Page 210 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

Summary 193

availability of suppliers and other business partners; and an 1. What is m-commerce, its value-added attributes, and
extension of Web-based services to smartphone and tablet fundamental drivers? M-commerce is any e-commerce
users. The key to success in the m-commerce world is to activity conducted with mobile devices over a wireless
define your overall e-commerce and m-commerce business telecommunications network. M-commerce complements
strategy, determine which segments are critical to the strategy e-commerce. M-commerce can help a business improve its
and the order in which they need to be addressed, and which value proposition to customers by utilizing its unique attri-
of the available mobile technologies will support the strategy butes: ubiquity, convenience, interactivity, personalization,
and the critical segments. and localization. Currently, m-commerce is driven by the
2. Are there any clear technical winners? Among mobile large number of users of mobile devices; a developing
devices, the answer is yes. Many like the all-in-one devices, “smartphone culture” among youth; demands from service-
such as smartphones or tablets. There still is a confusing oriented customers; vendor marketing; declining prices; an
multiplicity of standards, devices, and supporting hardware. increase in size of the mobile workforce; improved ratio of
The key is to select a suitable platform and infrastructure performance to price; and the increasing bandwidth.
that can support the existing needs of most users. While 2. What is the mobile computing environment that sup-
m-commerce is becoming very popular in marketing, ports m-commerce? The mobile computing environ-
payments, manufacturing, and services, l-commerce appli- ment consists of three key elements: mobile devices,
cations are still in their infancy. wireless networks, and services. Although mobile com-
3. How should BYOD be managed? Device management puting devices vary in size and functionality, they are rap-
becomes a complex issue since employees started to bring idly moving toward an all-in-one device that is overcoming
and use their mobile devices at work. Mobile devices are some of the limitations associated with poor usability,
made by different manufacturers and use different operat- such as small screen size, limited bandwidth, and
ing systems. Add to this the thousands of apps and you restricted input capabilities. Even with their limitations,
need a good system and policies to manage BYOD. For a mobile devices offer a series of support services, princi-
comprehensive strategy for managing BYOD, see cisco. pally SMS, voice, and location-based services, which dif-
com/c/en/us/solutions/byod-smart-solution/overview. ferentiate m-commerce from e-commerce.
html and Reisinger (2013). 3. Financial and banking applications. Many EC applica-
4. How to prepare for IoT? It depends on the application. tions in the financial services industries (such as
There will be several organizational and technological issues e- banking) can be conducted with wireless devices. Most
(e.g., see Deichmann et al. 2015 for suggestions). The transi- mobile financial applications are simply wireless versions
tion to the new technology can be complex. Also, justifica- of their wireline counterparts, and they are conducted via
tion may be difficult. SMS or the mobile Web system. Mobile banking and
5. Which applications should be implemented first? mobile payments are examples of this activity. More and
Although there is little interest associated with various more, banks throughout the world are enabling their cus-
m-commerce applications, especially location-based ser- tomers to use mobile devices to make payments, view
vices, mobile applications must be judged like any other paid checks, compare bank services, transfer funds, and
business technology—by ROI, cost-benefit analysis, poten- locate branches.
tial cost reductions, and improved efficiency. Enterprise 4. Enterprise mobility applications. The major application
applications such as supporting the mobile workforce, is that of supporting the various types of workforce (e.g.,
fleets, and warehouses have resulted in the highest returns. salespeople, repair people, and field force). Other areas
Implementers need to remember that the m- commerce plat- are mobile CRM, inventory management, and wireless
form is the platform most preferred by younger generations. job dispatch. These applications offer high return on
It is also important to understand why Japan and Korea have investment, even in the short run. Additional areas are
a much higher penetration rate in m-commerce while other fleet and transportation management and applications in
countries with the same level of mobile telecommunica- warehouses.
tion infrastructure do not have a similar level of penetra- 5. Consumer and personal applications and mobile enter-
tion. Implementation includes the topic of mobile device tainment. One of the fastest growing markets in m-com-
management (see Oliver 2008). merce is mobile entertainment. Mobile entertainment
encompasses mobile music, games, gambling, adult enter-
tainment, and specialized user-generated content. Among
SUMMARY these, mobile music is the largest segment, but mobile
video is the fastest growing. Mobile gambling is also grow-
In this chapter, you learned about the following EC issues as ing rapidly despite the legal restrictions by various govern-
they relate to the chapter’s learning objectives. ment bodies. Also growing are mobile sports applications.