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    Adoption of mobile internet applications as a means of communication in South Africa
    (2014-01-21) Naidoo, Deena
    Mobile network operators in South Africa are experiencing a decline in their voice and messaging revenues as consumers continue to find new and cheaper ways to communicate over the mobile internet. The availability of high speed mobile broadband access and increased smartphone penetration in South Africa has created an environment in which the availability and use of Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM) applications (such as Whatsapp, Mxit, BBM and iMessage) are flourishing. Consumers are now downloading MIM applications onto their smartphones to support text messaging over the mobile internet as opposed to using mobile operators’ own messaging platforms. Consequently, every text message sent via MIM communication is lost revenue for mobile network operators. With limited research pertaining to the factors that influence consumers’ to adopt MIM for communication, this study attempts to identify these factors and the extent to which they affect consumers’ behavioural intention to adopt MIM for communication. Data collection was facilitated by means of an online survey via the internet and respondents were contacted via e-mail to participate in the survey. The samples used were mainly from the economically active population in South Africa that have valid e-mail accounts and have access to the internet. There were 259 valid respondents for the survey. The findings suggest that the factors, facilitating conditions, attitude, compatibility, perceived behavioural control, relative advantage and self-efficacy (in descending order of importance) have significant positive influences on consumers’ behavioural intention to adopt MIM for communication. While, subjective norms and significant others were found to have no significant impact. The results of this study are expected to give mobile network operators in South Africa an insight into how consumers come to accept and adopt MIM services for communication. Mobile operators must recognise that consumer behaviour is changing and that there is an imminent risk of their services being eroded by MIM communication.
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    Critical success factors for the implementation of Instant Messaging in South African organisations
    (2011-06-23) van Niekerk Kuys, Anfried
    Instant messaging (IM) is a software application that allows instant text communication between two or more people through a network such as the Internet. IM is a faster and simpler way to communicate than e-mail, as it allows users to talk to one another in real time. It is becoming increasingly popular and the issue facing corporations is how they can leverage the use of instant messaging to make business more efficient without opening the organisation to the potential risks and disadvantages associated with IM. Effective integration of IM into business can have tremendous business potential if leveraged correctly. The purpose of this research is to establish the critical success factors that organisations in South African should consider before, during and after the implementation of Instant Messaging as an internal business communications medium. This research makes five propositions as to which factors highlighted by the literature are critical to the successful implementation of IM in South African organisations. Through the use of a survey as the research instrument, response data from 50 respondents were collected over a three month period to test the validity of these propositions. After analysis of the collected data, the five propositions were slightly amended. Two factors, IM client application and ease of use and Organisation’s technology use, were found to be the most critical factors when considering the implementation of IM in South African organisations. It is very important for organisations to realise the risk of not doing anything in terms of IM. If IM is not officially sanctioned or else prohibited, employees can download consumer-grade IM themselves and start using it. Once it is installed and active, it is very difficult to turn off as consumer IM services can breach nearly any corporate firewall through various deceptive methods. The challenge to organisations is to make IM part of the business process rather than a maverick technology