“The gap between technology and users”

  “The gap between technology and users” (Glappet mellan teknik och användare)
was the title of a seminar organized by Marketing Technology Center (MarknadsTekniskt Centrum) and The Swedish Retail and Wholesale Development (Handels utvecklingsråd) September 5 2011.

Jan Markendahl from wireless@KTH and Per Andersson from Stockholm School of Economics gave a talk on challenges for mobile payments services, especially for mobile operators. The challenges are mainly in the business domain where business and cooperation models need to be developed. Two main aspects were highlighted:

1. Mobile payment services are Not Only Transactions (NOT)
A lot of diffrent features and services can be expected both before the actual payment and transaction. Information, coupons, loyaly programs, support are exemples of such additional features wher companiescn adde value to the customers. 

2. There is a multitude of multitudes in the business domain.
In order to be succesful the mobile payment solutions must be “open” and allow many types of actors and sectors to join the business network. Merchants and service providers require that users could use any bank and operator. In the same way many different types of businesses and sectors need to included; hotels, retail chains, transportation companies.

At the seminar other speakers like Michael Treschow and Kenneth Karlberg stressed the importance of finding new types of business models and also to be careful with the relations with other actors. One such aspect mentioned by Treschow is the role and position of different typs of middlemen. This was verified by emperical cases presentd by Markendahl and Andersson showing that intermediaries take most of the roles when it comes to mobile payments.  

A summary or the seminar (in swedish) is found here:
http://www.hur.nu/web/Glappet_mellan_teknik_och_anvandare.aspx