Yankee Group Says Success of Mobile Services Begins with Satisfying a Basic Human Need
New Mobile Services Succeed by Passing Fundamental Tests of Human Need, Accessibility, Performance and Social Impact
Boston, MA, September 4, 2007—Yankee Group today revealed that new mobile services will succeed only if they fulfill a basic human need and can enable individuals to move toward self actualization. Yankee Group's new Framework for Assessing Mobile Services provides insight into the probability of success for mobile services. This will help service providers improve the chances of a new offering succeeding in the marketplace.
The recently published Yankee Group Report, Pray Less and Plan More for Successful Mobile Services, outlines the four tests that make up Yankee Group's Framework for Assessing Mobile Services. The four tests have almost nothing to do with technology and are frequently ignored. They are primarily concerned with consumers' expectations and behavior. The tests are:
- Does it satisfy a basic human need? The service must help satisfy at least one basic human requirement as described by Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
- Is it accessible? The service must be accessible to a large majority of the targeted user group.
- Does it deliver on its promise? The service must provide the quality and consistency of performance the customer anticipates, beginning with the first usage attempt.
- Can it become a social phenomenon? The service must have the potential to become a social phenomenon by changing the way people think and behave.
"Studying consumer behavior is fascinating because of its inherent unpredictability, but it raises the uncertainty of success rates for new services," said Declan Lonergan, director in Yankee Group's Consumer Research group. "In most analysis of why mobile services succeed or fail, a disproportionately strong focus has been on the second and third stages—accessibility and performance, respectively—of our adoption framework. These are important, but more attention needs to be given to the first and fourth stages—satisfying a human need and having a major social impact. Our framework will certainly help reduce the uncertainty, but launching new consumer services will continue to be a gamble."
This Yankee Group Report demonstrates that even the simplest of these tests is still frequently failed. However, Yankee Group's Framework for Assessing Mobile Services can help predict how well new consumer mobile services will fare. Two of the services to watch in the future that Yankee Group predicts will be big are video sharing and mobile IM. Both meet a human need for near-instantaneous sharing of life's experiences and both have good potential to become a social phenomenon.
Yankee Group (www.yankeegroup.com)
The people of Yankee Group are the global connectivity experts–the leading source of insight and counsel trusted by builders, operators and users of connectivity solutions for nearly 40 years. We are uniquely focused on the evolution of Anywhereconnectivity, and chart the pace of technology change and its effect on networks, consumers and enterprises. Headquartered in Boston, Yankee Group has a global presence, including operations in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia-Pacific. Visit www.yankeegroup.com.
