Do Business Well

Genie was launched in 2001 as the world’s first exclusively online mobile service. Genie’s 1J K mobile service operates on the BT Cellnet network and is therefore now part of 02. BT Cellnet is one of the largest UK mobile networks, with over 8 million customers, and offers 99 per cent coverage of the UK population. Genie is the UK’s leading mobile Internet company, with over 3 million registered users of the Genie Internet portal. It provides free text messaging and free access to WAP. The mobile Internet is the technology that allows users to view information, play games and manage personal email via a WAP phone. WAP stands for Wireless Application Protocol and is the worldwide standard enabling WAP mobile phones to access the Mobile Internet. Genie Mobile Internet provides a number of services available on WAP phones:

• email — the ability to read, reply and forward emails;
• e-Commerce — you can now buy books and CDs;
• information — the latest sports scores, current news and gossip;
• enquiries — flight times, cinema times;
• entertainment — games, competitions and reviews.

Mobile phone and Internet services are integrated so that customers can access information on a PC or via mobile phone.

The Genie portal itself runs at significant loss, but its services appeal to the key market segment of early-adopter mobile phone users. Members of this group are predisposed to purchasing new gadgets, understand the rapidly developing terminology and issues surrounding mobile developments, and also happen to spend the most money on mobiles. Any mobile user can register on the site — they do not necessarily have to be using 02 networks. By permission-based marketing to these registered Genie visitors, special deals can be offered to get them to switch to the 02 network. At this stage of market development, the key selling points as far as users are concerned relate to content (in the form of information and alerts about share prices, skiing conditions, sports results, etc.) rather than transactional commerce.

The Genie brand has high awareness ratings despite low advertising spend According to Campaign’s dotcom weekly awareness survey (30 November 2001), Genie is ranked tenth in the U K, with an awareness rating of 27 per cent, just behind the Easy Group on 32 per cent and ahead of Wellbeing on 20 per cent. Genie is promoted on the major portals such as Google, MSN and Yahoo!, and pays for prominent placements on search engines so that a banner is invoked should a surfer conduct a search for ‘mobile phone‘, for example

Genie aims to leverage value from its mobile services by offering customers special deals through partnerships with banks and ISPs as part of a ‘closed’ network. This siness model is superior to many ‘open’ network portals because partner firms will ither pay for preferential access to Genie customers or at least provide content for e. Genie customers who want to access services from companies outside the partner etwork have to pay extra for the privilege. To illustrate how this works, consider the rumple of mobile banking. Genie provides secure links to eight leading banks to nable customers to access their bank accounts via their mobile phones on the 02 network. Within the next twelve months, customers will also be able to trade stocks In this way. Hence there is scope for the major stockbrokers to be ‘plumbed in’ to the partnership to make the entire contact, share purchase and payment transaction from the bank account a seamless and immediate process for the customer. If such aservice is available, why would a customer want to look elsewhere for a stockbroker? Stockbrokers, therefore, will pay for a preferential placing in the Genie portfolio, and indeed several may compete with each other — with the best positions on the listing commanding the highest fees.

From the partner firms’ perspective, there are three key drivers for associating with Genie:

• to obtain additional revenue from existing customers by offering an alternative channel to access the company;
• to expand the customer base by appealing to new market segments (for example people who use their mobile phone to bet with Ladbrokes through the Genie gateway have a very different demographic profile from that of Ladbroke’s traditional customer base relying upon the firm’s network of betting shops);
• to reduce the costs of servicing their customer base. This is the key driver for banking partners, for example.

To illustrate the potential of mobile services to reduce costs (and in some cases change the partner firm’s entire business model), consider the example of a recruitment agency for temporary staff. In the past, such a firm would rely upon a team of office-based employees to make telephone calls to perhaps hundreds of registered individuals to advise them of newly received employment opportunities and sign people up as required. This could be an expensive and time-consuming exercise if large numbers of staff were required. By sending a text message simultaneously to the entire labour pool database requesting those interested to call in and sign up for the job, the entire cost structure of the business is altered. The staff employed to recruit would only have to answer calls from people accepting the work, rather than make a large number of outgoing calls touting for business. In the near future, the acceptance procedure will also become Web based, thereby reducing the need for human intervention still further.

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