Ringing in the changes

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There are few things that epitomise the union of old and new as succinctly as mobile telecoms. Within a relatively short period of time, the sector has transformed from one focused on untethering people from their landlines – so they could make calls on the go – to one that provides data and devices allowing people to: browse the web; stream high-definition film; make video calls; send text and emoticon messages; play games; listen to their favourite music; diarise their lives; and find the quickest route home.

“The thing I love about telecoms is that it changes so much – you are effectively working in a different industry every six months, ” says O2 head of research Jessica Salmon. This coming together of the traditional and state-of-the-art is analogous to Salmon’s approach to market research, with old-school skills – such as qualitative – being used to interpret and enrich the array of data available from newer information streams.