ACADEMIC CONCEPT PAPER
“Leveraging on Mobile Payment Methods to gain Competitive Advantage by local based businesses’’
Introduction
Mobile payment methods have popularity with big businesses operating in large towns and
cities across the world. These payment methods enable the business customers to access their
cash at the point of sale and do not need to have physical money to complete their
transactions. This study will therefore help in understanding the mobile payment methods
preferences for the local based business and how and why these preferences have failed to
prevail. The research will therefore address that gap that is viewed as the low uptake of mobile
payment methods by the local based businesses which are essentially operating in remote
areas. This concept builds upon the various insights that have been undertaken by various
researchers in the business and information technology field to bridge the gap of strategic
implementation of information technology systems in business to gain competitive advantage.
Need for this Study
It is estimated that more than 5 billion people have access to mobile phone devices and that
out of this figure about a third of the population is based in local areas. Further, the
village-based businesses do not have immediately access to the physical money banking
system as they are located kilometers away. Porter (2011) notes that in order for businesses
to achieve and sustain superior performance, they must be able to implement systems that
are competitively superior. Budree and Williams (2013, September) and Namada (2018)
established that the areas with large number of low-income earners experienced low uptake
technological advancements and businesses in these locations are not keen on leveraging on
technology. The concept will therefore be intended to identify the salient factors that local
businesses can apply in leveraging on mobile payment methods to gain competitive advantage
Background
Several studies have concluded that mobile payment methods is one of the major factors
put in place by businesses in gaining competitive advantage, however this has also, not been
achieved in remote areas. As a result, Onyango et al. (2014) in their study on mobile phone
technology and the evident performance of micro and small enterprises, concludes that there is
an impact on the use and implementation of mobile phone technology to achieve the full
business performance. In order, therefore to achieve competitive advantage, Porter (2011)
advises that the strategy implemented should be geared towards achieving full potential
competitively. Many scholars therefore agree that there is a significant relationship
between mobile payment methods and gaining competitive advantage to sustain an improved
performance. Most also argue that the mobile payment method of use will be dependent on
the location and nature of need. The handbook by Namada (2018) notes that the concept of
organizational learning must be down-
