Launching a new mobile service for local businesses – nationally
Introducing Lokal Tjeneste and the Gintelberg chronicles
Targeting SMEs means that you need to understand who you really want to serve and the problems they face. The data is there to enable the market to be defined – but what do shopkeepers, entrepreneurs and local service suppliers really need?
You need to pay attention – so let’s go back to the beginnings of Lokal Tjeneste and focus on Gintelberg – and discover how a B2B MVNO made a difference.
Day 1 in the life of a new, B2B MVNO.
One the first day of his new job, Loke Sanders gazed down at the vibrant, bustling town centre of Gintelberg.
From the window of his office, perched on the hillside in the new science park by the university, he could see hordes of people thronging to work.
Hello! You’re my new customers he thought to himself. And smiled.
Loke is an experienced product manager. He specialises in B2B services and solutions and has deep expertise in creating and delivering compelling propositions for mobile service providers. Recently, he was recruited by a new MVNO that has been started in Gintelberg – Lokal Tjeneste.
In Norwegian, this means ‘local service’ – and that’s just what the MVNO wants to provide. Local services, for local people. Starting in Gintelberg, the MVNO has ambitions to deliver services that matter to local people and businesses. Loke’s task is to devise the services and propositions that will capture attention – and get the business running.
But isn’t the business market saturated?
But why? Why is a startup investing in services for local businesses? After all, surely, they are well-served by existing providers.
Well, actually no. In Norway and most other countries, not all businesses are equal. Market analysis shows that the business population, far from being a homogenous group, is very much a diverse and vibrant community.
Of course, there are large businesses with national or even international footprints – and Gintelberg has its fair share of those. The high street banks, supermarket chains, local government offices – and much more.
Consequently, most service providers focus on these kinds of organisations, because they have large numbers of users and represent valuable accounts. But, the number of companies with hundreds or thousands of employees in any given country is relatively small.
In the UK, for example, data from 2025 shows that there are 8,335 private sector companies that have 250 or more employees – but there are more than 5.7 million businesses in total[1].
Of these, around 5.64 million have between 0 and 49 employees. In fact, the total business working population is estimated at around 28 million people – but 13 million of these work in companies with 0 – 49 employees, while more than 4 million work in companies with no employees. That’s a lot of people who may not enter the thinking of traditional service providers.
And there’s money in those hills – because of the total revenue of all UK businesses, around 45% comes from those small businesses. So, why aren’t they central to any B2B offer?
The same argument can be applied to most countries. You can see the data for Norway, here.
Small businesses need help – but they also need understanding.
So, the Lokal Tjeneste founders thought, having done their research in Norway: let’s go after this market. Let’s try to work with those thousands and hundreds of businesses that deliver this huge chunk of the economic activity. And let’s do so, locally, delivering a personal service that matters – local service, for local people.
But let’s do so by understanding who they are and what they want. So, who are there? Loke knew the answer. It is right in front of his window.
Looking down from his smart new office, Loke could see the town centre set out before him – the high street and surrounding area, with its array of shoe shops, clothing retailers, travel agents, law firms, dentists, architects, and more.
Gazing further towards the edge of town (it’s a small town, after all), he could see the car repair firms, the building companies and their yards, taxi companies, logistics suppliers, and a host of other businesses.
What do they all do? They employ people, need to interact with customers – and, nowadays, many of them are out and about delivering the services the offer. They have to talk between themselves to organise and fulfil jobs, they need to speak with customers to arrange appointments and field enquiries. They have to coordinate sick leave and find replacements.
Organise. Interact. Flourish.
In short, they need to organise their activities to meet the needs of their customers – just like a multi-national operation, but at a micro scale.
But they don’t have IT departments, they don’t want complexity. They just want something that makes life a bit easier and bit better – and, perhaps, to boost profit through more efficient operations.
What they don’t want is that legacy landline that can only be answered by one person at a time – but they do want to keep that number, because it’s been used for years.
They want to use devices that are familiar to them and to keep those devices with them at all times. They want mobility – and a solution that works for them, delivered by people who understand them.
Powered by Gintel.
And that’s where Lokal Tjeneste thought they had the answer. They partnered with Gintel to deploy Gintel’s mobile-first Cloud PBX solution and launched, offering to replace the old physical infrastructure with virtual numbers and to connect everyone in the business.
Loke smiled again. He knows the businesses he could see in front of him. He knew the problems they faced when handling customer enquiries and the challenge of managing everything smoothly. He has the answer to their problems – and a proposition that will win for his investors.
He looked forward to taking the offer to businesses across the country – based on the simple premise that Lokal Tjeneste would really understand them, wherever they are.
In the Gintelberg chronicles, you can see how any service provider can deliver local services, for local people – by understanding what they need.
And is Gintelberg unusual? No, it’s similar to so many towns scattered across your countries – old market towns, historic communities, villages that have grown and expanded.
They have people who have very particular needs, which you can serve – if only you can understand them and think about each as a distinct and valuable entity.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/business-population-estimates-2025/business-population-estimates-for-the-uk-and-regions-2025-statistical-release
