▪ Introduction ▪
The advancement of the internet and the busy lifestyle of people nowadays encourage more businesses to implement an e-commerce store to cater to their customers. E-commerce allows people from all over the globe to buy, sell and provide information of their companies and products and services online. In this way, companies will be able to reach out to their customer’s needs and this in turn helps to save customer’s precious time. We will be analyzing M1 in this report.



▪ About ▪

M1, (MobileOne Ltd) was formed in August 2004. It is a leading mobile communications provider in Singapore, with more than one million customers. It provides a full range of mobile voice and data communications services over its 2G/3G/3.5G network. M1 also provides international call services to both mobile and fixed line customers. It has partnered operators globally to provide its customers coverage and roaming services in over 200 countries and territories.

With a newly upgraded 3G network, M1 became the first mobile operator in Singapore to offer High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) in December 2006 when it launched ‘M1 Broadband’ - Singapore’s first true island-wide wireless broadband service.
Widely known as an innovative operator with an established brand, M1 aims to be the leader in personal voice, business and data communications, focusing on value, quality and customer service.
M1 is listed on the Singapore Exchange and its current major shareholders are SunShare Investments Ltd, Keppel Telecoms Pte Ltd and SPH Multimedia Private Limited.



▪ Purpose ▪

The website of M1 provides customers with information about the services and products that M1 is providing. Besides this, an existing customer could log in and manage their accounts. M1 also has an online shop for customers to purchase new lines and handsets.



▪ Key Characteristics ▪
M1 uses the color Orange as the main website interface. It gives a bright feeling and it symbolizes a brighter life with M1, as the slogan ‘Welcome to a Brighter life’ means. M1 also uses ‘Enjoy Brighter Savings’ and ‘Enjoy Brighter Value’ to support their slogan. Once a customer enters the website, he will be greeted by a flash clipart of the latest promotion in M1. Customers can find categories like ‘Consumer’, ‘Enterprise’, ‘Mobile Services’, ‘M1Broadband’ , My Accounts & Rewards’, and ‘M1Shop’ . This grouping of categories enables the customers to easily access what they wanted.




▪ Features ▪
M1 uses a B2C virtual storefront business model. Customers can search for services provided by M1 directly on the website. Customers also can purchases phones and accessories, upgrade their services and handsets at M1shop online. M1 also collaborates with Authorised Dealers for the sale of their services plans and products.



▪ Infrastructure ▪
With the global telecommunications in demand, M1 aims to provide creative innovations and deliver the best results for their customers. M1 built solid relationships with their worldwide partners and extending their coverage and service offerings to the rest of the world. Their partners include Vodafone and Asia Mobility Initiative.




▪ Offering ▪
M1 offers customers with many choices of communication contacts with them. M1 has divided them into Call Us, Visit Us, Send Us Your Feedback and Other Contacts. Individual customers may choose to call them using their hotlines, or by visiting any M1 outlets in Singapore, or by emailing them in the Feedback form provided. The Enterprise Businesses may call them or by using their Feedback Form. The other contacts include Media Contact and Investor Contact.




▪ Customers ▪
M1 has a wide range of customers. M1 provides tele-communication and Broadband services to Individuals as well as Enterprise businesses. For Individuals, there are plans to cater to the young generations with more SMS-texting plans and more talktime and IDD for working adults. And there is also a D-I-Y plan suitable for customers to match their needs. For Enterprise businesses, there are Mobile Email plans that cater to the employees of the company for easy access of emails on their mobile phones and Mobile VPN which is designed as an integrated communication solution that significantly reduces calling costs from a mobile to an office line and vice versa, allowing them to be dialed in the same way as internal extensions.



▪ Payment Scheme ▪
M1 online allows customers to pay by Visa, Mastercard and Amex credit cards.




▪ Security ▪
M1 uses Secure Sockets Layer ( SSL ) technology for online transactions. By displaying the Verisign Secured logo, customers can rest assured that their credit card’s details are secured and the website is safe to use.



▪ Strength ▪
The M1 website allows customers to browse information of products and services easily without having to go down to the counters to enquire. It also provides the customers the ease to perform transactions like updating personal information to activating services provided by M1. The online M1shop enables customers to buy their phones online without having to wait at lengthy queues at the mobile shops. It also helps to reduce the crowd at the shop which in term benefits both the online and shop customers. It will also benefit M1as it will reduce the cost of hiring staff. M1 also provides a free delivery island wide for online purchases of handsets. This saves the customer’s time and expenses in going down to collect the handsets.



▪ Weaknesses ▪
The delivery may take quite some time. Going to physical shop allow immediate purchasing and collection of phone. Although the website show details about the phone and mobile plans, it may take quite some time for customers to read through all the content and at point of time, they might have queries. At a mobile shop instead, service staff will explain to the customers clearly about the advantages and disadvantages of the phones and service plans. And customers will be able to check their newly purchase phone for any deflects on the spot and exchange for another new one if there is deflects in the handset.



▪ Conclusion ▪
In this competitive and shrinking world, businesses have to keep up their pace with the advancement of technology and the ever-changing demand trends from the customers in order to survive. Be able to commercialize their products and services using the internet, they are able to stay competitive. By providing the needs of the customers, they are also able to increase the traffic volume of their customers virtual and physically and this in turns, will increase their profits for their companies