Abstract
Our chapter introduces an integrated way to look into the world of mobile offerings, referred often as m-commerce,- through a cross-country analysis of multiple applications in various countries in Europe and Asia. We investigated the role of four dominant factors - technology, government, financial incentives and culture - that influence mobile value offerings and connected them to Methlie and Pederson’s (2005) model of extrinsic and intrinsic attributes in mobile space. We found that there are many applications and services available that provide added value to customers, but an ill-defined business model prevents their successful realization. An unclear working relationship among the value players and their relative power position in the market also hinder the roll out of many services. The key findings from our research consist of-: i. the role of the four factors in development and deployment of m-commerce across multiple countries; ii. The level of influence of each of the four factors has on various applications; iii. the importance of value delivery, not merely the promotion of the “bells and whistles” of new applications, with a clear focus on a viable business model; iv. the role of socio-cultural differences in influencing mobile value applications and acceptance. In addition, we found that competition in the early phase of market growth is counter-productive and cooperative relationship between all value players is absolutely crucial for healthy growth of the mobile market and ultimately leads to a win-win situation for everyone.
TopM-Commerce: Definition And Value Network
There are multiple viewpoints on what constitutes m-commerce (see e.g. Barnes, 2002; Sabat, 2002). However, for the purpose of this research, we define m-commerce as the transaction of goods and services through a mobile hand held device. These goods and services include text messaging (SMS), multimedia messages (MMS), ringtones, downloadable music, mobile-banking, entertainment services through streaming video, ticket purchases, micro-payments, and many others. The deliveries of such goods and services require coordination and interaction between multiple stakeholders.
The mechanism and process through which the stakeholders in the mobile commerce transfer value while creating, providing, delivering, and maintaining products and services is called the mobile value chain (Lu et. al., 2007). Sometime it is also referred to as the mobile eco-system.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Mobile Business Models: An architecture for execution of the delivery of the value propositions in mobile domain including a description of the business actors and their roles and revenue sources.
M-commerce: Refers to Mobile Commerce and is defined as the transaction of goods and services through a mobile hand held device that can include text messaging (SMS), multimedia messages (MMS), ringtones, downloadable music, mobile-banking, entertainment services through streaming video, ticket purchases, micro-payments, and many others.
Short Messaging Services (SMS): A means of communications in the mobile network through short texts that can be typed using the phone keypads.
GSM: GSM stands for Global Systems Mobile and is the prevalent standard for the communications in mobile network for most part of the world.
Killer Applications: Applications in a new area with such compelling values that end users adopt it at a very high speed and it becomes a critical part of their everyday use. E-mail, for example, is considered to be the “killer application” for the Internet.
Mobile Value Network: Collection of all the mobile players who create and deliver value and their corresponding interactions.
CDMA: The CDMA, that stands for Code Division Multiple Access is a mobile communications standard developed by Qualcom.
Mobile Network Operator or MNO: Probably the most significant player in the mobile value network. Often a major telecom company, the carrier or the mobile network operator (MNO) owns the transmission equipment, brands and controls the software on the handsets, operates retail stores to sell plans and subsidized handsets, and does end-user billing for basic services.