Title: What's driving mobile content on the Irish telecoms value chain?

Authors: John L. Hopkins, Brian Fynes

Addresses: Faculty of Business and Law, Victoria University, Melbourne, Victoria, 8001, Australia. ' School of Business, UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, Carysfort Avenue, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland

Abstract: The task undertaken by this paper is to examine the delivery of mobile content in the Irish telecommunications industry, looking at the business strategies, operations and sources of innovation involved in bringing this new breed of services to the customer, in order to identify what drives the business value chain in this sector. A programme of 18 industry interviews was employed in this study, designed specifically for gaining a valuable mix of industry opinions and this strategic mix included interviewing senior representatives from the four incumbent network operators, 11 content providers and three handset manufacturers. These were performed with the aim of leveraging information that will enable this research to establish a level of clarity as to where value lies within the process of content delivery, what future trends are predicted in this field and why mobile phones hold such a strong position in an environment of increasing device convergence.

Keywords: value chains; telecommunications industry; SCM; supply chain management; Ireland; business strategies; network operators; content provision; handset manufacturers; device convergence; mobile phones; cell phones; portals; websites; internet; world wide web; Vodafone; O2; 3 Mobile; Meteor Mobile Communications; mobile content; business models; human capital.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEIM.2010.034420

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, 2010 Vol.12 No.2, pp.170 - 189

Published online: 03 Aug 2010 *

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