The project m-commerce develops a course to qualify employees of SMEs for introduction and operation of m-commerce services in the company. M-commerce as a specialization of E-commerce is due to the increasing popularity of smartphones, a fast-growing segment in online trading. Although the customers are ready because of their technologisation it is not optimally treated by many companies. Therefore SMEs need employees who have the appropriate knowledge and skills to implement M-commerce in a SME. The project has the following objectives : 1) Assessment of current status of M-commerce in different regions of Europe 2) Collection of best-practice examples from different regions 3) Creating teaching and learning materials for the M-commerce course 4) Running the course in all seven partner countries with at least ten participating employees of SMEs per training cycle 5) Participating SMEs get depending on the participants a M-commerce strategy and a first implementations for a M-commerce system. The determination of the current status of M-commerce takes place over the collection and linking of data from different sources: online survey, conducted interviews in all partner countries, publicly available statistics and current literature . A " by-product" is a collection of best-practice examples. This practice examples can describe complete M-commerce solutions or only some aspects . The preparation of the training material is done by the partner FH JOANNEUM , University of Timisoara, Center for Knowledge Management and University of Alcala . To ensure the quality and the unified structure a specially created template is used for the development of individual topics . A further quality assurance measure is the mandatory peer review process for all modules . For each module we defined one evaluation partner. The whole course is translated into eight languages. The course consists of three modules (each two days) and one practice work. Module one contains all the basics needed to create a strategy for the entire business process from marketing to delivery economically optimized and legally correct . The second module deals with the topics of online marketing and consists of items like search engine optimization and social media marketing. An important aspect is the evaluation of this marketing mix. In the third module, the technical contents are included. These enhance the appearance and the usability of the existing e -commerce activities for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs. The practicle part tranfers the content of the course to the need of the existing e-commerce solutions from the participating SMEs. Each training day is supplemented by appropriate practical tasks relevant to the own projects of the participants. The time each participant invests, will be an indicator for the quality of the result . The e-learning platform of the FH JOANNEUM is used to support the executing of the course in seven countries. The platform makes content sharing and communication between the participants available. If all participants communicate in English, a course- wide communication for the exchange of experiences is possible. The evaluation and reflection after the first implementation of the course by all learners, teachers , organizers and producers allow an adaptation of the course . This feedback process is used to increase the acceptance and to improve the course for the following participants. Participants, that are already responsible for online agendas in a SME or should overtake them in the near future, will be qualified to be a M-commerce manager. They will be responsible for the creation of the M-commerce strategy for the SME, subsequently the implementation of the marketing plan and optimization of the SME-website or webshop. In the long term it is planned that this course course can be a part of a new master degree program, which should developed by all partners. The SMEs whose employees participate in the course , will get support in the preparation M-commerce activities, thus expanding their customers and market presence. The positive effect of the course will be medium to long term, as all measures need time to convert and to act .
The project m-commerce developed a course to qualify employees of SMEs for introduction and operation of m-commerce services in the company. M-commerce as a specialization of E-commerce is due to the increasing popularity of smartphones, a fast-growing segment in online trading. Although the customers are ready because of their technologisation it is not optimally treated by many companies. Therefore SMEs need employees who have the appropriate knowledge and skills to implement M-commerce in a SME. The project had the following outputs : 1) Assessment of current status of M-commerce in different regions of Europe 2) Collection of best-practice examples from different regions 3) Creating teaching and learning materials for the M-commerce course 4) Running the course in all seven partner countries The determination of the current status of M-commerce took place over the collection and linking of data from different sources: online survey, conducted interviews in all partner countries, publicly available statistics and current literature . A " by-product" was a collection of best-practice examples. This practice examples described complete M-commerce solutions or only some aspects . The preparation of the training material was done by the partner FH JOANNEUM , University of Timisoara, Center for Knowledge Management and University of Alcala . To ensure the quality and the unified structure a specially created template was used for the development of individual topics . A further quality assurance measure was the mandatory peer review process for all modules . For each module we defined one evaluation partner. The whole course was translated into eight languages. The course consisted of three modules (each two days) and one practice work. Module one contained all the basics needed to create a strategy for the entire business process from marketing to delivery economically optimized and legally correct. The second module dealed with the topics of online marketing and consists of items like search engine optimization and social media marketing. An important aspect was the evaluation of this marketing mix. In the third module, where the technical contents were included. These enhanced the appearance and the usability of the existing e -commerce activities for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs. The practicle part tranfered the content of the course to the need of the existing e-commerce solutions from the participating SMEs. Each training day was supplemented by appropriate practical tasks relevant to the own projects of the participants. The time each participant invests, was an indicator for the quality of the result . The e-learning platform of the FH JOANNEUM was used to support the executing of the course in seven countries. The platform made content sharing and communication between the participants available. Because all participants communicated in English, a course- wide communication for the exchange of experiences was possible. The evaluation and reflection after the first implementation of the course was done by all learners, teachers , organizers and producers and allowed an adaptation of the course. This feedback process was used to increase the acceptance and to improve the course for the following participants. The target group can be described as follows: Participants, that are already responsible for online agendas in a SME or should overtake them in the near future, were qualified to be a M-commerce manager. They were be responsible for the creation of the M-commerce strategy for the SME, subsequently the implementation of the marketing plan and optimization of the SME-website or webshop. The SMEs whose employees participated in the course, got support in the preparation M-commerce activities, thus expanding their customers and market presence. The positive effect of the course will be medium to long term, as all measures need time to convert and to act . The following organizations took part in the project: FH JOANNEUM GESELLSCHAFT M.B.H.: University of applied sciences from Austria Center for Knowledge Management: Consulting Company from Macedonia JOHANNEBERG SCIENCE PARK: Businesspark from Sweden TEHNOLOSKI PARK LJUBLJANA DOO: Technology park from Slovenia UNIONE REGIONALE DELLE CAMERE DI COMMERCIO INDUSTRIA, ARTIGIANATO E AGRICOLTURA DEL VENETO: Chamber of commerce from Italy UNIVERSIDAD DE ALCALA: University from Spain UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA TIMISOARA: University from Romania