International Journal of Software Engineering and Its Applications
Vol. 10, No. 7 (2016), pp. 181-190
http://dx.doi.org/10.14257/ijseia.2016.10.7.18
Adaptation of Mobile First Strategy for E-Business in Agriculture
Mechelle Grace Zaragoza1 and Haeng-Kon Kim2*
1, 2
School of Information Technology, Catholic University of Daegu, Korea
1
[email protected], 2*[email protected]
Abstract
E-Business is situated to as having connections everywhere like purchasing and
advertising goods 24 hours/7 days a week, may it be through your desktop or mobile
phones. It’s not surprising that businesses have a need to reach a mobile audience since
competition online is dedicated to making your websites more visible and reachable for
the users. Mobile promotes the entire business life cycle as of today. We present Mobile
First Strategy approach in meeting your customer where a customer is looking for you in
a manner appropriate to the screen the customer is using to interact with you. To be more
dedicated in making your sites as reachable as possible because if you don’t require a
mobile-friendly site for your audience to be satisfied with your service, chances are, they
might consider a more responsive one. Understanding the adaptation of mobile first
strategy and the rise of mobile users that contributes to a successful e-business will help
increase the recognition of agriculture products.
Keywords: E-business, mobile first strategy, agriculture
1.Introduction
E-business transactions are conducted over the Internet. This allows for many different
ways of conducting business. Transactions may involve material goods, immaterial
services, or rights and responsibilities that payment may be online or through the Internet.
[1] More formally, we focus only on how to buy stuff to larger and less portable screens
at home, but this will change the way we thought about e-business in the upcoming years
for users demand anywhere and anytime, the access to “business world” to the extent that
they expect easy and quick access since that is the main reason why is it called electronic
business or simply e-business. Some point to the emergence of super-popular iPhone and
android phones which are handy serves as a substance for consumers and its services to
reach their customers. So changing the way companies think and change into a mobilefirst strategy will ensure that they will capture these markets before going after users who
are still tethered to larger and less portable screens. Imagine your business presented on
hand held phones for easy access.
2. Understanding E-Business
Electronic business can be defined as the use of the internet to network and empower
business processes, electronic commerce, organizational communication and
collaboration within a company and with its customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders.
On the other hand, defining electronic commerce (e-commerce) to not mistaken the
definition of the two, is the buying and selling, marketing and servicing of products and
services via computer networks. [2]
It primarily stands for internet enabled business. The enabling process is based upon
application of internet technologies (Intranets-a local or restricted communications
network, especially a private network created using World Wide Web software and
*
Corresponding Author
ISSN: 1738-9984 IJSEIA
Copyright ⓒ 2016 SERSC
International Journal of Software Engineering and Its Applications
Vol. 10, No. 7 (2016)
Extranets-is a private network that uses Internet technology and the public
telecommunication system to securely share part of a business's information or operations
with suppliers, vendors, partners, customers, or other businesses.) are related to 9HTTP,
HTML,XML, Cobra, etc.) [3]
2. 1. Types of Electronic Commerce
There are many various classifiers of electronic commerce and many different methods
to characterize these clusters. Academics determined numbers of frameworks for
classifying electronic commerce, but each one wants to illustrate it from a unique
perspective. The main different classifiers of electronic commerce are Business-toBusiness (B2B), Business-to Consumer (B2C), Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C), Consumer
to-business (C2B) and Mobile Commerce (M-Commerce).
B2B
Business-to-Business is a type of commerce transaction that exists between businesses
or a transaction that occurs between a company and other company to transfer of services
and products. Possible explanations for this might be that Business-to-Business includes
online wholesaling in which businesses sell materials, products and services to other
businesses on the websites.
B2C
Business-to-Consumer refers to transactions between a business and its end consumer
and so it creates electronic storefronts that offer information, goods, and services between
business and consumers in a retailing transaction or Internet and electronic commerce
model that indicates a financial transaction or online sale between a business and
consumer.
C2B
Consumer-to-Business is the transfer of services, goods or information from people to
business or it is a business model where end users create products and services that are
used by business and institutions.
C2C
Consumer-to-Consumer is an electronic Internet facilitated medium, which involves
transactions among users and business model which two consumers deal business with
each other directly.
M-Commerce
The term of Mobile Commerce was invented in 1997 to aim “the buying and selling of
products, information and services” via wireless handheld devices such as cellular phones,
laptops and personal digital assistants. These wireless devices interact with computer
networks that have the ability to conduct online merchandise purchases. Mobile
commerce allows to users access to Internet and shopping in it without needing to find a
place to plug in. Mobile Commerce transactions continue to improve and the phrase
includes the purchase and sale of a wide range of products and services, online banking,
bill payment, information delivery and so on. [4]
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Vol. 10, No. 7 (2016)
2.2. The Role of E-Business
1. NEW ECONOMY
The Internet has created a new economy, which by its explosive growth and sheer size
already changed our perception of a traditional way of doing business. In order to be
successful on the net, you don’t have to be a giant like them. Many small and mid-size
companies managed to build online businesses quite profitably. In fact, studies show
small and mid-size companies will be the main growth force of e-commerce in coming
years.
2. THE INTERNET IS A PERFECT VENUE FOR BUSINESS.
In order to make a sale, you need visitors to come to your shop. On the Internet, your
shop could be only a click away from your prospective customers. With proper marketing,
your Internet storefront can have more buyers than you ever can get in a brick and mortar
shop.
3. COMPANY’S IMAGE.
Whether you sell products or services online or not, in today’s world you have to have
a corporate presence on the Internet. Otherwise, as you must have noticed that people
simply don’t take your business seriously if you tell them that your company does not
have a website. A nice corporate site definitely increases the image of a company
especially if it has great product or service related content to go with.
4. PROVIDE BETTER CUSTOMER SUPPORT.
Customer accusation and retention are one of the key factors of the business value
chain. Thanks to Internet technology, the business can provide customer support more
effectively. This means better customer satisfaction and increase of profitability.
5. MAKE INFORMATION MORE EASILY AVAILABLE TO CUSTOMERS.
Just a couple of years ago, companies used to require days to deliver products or
services update information to their customers. Things have changed since then. Today
you can add or make any changes to your company and product-related content virtually
in a matter of a couple of hours, publish on your site and share with the whole world.
6. CUT COSTS.
New technologies allow you to take virtually any part of your business online, that
include supply chain management, billing, shipping, procurement etc. Streamlining these
business processes through online systems will allow companies to cut costs significantly
in almost every sphere of any business. For example, companies can reduce more than
five percent of their maintenance, repair and operation costs by adopting e-business
solutions. This five percent savings can turn into 50% of a company’s net profit!
7. ABILITY TO DO BUSINESS 24 HOURS.
How else you can continue making sales, while your stuff are sleeping! The biggest
advantages of online shops are that they are open 24 hours a day year round. Thanks to
Internet off time, when your shop is generally closed, sales in some cases can be more
than your regular business hours!
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8. LOW START UP COSTS.
Building a website does not require big investments. There are many low-cost tools
available today, which can help you create sites from very scratch. Many business portals
allow you to build websites from templates. For less than 100$/month, you can have a
full-fledged corporate e-business site with all e-commerce features!
9. YOU PHYSICAL PRESENCE COULD BE IN ANY LOCATION.
The World Wide Web allows you to do business from any part of the world. Your
physical location, except for few cases is not that important since you conduct your
business online.
10. GO GLOBAL
Thanks to the Internet you can instantly become a global player. In fact, you don't have
to invest large sums of money to do this. There are literally hundreds of vertical and
horizontal e-marketplaces available on the net.
The right determinant of e-business success is the same like any offline business. You
have to have a great idea, you have to have a business plan, there should be a value
proposition for prospective clients and you should have belief in it and your ability!
Getting online is becoming cheaper and easier thanks to the emergence of new
technologies but marketing on the Internet is becoming more expensive. [5]
4. Adopting Mobile First Strategy
4.1. Defining Mobile First Strategy
(Image source: Luke Wroblewski.MOBILE FIRST)
Figure 1. Global Smartphone Shipments Surpassed Global PC Shipments
Two Years Earlier Than Predicted
In Figure 1, as predicted a few months back by Morgan Stanley, smart phones passed
global PC shipments for the first time in history. These numbers do not include the
number of PC’s that are already in use. While the new smart phone shipments have
overtaken new PC shipments, In terms of total numbers already in use the PC is still
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International Journal of Software Engineering and Its Applications
Vol. 10, No. 7 (2016)
leading. It’s only a matter of time before the tables turn. [6] If you still have it in your
head that mobile web design and application development is a niche industry, you need to
change your way of thinking. Mobile isn’t a trend, nor is it even the future, it’s the
present.
Evidence about this is in the UK, the outlook for mobile business is rosy, according to
the Raconteur report: “Figures from the Centre for Economics and Business Research
show 5.6 million people already use their mobile devices to buy goods and services
online. This is expected to rise to 20 million in the next six years, by which time online
mobile purchases will be worth more than £18 billion, up from £48 billion in 2013.[7]
Marketing
Research
Improve
Build
Production
List
Test and
Debug
Choosing
Developers
Launch
Creating your
Mobile First
Design
Figure 2. Mobile First Strategy Approach to E-business
In Figure 2, we proposed a strategy on planning to start an agri-business through
mobile first strategy. Although mobile first strategy simply allows mobile devices and it's
not building an application and deploying it to mobile devices and is software deployment
alone, the mobile-first mentality isn't about written documents or lines of code.
This Mobile First Strategy Approach to E-business will help our agri-business plan
things ahead. You design everything -- from infrastructure to applications -- around the
idea of offering a consistently positive experience to every user, everywhere, every time,
on every device. [8]
Copyright ⓒ 2016 SERSC
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International Journal of Software Engineering and Its Applications
Vol. 10, No. 7 (2016)
Marketing
Research
Build
Production
List
Choosing
Developers
Creating your
Mobile First
Design
Launch
Test and
Debug
Improve
Figure 3. Simplified Mobile First Strategy Approach
1. Marketing Research
Marketing research focuses on understanding the customer, the company, and the
competition. These relationships are at the core of marketing research. Companies must
understand and respond to what customers want from their products. However, this
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Vol. 10, No. 7 (2016)
relationship is always influenced by competitors and how their products are received by
your market. Thus, you must clearly identify the customer, company, and competition
before developing a research project. [9]
Green and Tull1 have defined marketing research as "Marketing research is the
systematic and objective search for, and analysis of, information relevant to the
identification and solution of any problem in the field of marketing."
There are several important factors you must consider before you begin, including:
*Your customers and competition
*Awareness and image of your product
*Product usage
*Undiagnosed problems with your product
Customer desires and needs for new product development
2. Build Production List
With the development of Internet, online selling has emerged as a globally. It is
getting popular and increasing its market share in the world. Among all economic sectors,
agricultural products are much more diverse and difficult to process and handle. For
instance, fruits and vegetables are perishable and have to reach the market and the hands
of consumers within a short period of time. [10] However, the start of the 21st century
makes everything impossible to possible. Create a list of products you want to sell online.
At the end of the day, the products you sell online directly gives impact to the
following:
1.Pricing
How much will you charge your customers? How much does the product cost to you?
2.Target audience
Who do you want your customers to be? The type of product, along with its price
point, will be a key factor in deciding your target audience for marketing efforts.
3.Branding & design
If you’re selling auto parts, you probably wouldn’t want to give your website a pink
background and frilly logo, right? Your brand should reinforce your product line, so make
sure they match well.
4.Marketing
The marketing outlets you choose, along with your marketing budgets, are dependent
on your target audience, which is fully determined by your product offering.
Your sanity: Keep in mind that you’ll be spending lots of time with these products, so
only sell something if you find it interesting and won’t get bored with it soon.[11]
3. Choosing your Developers
Developers can choose from a wide range of software development methodologies.
The present research reviews the main categories of methodologies used “traditional” and
Copyright ⓒ 2016 SERSC
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“agile” but either of the two methodologies, one should choose an experienced project
teams and project managers, or project teams whose compositions are great. Working
with people who are good in their field is less stressing but take note, to operate in this
new mobile-first strategy world especially big companies, they need firm speed,
scalability and performance.Developers can be an extension of your online store’s
marketing and since these professionals have a significant amount of influence over how
your e-commerce site looks and functions.
4. Designing GUI
The most important thing to remember when creating an adaptive website that is
suitable for all mobiles, is to make sure that your GUI (Graphic User Interface) is user
friendly. It should be organize that it provides user with clear and consistent concept and
structure.Econimze hixh means that most with the least amount of cues and can
communicate that is matches the presentation to the capabilities of user. Think of your
user as a 5th grader using your app.
5. Create your Adaptive Site
According to a book Five Pillars of Interaction Design, here are some tips on creating
usable native app interfaces.
1.Goal-driven Design: You want to design for the right user. Usability: If your audience
can’t easily use the app, then they certainly won’t download it from the App Store.
2.Usability makes a product useful, which is the first step in being desirable.
3.Affordance and Signifiers: The affordance is the function. Signifiers hint at affordance
4.Learnability: You want users to instinctively know how to use an interface. This is
where design patterns come in handy. Think of them as a 5-year-old kid trying to buy
something on your site online.
5. Feedback and Response Time: Feedback lets users know if a task was completed or
not. Make sure your feedback is friendly, human, and responds within the timing
guidelines set forth by the Nielsen Norman Group.
6. Launch
After series of planning and deciding what marketing research is, what to sell online,
what your adaptive mobile will look like, it’s time to launch your first app.
There should be 9 things before and during after launching your app.
1. First is Choose a platform on why iOs or why android.
2. Identifying your beta users, and do the testing all over again until perfection.
3. Plan your acquisition campaigns that simply mean how do you find your user?
4. Identify what’s working and what are not. Find rooms and debug.
5. Look at your initial app store success. Track down your number of downloads.
6. Analyze first-week retention rates
7. Create a plan for engaging and re-engaging users over time.
8. Optimize your app to provide more value
9. Re-evaluate to grow. No app can stay static and be successful no matter how the
industry which means to think of expanding into other value paths. [12]
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International Journal of Software Engineering and Its Applications
Vol. 10, No. 7 (2016)
7. Software Test and Debug
Testing is an essential activity in software engineering. In the simplest terms, it
amounts to observing the execution of a software system validate whether it behaves as
intended and identify potential malfunctions. [13]
8. Improve
There is always a room for improvement. Once your app is launched, what are the
things that you need to improve? Take note of the feedback of your customers and re-plan
again on things, you need to improve. Every day a consumer's experience with the
marketplace becomes more mobile, social and visual, which improves the process for
customers and complicate the process for business owners trying to keep up with the
latest development in e-commerce as they grow their business.[14]
5. Conclusion
Business related to agriculture lacks general knowledge of understanding and about the
fact that we live in the 21st century. Knowledge of e-business, with a broad understanding
of how it works in the field circulating agriculture products, may lead to the development
of it.
Thus, understanding the benefits of mobile-first strategy will increase not only their
crop production but also their crop production profit as well. More than ever before the
web is something that we carry in our pockets, not something that merely hangs out near
our desk or even in our homes. This is a global trend that will only continue to see growth
in the coming years, especially in the agriculture industry. Take your business online
today before the marketing costs become way too expensive. As what Vivaldi Partners of
New York and Switzerland recently quoted in his report entitled
“Changing Role of the CMO”: “It is not about playing differently – it is about a
different game. Marketers playing by the old rules will find themselves on the losing end
of a game with stagnant growth and a diminishing consumer base”.
Acknowledgments
This Research was supported by the MSIP (Ministry of Science, ICT and Future
Planning), Korea, under the C-ITRC (Convergence Information Technology Research
Center) support program (IITP-2016-H8601-15-1007) supervised by the IITP (Institute
for Information & Communication Technology Promotion).
This Research was supported by the International Research & Development Program
of the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science,
ICT & Future Planning (Grant Number: K 2014075112).
This Research was also supported by SERSC (Science & Engineering Research
Support and soCiety).
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[9] S. M. Smith and G. S. Albaum, “Basic Marketing Research”, vol. 1.
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[12] http://info.localytics.com/blog/9-things-to-consider-before-during-and-after-launching-your-app
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Authors
Mechelle Grace Zaragoza, she received her Bachelor of
Science in Information Technology in Philippines. She also worked
as an I.T. Instructor and Computer Curriculum Development
Officer in the same country. A licensed teacher. She is currently
pursuing her Master’s Degree (Information Communications
Engineering) at Catholic University of Daegu, South Korea. Her
research interests include Software Engineering, Mobile
Applications, IoT, Cloud Computing, Electronics and Robotics.
Haeng-Kon Kim, he is currently a professor in the Department
of Computer Engineering and was a dean of Engineering College at
Catholic University of Daegu in Korea. He received his M.S and
Ph.D degree in Computer Engineering from Chung Ang University
in 1987 and 1991, respectively. He has been a research staff in Bell
Lab. in 1988 and NASA centre 1978-1979 in U.S.A. He also has
been researched at Central Michigan University in 2000-2002 and
2007-2008 in U.S.A. He is a member of IEEE, KISS and KIPS.
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