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Mobile penetration in UAE exceeds 95% 1. In our survey, we found that the three most important things people would want to carry everyday were money (cash), driving license and their mobile phone. This indicates that m-commerce in the UAE has great potential. mNow! caters to the needs of UAE's fast paced economy that has grown from oil to other non-oil sector businesses 2. E-commerce is an emerging component of modern economy that is already going very strong in UAE (USD 2 billion market in UAE alone3); the natural progression from e-commerce will be towards m-commerce. We position mNow! as an innovative service, which brings to UAE a new style of living, unlike conventional e-commerce where you need internet connectivity and a stationary hardware. mNow! brings business to a customer wherever, whenever. Another factor that contributes to the potential of our product is the forthcoming deregulation in telecommunication industry, which will make it a more competitive and dynamic market; a market where the customer will have greater say in the product offering.
Learning
We learnt many things from this experience. The theory we learnt in class was finally finding a practical outlet! It was tough writing a concise business plan. Networking with industry people helped us gain confidence in people skills and make contacts. Teamwork took on a whole new meaning as we were forced to get the "job done" and also manage time. Sometimes we had to adjust to each other views and working styles, which was hard. There were many holidays also in between which made it a bit difficult for us to co-ordinate with each other. Moreover, since we were all high grades scoring students, we had to maintain a balance between our exams, assignments and Ebiz project. At the end of it, we have developed skills that would make us excellent entrepreneurs. There were many other work related challenges; however, our advisor helped us bridge the transition from student to potential entrepreneur.
The Future
After winning not one but two awards, we are sure that mNow! has great potential not only in the UAE but also all over the world. mNow! is different from any other product in the market as it is an integrated service that allows user to not only receive information of their interest but also pay their credit card and utility bills, transfer money, shop and operate auto-retailing machines. It uses a unique yet simple process not in use currently in any of the products we have researched (eBay's PayPal Mobile, eWallet, etc). This is just the beginning. Our next phase of activity is to find potential partners and alliances that will make mNow! a reality.
Anne-Birte Stensgaard, Senior News Editor
