: Status And Implications In The U.S. And Europe -- Deregulation of the DA markets and open competition has been sweeping across Europe, with France recently joining the ranks.  The activities in the U.S., however, have been in stalemate for a while.  This panel offers a snapshot of the latest status of deregulation on both sides of the Atlantic and its implications for providers and customers.  What pending developments are in the pipeline in the U.S. and what do they mean to short-term and long-term strategies of providers?  

11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.

The Role Of Local Search In The DA Landscape -- Online titans Google and Yahoo!, along with a host of local search providers, are continuing to up their ante in the DA space.  It is only a matter of time before these local search competitors add traditional DA features, including speech, to their repertoire.  This Session will drill down into the business models and technologies in play in this rapidly unfurling space.  It will also explore possible partnerships and alliances that could make for co-opetition and spell out in black and white the ramifications to traditional DA models if left unaltered.

 

1:15 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

The Future Of Operator Services And DA: Stakeholders’ Panel -- This special panel, as in the past, brings together the movers and shakers of the operator services and DA industry to shed light on the relentless market and technology trends coming to bear on present and future business models.  The discussions will offer a peek into the strategies and business models that will make a difference as we move into the second half of the decade.  This session will act as a platform for a forthright exchange of ideas amongst competitors and partners alike, paving the way for a coherent vision of potential alliances and intra-industry strategies.


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