M-Business - The Race to Mobility

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Opportunities offered by M-Business

M-Business offers numerous business opportunities for companies starting from infrastructure development to service providers like e-mail and Internet surfing on mobile devices. Opportunities provided by m-business are:
 

Mobile Portals: Companies have to develop innovative mobile services at reasonable costs to attract more consumers. For example, NTT DoCoMo is using mobile Internet to become a dominant player in this market segment. The company has developed mobile portals that are performing the job of wireless operators.

Supply Chain Focus: One of the major benefits to companies due to the mobile revolution will be on the supply chain management front. Companies have already started using handheld devices to track customer order, inventory and logistics movement. Through mobile devices, companies can opt for delivery management, assets tracking and field force automation. Hence, supply chain management is an area where companies can be benefited substantially due to mobile technologies.

Operational Issues: In the present context, work of executives gets hampered due to the immobility of desktop PCs in which important information is stored. The mobile Internet technology will enable executives to access their PCs through their mobile devices thus enhancing their productivity.

Mobile Strategy

Developing strategies for mobile business will be a tough challenge for business managers more so after the dotcom bust. Since mobile business is in its initial phase of development, companies will face difficulty in developing concrete business plans. Hence, companies can get some guidance from strategies developed by a dotcom offering similar services or operating in the same industry. For example, the business plan of companies that are planning to provide content on wireless devices will be to some extent similar with the business plan of a company, which is providing same service for the wired web consumers. Following are the points essential for companies to know before developing a mobile business strategy:

Solutions Strategy: Companies planning to enter m-business must answer the following questions and then take a decision based on detailed analysis of the answers for the questions given below:

• The management must first analyze whether there is a need to go for mobile business.

• Is there a substantial market for the company's initiative in mobile business?

• What will be the additions in the value chain of the company and it is really worth having those additions?

• Looking the economics of the industry in which the company is operating what role mobile business would play in the industry?

• What will be the profit margin and costs involved? Whether the company is financially strong to take the risk?

Capability Evaluation: Companies need to check their existing as well as required capabilities for entering into mobile business. The management has to analyze the company's strengths in a technology-based industry and understand how flexible it is to adjust with frequent changes in the business models and technology. Other questions in terms of capabilities that must be answered are:

• What are the existing capabilities of the company?

• What is the status of the company in comparison with other players in the field?

• What capabilities company does not have?

• How a company is going to build the required capabilities whether it is going to build up by its own? If the answer is yes, then how good is the company's cash position and if not then what possibility exists for the company to outsource those services?

• What are the sources from where the company is expecting to raise money and how it is going to come and what will be the time frame?

Project Blueprint: It is always better to prepare a blueprint for the project. Here, companies can look into the details of the strategy and see what elements are missing and what has to be added or deleted based on the proper analysis of all strategy action points. A blueprint will put the entire business model under the preview of the senior management. Following are the important points related to the blueprint:

• It should contain three major layers - enterprise infrastructure, e-business application layer and corporate strategy.

• The enterprise infrastructure layer must detail the various important parts of the infrastructure and how the organization is going to deal with each of them. The company should also mention technologies, which they are planning to use in the development process. For example, organizations should mention about the hosting services, database, middleware and data and transaction security etc in their enterprise infrastructure layer.

• In the e-business layer, details about how the organization is going to handle mobile applications are to be given. Organizations should detail their plans into categories, subcategories and provide details in each subcategory. For example, in mobile applications, a subcategory mobile portal can be discussed and organization should tell about its expectations from mobile portals and how it is going to attain that?

• Finally in the corporate layer, organizations must explain the scope of the business model, target customers, areas of value creation and capability alignment in future.

Execution: Finally, the blueprint has to be executed. Since it is the first time, organization is getting into a technology dominant business; it is better to have a pilot project ready. After going ahead with the pilot project and judging its results a company can proceed with the full launch of mobile services. It is always better to start with a small project since the cost involved is low and organizations can understand the customers needs and preferences and if needed can make suitable changes in their strategy.

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