The use of text messaging for business purposes has grown significantly during the mid-2000s. As companies seek competitive advantages, many employees turn to new technology, collaborative applications, and real-time messaging such as SMS, instant messaging, and mobile communications. Some practical uses of text messaging include the fuse of SMS for confirming delivery or other tasks, for instant communication between a service provider and a client (e.g., stock broker and investor), and for sending alerts. Several universities have implemented a system of texting students and faculties campus alerts. One such example is Penn State.[34]
As text messaging has proliferated in business, so too have regulations governing its use. One regulation specifically governing the use of text messaging in financial-services firms engaged in stocks, equities, and securities trading is Regulatory Notice 07-59, Supervision of Electronic Communications, December 2007, issued to member firms by theFinancial Industry Regulatory Authority. In 07-59, FINRA noted that "electronic communications", "e-mail", and "electronic correspondence" may be used interchangeably and can include such forms of electronic messaging as instant messaging and text messaging.[35] Industry has had to develop new technology to allow companies to archive their employees' text messages.
Security, confidentiality, reliability and speed of SMS are among the most important guarantees industries such as financial services, energy and commodities trading, health care and enterprises demand in their mission-critical procedures. One way to guarantee such a quality of text messaging lies in introducing SLAs (Service Level Agreement), which are common in IT contracts. By providing measurable SLAs, corporations can define reliability parameters and set up a high quality of their services.[36] Just one of many SMS applications that has proven highly popular and successful in the financial-services industry is mobile receipts. In January 2009, Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) published the Mobile Banking Overview for financial institutions in which it discussed the advantages and disadvantages of mobile channel platforms such as Short Message Services (SMS), Mobile Web, Mobile Client Applications, SMS with Mobile Web and Secure SMS.[37]
Mobile interaction services are an alternative way of using SMS in business communications with greater certainty.
Typical business-to-business applications are telematics and Machine-to-Machine, in which two applications automatically communicate with each other. Incident alerts are also common, and staff communications are also another use for B2B scenarios.
Businesses can use SMS for time-critical alerts, updates and reminders, mobile campaigns, content and entertainment applications.
Mobile interaction can also be used for consumer-to-business interactions, such as media voting and competitions, and for consumer-to-consumer interaction, for example, with mobile social networking, chatting and dating.
Patrick Abboud
No comments:
Post a Comment