Telecommunications Business Environment (TBE) 2013 ASSIGNMENT QUESTION
Strategic Paper on Mobile Commerce
Background Mobile network operators in many parts of the World are facing the challenge of how to increase their revenues in the face of steep competition in the marketplace and the increasing commoditisation of bandwidth and data transport services. One potential new mobile product area is that of mobile money. The use of mobile services to transfer sums of money between people without bank accounts has been a growing market in many parts of Africa. However, more recently another form of mobile commerce has emerged, namely the use of the mobile phone instrument to make payments locally, e.g. at a shop checkout counter. In fact, “Weve”, a UK consortium of the three mobile operators – Vodafone, Telefonica (O2), and Everything Everywhere (EE) has recently been established to define a set of standards for mobile commerce within the UK (and potentially elsewhere) – see www.http://weve.com
The Assignment You are required to prepare a strategic paper for a mobile operator addressing the business case for launching a range of mobile commerce services. You may choose any of the three UK main operators in the Weve consortium or an existing mobile operator in another country. The paper should explore the possibility of providing any or all of the range of mobile-money services, as you deem appropriate, for the market place of the country you have chosen. The assignment answer should be in your own words together with good use of diagrams and charts in a document of about 10 pages. If necessary, detailed material can be presented in appendices which are in addition to the main body of the assignment. The sources of all information must be credited and referenced in the normal way. Similarly, the inclusion of any text or diagrams from web sites or documents must be clearly indicated and referenced. Marks will be awarded for evidence of your own enquiring thoughts and good application of the requested strategic analytical tools. Your strategy paper must comprise the following parts: 1) Strategic Overview (a) Scene setting: In setting the scene you should explain the existing state of the mobile market for the country chosen, and the commercial challenges being faced by the mobile operators. 5% marks
