Just as businesses are starting to view the Internet as part of their overall strategy, companies are starting to think about how m-commerce will tie in with all this. In the early stages of this process it's important to realise exactly where m-commerce is currently at, and to assess how it can fit in to your existing business model.
Companies are increasingly realising that m-commerce offers possibilities to make money and snare customers. However, the applications which are gaining traction in the marketplace are not those which were predicted to be successful even a year ago. It seems the key to uncovering the m-commerce opportunities is to have a more realistic view of what the technology is, and isn't, suitable for.
Consumer or business driven?
One of the arguments surrounding m-commerce is whether the applications it's most suited to are business to consumer (b2c) or business to business (b2b).
Ashley Bloch, managing director at m-commerce provider Freedom Technologies, believes the reason everyone's talking about making corporate databases mobile is because that's where the action is. He attributes this to the value that mobilising applications has to field employees. -It's a very strong value proposition, a very strong business case and corporates are the entities that have the money to invest in those areas because they get a return on their investment," Bloch argues.
He uses the analogy of the Internet in the mid 90s, where there was a lot of buzz about the consumer. -Then as time went on, people starting saying it's in the business areaâ€"because businesses conduct most of the big transactions in the world, they can streamline their operations.
-The same thing happened in the mobile area, the difference is that it happened so quickly. The whole WAP crazeâ€"a year ago it was intenseâ€"and there was all this hype about the consumer market being the place it was going to happen."
Bloch believes the reason that happened was because everyone was looking at companies like Nokia and Ericsson selling millions of handsets a year. -[They were] looking at these huge numbers and said, 'ah, that's where the action is'. But WAP didn't deliverâ€"consumers are fickle, so it's back to the corporates where they can validate the business case and pay for the stuff. There's quite a lot to learn from history."
