A rough guide to MPOW1 Jul 2014 18:51
This was tipped by RHPS in March, I’m a subscriber and seeing as it was tipped in March I thought there is no harm in pinching some of the research already done by RHPS ……. saves me trawling through stuff ….. anyway the following is snippets from the newsletter, which gives a broad idea of what MPOW is about
“Originally, his idea was to develop mobile personal financial services. But then the mobile
commerce element captured his imagination. MPOW began working on mobile IT projects for big
retailers like Next, Superdry and Waterstones. It’s quite impressive that Next, which makes over
£300m annual operating profit from its online Directory business, has outsourced its m-commerce to
MoPowered. MPOW developed its first application for Next in 2009 and is now its sole supplier for
mobile websites and apps.
Having such blue-chip clients certainly lends a lot of credibility to MPOW. But unfortunately it
doesn’t result in a scaleable business. The relationship with Next is mainly project-based. To do a
lot more of this bespoke work for very large clients would be labour intensive, and MPOW would
have to keep hiring software engineers to service new customers. So instead, they’ve used the
knowledge and expertise accumulated from this m-commerce project work to develop a product
that can be sold to lots of customers.
Clients pay a small set-up fee, but most of the MPOW’s revenue comes from a monthly rental
charge plus a small share of the sales generated from the ensuing m-commerce. This cut
MPOW receives from a client’s m-commerce sales helps align both parties’ interests.
MoPowered’s proposition is that a well-designed mobile website will have a measurable impact
on customer conversion. So it’s directly incentivised to help their clients grow sales from their
m-commerce activities.
For example, Price Right Home is a family-owned e-commerce retailer selling a range of over
3,000 children’s home and decor products. Moving to MoPowered’s mobile platform has had a
clear impact on the company’s performance. The proportion of people visiting the site who made a
purchase (the conversion rate) improved by 58%. People stayed on the site 20% longer than before
and pages viewed per visit rose by 64%.
CEO Dominic Keen is a bright and enthusiastic leader of the company who retains a significant
shareholding. He holds a Business and Engineering degree from Cambridge, and being well over six
feet tall and a former member of the Great Britain judo team, he’s someone you take seriously! He is
supported by an experienced chairman in 68-year-old Mike Hughes. Mr Hughes has a background at
General Electric Company and more recently was CEO of Midlands Electricity, as well being a board
member of Oxford Instruments and South Staffs Water. Finance Director Ben Carswell also has an
impressive CV