INTRODUCTION
“ As the Internet usage explodes, we are witnessing
the biggest land glob since the settling of the Wild West.
This time the settlers are the marketers and the real estate
is the mind of the consumers” (Mittal & Sawhney
1998 ).[1] There
is no question about e-business has had a major part to play
in much of the Western economies in the past 10 years.
This can be reflected in the report by the US Commerce Department,
according to the FT, the report found that US business-to-business
e-commerce dominated online transaction in 2002 with 12 per
cent of all manufacturing transaction taking place using the
Internet. The report revealed that $485.28 bn originated in
e-commerce.
Mobile.com is a business selling books on line and moving
into the m-commerce. The company wanted to build on the success
of the on-line business which and targeting younger mobile
phone users. Having worked for on e-commerce projects as well
as having untaken courses in the field of e-commerce, the
Arthur of this paper has developed the mobile.com models based
on this knowledge and experience.
Successful companies in e-commerce such as Amazon has been
successful because they ask; are the right goods and services
being offered, and are they being delivered in an efficient
manner?
Is the organisation’s personal sufficiently sensitive
to the consumer needs? Does the organisation have a marketing
strategy, and is it appropriate to the changing market and
competitive activities.
Therefore this paper seeks to ask these questions. The researcher
has chosen to use a modified model of Lovelock and Weinberg
(1994 )[2] marketing
model to be outlined in the next section.
MOBILE.COM MODEL
Lovelock and Weinberg (1994) define the marketing
audit as
“A systematic, critical, impartial review and appraisal
of an organisation’s total marketing operation”
The modal goal of the mobile.com is not only to review and
evaluate the current performance of the market of the service
provider, but also to identify and suggest the future opportunities
and threat in the mobile book market. That structure of the
model is a four-step model as shown in the figure below.
Figure 1: Mobile.com model
EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT
“ External environment are those factors which not only
are outside the system’s control, but which determine,
in part how the system perform”. Because of ‘Uncertainty’
in the business environment, environment scanning is vital.
This is key in allowing that mobile.com to adapt to the changing
environment. As shown the figure 1, the following factors,
which will determine the success of Mobile.com, need will
be examined:
• Microenvironment
• Competitors
• Technology
Microenvironment
At pointed out in the introduction, recently the
e-commerce microenvironment has seen dynamic changes as well
as raising concern. Dot.com failure such as Walt Disney’s
Toysmart.con, Levis-Strauss’s online store, Citibank’s
online banking service and Boo.com poses questions about the
future of the industry.
However despite this, there is been an increase in the mobile
market over the past 5 years within the UK market. This will
play an important role is the success of the any mobile.com.
However, benefits of this increase in mobile phone usage will
depend on what service mobile.com provide. For a company using
m-commerce and education services which as books for children
is lively to be successful as parents are likely give money
to the children to buy book.
The Internet through m-commerce might have levelled the business
playing field for big and small like Mobile.com, however one
could question this fact. It is likely that well know companies
with well-known brand have a big advantage over smaller unknown
companies such as Mobile.com.
Environmental scanning might also prove hard and costly to
keep up with the changing dynamic m-commerce (Richard Lynch
1998) .[3] The fact
that m-commerce is ever changing, for a Mobile.com to keep
up with the consumer needs could prove hard. Moreover, environmental
scanning will prove hard and expensive for smaller companies.
Competitors
According to Brian Toyne & Peter Walter (1993)
[4], the more competitive
the market is, the more rivalry will be within that industry.
Therefore Mobile.com must be aware of this threat. Apart from
dealing with the major competitors within the industry, the
company also have to be aware if the threat of the possible
entrant into the m-commerce industry. However one could argue
that new entry into the market might involve major investment
in technology and distribution channels. The ability to raise
such finance could deter some companies. Branding customers’
knowledge, special level of service and many other aspect
many create barriers by forcing new entrants to spend extra
funds or take longer to become established in the market which
is not easy in the Mobile industry.
Technology
“The technology is no longer an afterthought
in forming business strategy but rather the cause and the
driver” (King D, Chung H.M & Turban E. 2000) .[5]
There is no question that IT is one key factor that is the
core of driving m-commerce. Furthermore technological development
posses a significant challenge to the development of m-commerce.
Technology will be vital in the developing of the strategy,
target market, service provided and billing models and so
on.
The Market
The target market is the 10-20 years old market segment
who students mobile phone user. Mobile.com will target this
market because is the student markets. Mobile.com will expand
it service of selling books from the e-commerce to m-commerce.
Due to the fact that most students will wish to purchase books
and use mobile phone a great deal, this market is likely to
be appeal to the young market. The increase in mobile phone
usage coupled with the good consumer knowledge of the products
usage makes this market more appealing for the mobile phone
companies such as Mobile.com.
However, very few young market of under 18 are unlikely to
have bank cards to be able to pay for the service offered
by m-commerce companies. Therefore mobile.com should come
up with a way to overcome this problem.
INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT
“Knowing your market is the second rule of
marketing. Knowing your organisation is perhaps the most important
of all” (P. Kolter, G. Armstrong, J.Saunders & V.
Wang 1998) [6]. Successful
marketing is based on the firm’s ability to meet the
needs of the consumers. More so in m-commerce where the relationship
marketing is vital. By analysing the internal organisation,
the Mobile.com will be in a position to tell if the mission
and objectives can me met with the amount of resources at
hand.
Internal analysis as well as external analysis discussed in
the external analysis will help a Mobile.com in “identify,
anticipate, and satisfy consumer needs. Mission, objectives
as well as resources are key to the strategy formulation as
shown in the figure below and key to the success of the Mobile.com
in m-commerce.
EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT
“ External environment are those factors which not only
are outside the system’s control, but which determine,
in part how the system perform”. Because of ‘Uncertainty’
in the business environment, environment scanning is vital.
This is key in allowing that mobile.com to adapt to the changing
environment. As shown the figure 1, the following factors,
which will determine the success of Mobile.com, need will
be examined:
• Microenvironment
• Competitors
• Technology
Microenvironment
At pointed out in the introduction, recently the
e-commerce microenvironment has seen dynamic changes as well
as raising concern. Dot.com failure such as Walt Disney’s
Toysmart.con, Levis-Strauss’s online store, Citibank’s
online banking service and Boo.com poses questions about the
future of the industry.
However despite this, there is been an increase in the mobile
market over the past 5 years within the UK market. This will
play an important role is the success of the any mobile.com.
However, benefits of this increase in mobile phone usage will
depend on what service mobile.com provide. For a company using
m-commerce and education services which as books for children
is lively to be successful as parents are likely give money
to the children to buy book.
The Internet through m-commerce might have levelled the business
playing field for big and small like Mobile.com, however one
could question this fact. It is likely that well know companies
with well-known brand have a big advantage over smaller unknown
companies such as Mobile.com.
Environmental scanning might also prove hard and costly to
keep up with the changing dynamic m-commerce (Richard Lynch
1998) . The fact that m-commerce is ever changing, for a Mobile.com
to keep up with the consumer needs could prove hard. Moreover,
environmental scanning will prove hard and expensive for smaller
companies.
Competitors
According to Brian Toyne & Peter Walter (1993)
, the more competitive the market is, the more rivalry will
be within that industry. Therefore Mobile.com must be aware
of this threat. Apart from dealing with the major competitors
within the industry, the company also have to be aware if
the threat of the possible entrant into the m-commerce industry.
However one could argue that new entry into the market might
involve major investment in technology and distribution channels.
The ability to raise such finance could deter some companies.
Branding customers’ knowledge, special level of service
and many other aspect many create barriers by forcing new
entrants to spend extra funds or take longer to become established
in the market which is not easy in the Mobile industry.
Technology
“The technology is no longer an afterthought
in forming business strategy but rather the cause and the
driver” (King D, Chung H.M & Turban E. 2000) . There
is no question that IT is one key factor that is the core
of driving m-commerce. Furthermore technological development
posses a significant challenge to the development of m-commerce.
Technology will be vital in the developing of the strategy,
target market, service provided and billing models and so
on.
The Market
The target market is the 10-20 years old market segment
who students mobile phone user. Mobile.com will target this
market because is the student markets. Mobile.com will expand
it service of selling books from the e-commerce to m-commerce.
Due to the fact that most students will wish to purchase books
and use mobile phone a great deal, this market is likely to
be appeal to the young market. The increase in mobile phone
usage coupled with the good consumer knowledge of the products
usage makes this market more appealing for the mobile phone
companies such as Mobile.com.
However, very few young market of under 18 are unlikely to
have bank cards to be able to pay for the service offered
by m-commerce companies. Therefore mobile.com should come
up with a way to overcome this problem.
INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT
“Knowing your market is the second rule of
marketing. Knowing your organisation is perhaps the most important
of all” (P. Kolter, G. Armstrong, J.Saunders & V.
Wang 1998) . Successful marketing is based on the firm’s
ability to meet the needs of the consumers. More so in m-commerce
where the relationship marketing is vital. By analysing the
internal organisation, the Mobile.com will be in a position
to tell if the mission and objectives can me met with the
amount of resources at hand.
Internal analysis as well as external analysis discussed in
the external analysis will help a Mobile.com in “identify,
anticipate, and satisfy consumer needs. Mission, objectives
as well as resources are key to the strategy formulation as
shown in the figure below and key to the success of the Mobile.com
in m-commerce.
The mission or purpose of Mobile.com is of central importance
to the management of an organisation. Indeed an organisation
can be defined as “Human collectivist that is structured
to perform the mission through the use of largely rational
means”. (Richard Lynch 1998).
According to Lovelock and Weinberg (1994), it is one thing
to have lofty goals, objectives, and having a mission, but
it is another to achieve the, it is therefore vital to have
the resources to execute the strategy in order to meet the
mission.
STRATEGY
Strategy is the way and the means by which mobile.com seek
to reach and meet it’s objective. It is therefore important
for Mobile.com to have written objectives and the employees
within the organisation are aware of these objectives. In
order to be successful and to compete within m-commerce, Mobile
must incorporate the following elements of the marketing system.
• A good promotional mix
• Information planning & control systems
• Better website design
• Data management
• Security systems
All the above factors are can be easily extended to
reach consumer, which the company currently provide.
Promotional mix
“Promotional mix is the specific mean of advertising,
personal selling sales promotional and public relation that
a company use to pursue it’s advertising and marketing
objectives. According to King D, Chung HM and Turdan E (2000),
one of the major reasons why companies advertise on the Internet
is that fact that television viewers are migrating to the
Internet. Research conducted in 1999 found that three-quarters
of PC users were willing to give up TV to spend times on their
computers.
Furthermore the research found out that the migration of so
many television seem impressive more due to the fact that
the users are highly educated with high income. This is very
important for Mobile.com if they can build on this increase
in Internet usage as well as the increase in the number of
people using mobiles.
Information planning & control systems
Information planning and control is vital element
of Mobile.com as it is used to create relationship with consumers.
According to Mittal V and Dawhney M (1998), “loyal customers
are valuable asset to a company. Practically so in a competitive
market such as m-commerce industry where the source of competitive
advantage can be quickly eroded. Therefore it is not surprising
that many companies are adopting consumer-responsive strategy,
which sells information about consumers to build strong relationship.
Companies in the m-commerce such as mobile.com have to shown
the willingness to serve differently, with the best consumers
getting good treatment”.
Mobile.com could add values to customer by creating
some form of personalised interaction. This must be building
on the recognition that every consumers is different, that
it is based on two way communication and that it could continue
to develop over time. Furthermore loyal buyers are likely
to pass on favourable recommendation to other who also will
tend to be better prospect. “ A happy consumers will
tell 8 people about the product and an unhappy consumers will
tell 22”.
Despite the intense competition of consumer attention, consumer
is willing to invest time to learn about new offering. Most
of the consumer will try to the new information products once
but very few products they try will become part of their daily
lives. Consumers can surf and bookmark hundreds of websites
to which they will never return. Marketers of information
products such as m-commerce and e commerce are finding it
hard to attract consumer attention, which is hard enough.
Moblie.com must be aware of this and must try to make the
learning process easy.
When consumers are exposed to new information products such
as m-commerce. They need to learn about how to use it as well
as about the content of the offer. If the learning experience
is not carefully designed. Consumer will tend to experience
haphazardly and learn little about how the products work.
Therefore it is vital for Mobile.com to make the consumer
learning experience through better Mobile navigation, easier
so as to improve consumers coming back to the site.
Better mobile navigation
“ A badly designed website does more than just
cost you money, it is a reflection on your company”
M. Robinson (2000 ).[7]
In order to be competitive in m-commerce. It is vital to have
a good Mobile navigation, which is user friendly. A good navigation,
design must take into account the elements of “AIDA”
in a form of catching the Attention, making buyer Interested,
give the buyer the Desire to make the Action of Buying.
According to a recent research paper “39 percent of
test shoppers failed in their buying attempts because sites
wee too difficult to navigate. Imagine what would happen if
your bricks and mortar business lost almost 40 pent of its
potential customer because they walked in your store and could
not find what they were looking for because your aisles were
built in the shape of a maze? ( Robinson M 2000).
From this example, it is clear that not only is it important
to design a web site which will attract consumers by techniques
such as signposts, banners, adverts, search engine as well
as memorable unique, and hard to misspell domain name, but
also to make the consumers find what they are looking for
when the visited the site.
Security systems
Security is one of the most complex issue that will
affect and that affect e-commerce and m-commerce. Security
and confidentiality are essential before Mobile.com can conduct
financial transaction on the mobile, as widespread security
measures remain a concern. Credit card number, financial records
and other information can be high profile problem dues to
increase in the number of hanker.
STRATEIC ISSUE OF MODEL
For the company to be successful mobile.com need
a powerful promotional tool, which will attract consumers
to their respective web site, and some of the tool are:
• Signposting
• Banner adverts
• Search engine positioning
• Reciprocal links
• Incentives
Other than depending on loyal consumers, the mobile.com can
implement some of these tools as to attract more consumers.
One way in which mobile.com can promote its offering and products
would be to advertise in the schools, colleges and university.
They can do this my advertising on college websites, therefore
increasing consumer’s awareness of the books on offer.
Information planning and control system
Getting feedback from consumers is very vital in
any business, as this will allow the come to produce what
the consumer want. Mobile tracking software could provide
feedbacks from consumers. Furthermore, this will notify the
mobile.com which feature people are not using the site, by
whether or not the user is aware the feature. For example,
a little used feature on the mobile raise awareness to the
company. This allows the company to improve on the features.
This information is very likely to be invaluable in the decision-making
processes and more vital is that it is coming from consumers.
Prices and billing
Due to the fact that the mobile.com will be targeting
student between the ages of 10-20 who known mobile phone to
sale their books, the pricing strategy must take this into
account. Students are low-income earner therefore the pricing
for the books sold by mobile.com must be within the accepted
price by students. Mobile.com could work with schools and
college to make sure that they stock the books, which are
recommended by the school. This will ensure that the students
will buy the books.
In terms of billing, mobile.com can work with school, university
and college so that they can be able to sell the top up cards
within these organisations. This will be important as students
without access to bankcards can buy top up cards and therefore
buy books.
Distribution channels
Perhaps most important of all is to ensure that Mobile.com
ensure that they have a very effective distribution channels
to make sure that they consumers get the books they have buy
as soon as possible. This is vital in m-commerce as consumers
are more demanding.
Evolution of the Mobile.com Model
There is no question about the importance of e-commerce
for a business. M-commerce is also the way forward in particular
for mobile business. The business model of mobile.com is appealing
to phone companies because they will be able to provide another
service to their consumers. More important to those consumers
who already exist. By using e-commerce methods mobile.com
can move the he service from e-commerce to mobile phone.
The fact that the number of students who own mobile phone
has increased will benefit m-commerce companies. Also the
fact that education always there, students will need to buy
books. By working with school, colleges and universities,
mobile.com can benefit from this business strategy. However,
it is vitally important that other forms of billing and payment
forms such as top-up cards are introduced as well as having
an effective distribution channel and goof security systems
in place.
Good navigation system, promotion tools, information management
are all vital for the model to work effectively. At the heart
of the organisation it is also important for the employees
within the company to understand what the objectives of the
company are and what the mission of the whole organisation
is. Moreover the competition and the threat from competitive
are also vital.
From the consumer point of view, the product offering would
be appealing depending on he pricing. In terms of using m-commerce
as a customer relationship tool from a philosophical point
of view, it means sense to be a consumer place the consumer
at the core of the company’s marketing strategy.
Therefore, it is true that m-commerce can be used as a strategic
or tactical tool, but the scope of it can also be limited.
Some of this limitation is, clearly seen. Examples of the
people who lost large sums of money for using their card to
buy products from the e-commerce could put off people using
mobile.com.
- Mittal V and Dawhney M (1998),
Mastering marketing (managing learning to lock in consumers)
FT publishing.[Return]
- Lovelock & Weinberg (1994)
Conducting a Marketing Audit, New York John Wiley publishing[Return]
- Richard Lynch (1998) Corporate
Strategy, London Financial Times Pitman[Return]
- Brian Toyne & Peter Walter
(1993) Global Marketing Management a Strategic Perspective,
(second edition) London: Ally&Becon Publishing[Return]
- D King, H.M Chung & E. Turban
(2000) Electronic Commerce; London prentice Publishing[Return]
- Kolter P, Armstrong G, Saunders
J & Wang V (1998) Principles of Marketing, second edition
London; prentice publishing.[Return]
- Robinson M (2000) E-business
second edition; London; Addison-Wesley[Return]
- REFERENCES:
- Mittal V and Dawhney M (1998), Mastering marketing
(managing learning to lock in consumers) FT publishing
- Lovelock & Weinberg (1994) Conducting a
Marketing Audit, New York John Wiley publishing
- Lynch R (1998) Corporate Strategy, London Financial
Times Pitman
- Tyne B & Walter P (1993) Global Marketing
Management a Strategic Perspective, (second edition) London:
Ally & Bacon Publishing
- King D, Chung H M &. Turban E (2000) Electronic
Commerce; London prentice Publishing
- Kolter P, Armstrong G, Saunders W & Wang
V (1998) Principles of Marketing, second edition London;
prentice publishing.
- Robinson M (2000) E-business second edition;
London; Addison-Wesley
|
