Strategy Alignment of Mobile Solutions in Customer-Oriented Processes

Technological advancements in mobile communications enable new ways of doing business [Feld00, 26; StGi03], often referred to as “mobile business” or “mobile commerce”. While Turowski/Pousttchi do not distinguish between the two but rather use the term “mobile commerce” [TuPo03, 3], Lehner and Zobel define “mobile business” as the application of mobile technologies to improve or extend business processes and open new market segments and distinguish it from “mobile commerce”. Here, the latter is rather a subordinate field of mobile business, focusing of the handling of transactions [Lehn03, 6–8; Zobe01, 2–3]. In this paper we will follow the understanding of Lehner and Zobel and concentrate on the application of mobile technologies to support customer-oriented business processes. The research field dealing with the interaction of businesses with their customers and the related back-end processes within the businesses, such as marketing, sales and service processes, has often been referred to as customer relationship management (CRM) or, when supported by internet technologies, e-commerce CRM (ECCRM) [RoFj02; RoFj03]. Within CRM, Gebert et al. have identified major CRM processes in the fields of marketing, sales and service [GeGe03]. They classify these processes as knowledge-intensive processes, managing knowledge for customers (e.g. knowledge about products and services), knowledge from customers (e.g. customer experience with products and services) or knowledge about customers (e.g. knowledge about customers’ preferences and histories). An empirical analysis addressing 1,000 subjects with CRM responsibility in large companies (82% with a revenue > a 100 million) and 89 respondents (9%) was conducted in the authors’ research team. 8% of the respondents indicated that they already have a mobile CRM solution, further 22% are currently working on a mobile CRM solution and 30% are planning to do so [DoSa04]. Combining the concepts of CRM andmobile business allows new types of interaction between companies and customers. To leverage investments in information technology (IT), the investment has to be aligned with the business strategy [BaTr86; HiBr94; WeBr98; WeSu02; BrHi00]. Hence, companies face the question how to select the right investment to