Eco-Fone Smartphones: Analyzing Data for Business Expansion (2024)

This report provides a detailed analysis of Eco-Fone Smartphones, focusing on the UK mobile phone market and the company's potential for expansion. The report begins with an overview of the UK smartphone market, including usage trends and sales data, followed by a graphical representation of smartphone usage from 2012 to 2017 and forecasts for 2018 and 2019. It then explores the potential of smartphones for older customers, highlighting relevant features. The core of the report includes a feasibility study for expanding the business to Kingston, using a pros and cons table, and an analysis of the costs associated with a new building. The report further examines the difference in net takings between two existing shops, customer satisfaction, and quality procedures. Finally, the report concludes with key findings and recommendations for Eco-Fone's strategic development.

Analysing Information and Data for
Problem Solving

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
Overview of mobile phone market in UK:.............................................................................1
TASK 2 ...........................................................................................................................................2
Graphical representation of UK adult smartphone use (Year 2012-17):................................2
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................3
Smartphones - A potential market for older customers:.........................................................3
TASK 4 ......................................................................................................................................4
Feasibility of Expanding business to Kingston using Pros and Cons table :..........................4
TASK 5............................................................................................................................................4
Costs of a New Building:.......................................................................................................4
TASK 6............................................................................................................................................8
Testing the Possible Difference in Net Takings in the Two Shops:.......................................8
TASK 7............................................................................................................................................9
Customer Satisfaction:............................................................................................................9
TASK 8..........................................................................................................................................11
Quality Procedures:..............................................................................................................11
TASK 9..........................................................................................................................................11
Conclusions & Important Findings:.....................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13
APPENDICES...............................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
In smartphones business environment, there is vast changes in the technology rapidly in
last few years. Companies in this sector requires such internal environment that can easily adopt
these changes to make profits in long run. For better understanding about smartphones market,
Eco-Fone Smartphones Company is selected, which deals in smartphones and accessories from
two shops two different cities which are in Putney and Richmond. This company is set up since
year 2014 and its sales is increasing every year from previous year (Anderson, 2012). This report
is divided in ten tasks which gives some theory based solutions of given problems and some
practical based solutions to understand the current business environment. Pros and cons method
is used in this report for evaluating the condition of establishing new branch in new city of UK
which is Kingston city.
TASK 1
Overview of mobile phone market in UK:
In UK, smartphone has most used electronics item in all age group, in-fact, it lead the
consumer electronic market. In UK, about seventeen per cent of 16-24 year persons use the
smartphones at-least 100 times in a day. The annual sales of mobile phones has increased from
year 2016 to 2017 by 1.5 million. As per survey, adult population has uses the smartphones most.
For office use, about 32 million users use the smartphones, so it can be said that there is a future
demand for smartphones in offices also and it is increasing every year. Smartphone adoption
among adults in UK is rising to 85 percent in mid of 2017. According to this report, smartphones
uses will rise by between 1-3 percentage points over coming year, which means that up-to 88
percent UK adults would use the smart phone in end of year 2018. In UK, there is almost 32
million people are in work and half of all the respondents that were currently in employment
used their smartphones for at-least one time for work or office related activity. Smart phones are
used by these workers for office use is categorised in email (44 percent), voice calls (34 percent)
and calender management (23 percent) at year end of 2017. But in UK, there is only 45% people
who uses the smartphones are aware about the voice command feature and out of this 45%, only
15% people uses this feature of smartphones. This should be increased for better use of
smartphones in UK (Asgharzadeh, Bakouch and Esmaeili, 2013).
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TASK 2
Graphical representation of UK adult smartphone use (Year 2012-17):
The smartphones use in UK can be explained by line chart which is as follows:
Forecast of smartphone use in year 2018 and 2019:
For forecasting the information for future years (2018 and 2019), moving average
forecast model is used. By the help of the above line chart of previous six years (2012-2017), it
assist in forecasting of smartphones uses in coming two year, which is as follows:
 For Laptop: After seen the above chart related to laptop, it may be said that there is no
fixed trend or linear relationship in use of laptop in past six years. Therefore, it may
forecast that use of laptop can be either increased or decreased in future. Even though,
there is a relationship that may be observed, according to this, use of laptop may be
decreased in future.
 For Smartphone: After observing the above chart, it may be said that use of smartphone
in UK is increasing. Hence, it may be forecast that there is a high demand as compared to
last year in near future (i.e. in year 2018 and 2019)
 For Tablet: After observing the above chart, it may be said that the demand of the tablets
in UK market is increasing in last six years. Therefore, it may said that in year 2018 and
2019, there is higher demand of tablet as compared to last years.
Linear forecast not useful:
2
Laptop Smartphone Tablet
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017

After observing the above line chart, it may be said that linear forecast is not suitable for
this type of information because linear forecast is suitable for that information which flows in an
linear relationship but the above information as given by line chart does not provide such type of
linear relation (Battaglini, 2012).
TASK 3
Smartphones - A potential market for older customers:
In smartphones, there are various features in it which enables these smartphones very
attractive for each individual regardless of age of such individuals. Some of such features that
make smartphones attractive, which are as follows:
 As modern smartphones have much bigger screens as compared to old phones, so that
it helps the older people in viewing in better capacity whose eyesight deteriorates due
to to old age.
 In smartphones there are louder speakers too that helps the older people in clear
hearing. Therefore, smart-phone's demands is increasing among older people of UK.
 The software of an smartphone is also very easier to handle and in over a few years,
manufactures of mainstream Android offers a streamlined versions of their app with a
aim to assist elderly people. For example, Apple has nowadays started giving built-in
accessibility features in its smartphones (Luen and Stark, 2012).
 Now a days, facial recognition features is also included in the smartphones that gives
easy and secure access to the smartphones. This will assist the elderly people and there
is no headache for remembering the password and other secure mechanism to access
the smartphones (Ocran, 2017).
 In today environment, there is vast variety of applications that may be used in
smartphones which may help the older people in doing day to day work very easily and
even it may used in office work also such as spreadsheets applications, power-point
presentation may be used for office work (Curado, Gazeau and Rodrigues, 2012).
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TASK 4
Feasibility of Expanding business to Kingston using Pros and Cons table :
Diversification or expansion of products of Eco-Fone company shall required huge
capital spending and it requires intense research work. Therefore, it is crucial decision to whether
diversified or not. Eco-Fone company currently operating in two cities which is Putney and
Richmond and now wants to expand in Kingston (Hazra, 2014). For deciding whether it is
beneficial to the company to expand in other city or not, a pros and cons table is required to be
prepared which are as follows:
Should we expand our business to Kingston?
Pros Score/10 Cons Score/10
Diversify Market 7 Shortage of Cash 5
Increase Brand Awareness 9 Loss of Control 4
Attractive Foreign Investors 6 Cultural Barriers 5
Develop Customers Base 9 Currency Risk 3
Learn New Culture 9
Required Skilled Work force 7
Potential Revenue 8
Total Pros 55 Total Cons 17
Average Pros 7.86 Average Cons 2.43
After preparing and evaluating the above Pros and Cons table, it may said that there is
very beneficial for Eco-Fone Company to have expand its business in Kingston city because
there is more opportunities such as good diversify market, increase brand awareness, attractive
foreign Investors and so on as compared to threads and weaknesses which is shortage of cash,
loss of control, currency risk, cultural barriers and so on (Faisal Ahammad and Glaister, 2018).
TASK 5
Costs of a New Building:
(a) Calculate Equal Monthly Cost.
4

Eco-Fone Company wants to expand their business, for this, company requires a premises
in new area for carrying out its business operations. There are two options available either to
purchase or take premises in lease. Lease option is better, so that, company can sustain in the
market for long time until they settled financially (Global mobile consumer survey. 2017). The
monthly cost which company is required to pay in case of lease option are as follows:
Loan Value £350000
Total no of EMI 180
Annual Interest Rate 0.07
Monthly Interest Rate 0.00583
Monthly EMI Payment £3145.90
Total Loan Amount Payable £566261.81
Total Interest Payable £216261.81
Eco-Fone decide to purchase land rather than taking lease so cost of property is
£4,00,000. Company decided to take mortgagee loan and the principle amount is £3,50,000 for
the next 15 years at the rate of 7% per annum. So company decided to pay on Monthly Equal
Installation for the next 180 months (Smartphone sales boom. 2019).
(b) Well known commercial Mortgage lenders:
Commercial Mortgage lenders: Commercial mortgage lenders are the persons who
provide loans for construction or redevelopment of commercial properties. Different types of
commercial mortgage lenders are:
Banks: Banks are the traditional lenders of commercial mortgage loans. They provide all
types of small and large loans to Eco-Fone Limited for commercial use.
Insurance Agencies: Various insurance agencies are interested in investing their funds in
commercial sectors hence they provide mortgage loans to companies for this purpose.
5

Government Agencies: Government has developed some agencies like State-Owned
Enterprises to provide loans to companies so that commercial sector may be grown and
developed. These agencies are a huge source of commercial mortgage loans for the
organizations.
Brokers: These are not the real lender of mortgage loans for the companies but they
ensure communication between investors who want to invest in commercial properties and
organizations which need loans. They provide expertise suggestions to investors as well as
companies.
Conduit Lenders: Conduit lender is basically a special purpose organization that
provides loans or financing involving government name or documentation for the purpose of
selling these securities in secondary market.
Different eight logos of commercial mortgage lenders are as follows:
 TSB Bank
 One-saving Bank
 Business Comparison
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 NatWest
 Royal bank of Scotland
 White Oak
 Assetz capital
 Iwoka
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TASK 6
Testing the Possible Difference in Net Takings in the Two Shops:
Eco-Fone company have two retail stores one in Putney and another one in Richmond. Daily net
taking of the company determined and identify that which shop provide the higher profit in
comparison to other. These shops provide various mobile phone range & accessories and it will
be running for the months. So the following informations are provided in the below table:
Particulars Putney Richmond
Mean 100 90
Standard Deviation 20 40
Sample data set 40 40
Total Net Daily
Takings
= 4000 (40*100) = 3600 (40*90)
After observing the above table, it is clearly stated that sample size of the Putney shop is
40 net taking and the mean is 100 or standard deviation is 20. On the other hand sample size of
the Richmond is same but the mean is 90 and standard deviation is 40. This mean that total sale
or daily net taking of city Putney is higher than Richmond city. Although, sample size of both
shops are same which is 40 and but store in Richmond have more variability rather than Putney.
The reason behind that is having different standard deviation. If Richmond shop desires to
increase its sales then it have to decrease its variability, consequently, this will increase the total
sale.
8

So it has been concluded that total sales of the shop in Putney is high then shop located
Richmond since they have not different sample size. There is a difference due to standard
deviation or mean of these stores (Goldie, 2017).
9

TASK 7
Customer Satisfaction:
10

After evaluating above questionnaire it is clearly confirmed that Eco-Fone company is
highly satisfied and loyal customer base. In the future, company provide the long term
commitments to their customer to use smartphones at least 3 to 5 years. Company gives 4 rating
product quality out of 5 which is quite good for smooth functioning of its business. It is
providing excellence quality of product but they required to improve their customer service
11

through improvement in their staff members. In questionnaire, it is said that customers
recommend to their friends or family for Eco-Fone products, it is a type of incentive without any
monetary investment. So, if company provide good product to their consumers then they can
meet consumer's need or demand and achieve their business goals & objectives.
TASK 8
Quality Procedures:
In this procedure, company follow the various quality processes where department of accounts
sent 10000 invoices in a month and average return will create errors. Quality assurance
procedures of Eco-Fone company require probability more than three invoices will be returned
in a month and it should be less than fifteen percent. Poisson distribution is discrete probability
distribution is the number of events occur at the particular time period. It will use at the time of
describing huge population. This is also named as statistical distribution and it is the nearly most
suitable method for the Eco-Fone company. Because it required the calculation of probability
within time and respect of occurrences or non occurrences. Company have perception which is
beneficial for it and for the future occurrence, it will make easy by statistical techniques. To
improve and estimate about their quality issues and for ensuring quality, company adopt the
Poission distribution process .
TASK 9
Conclusions & Important Findings:
From above report, it is concluded that for today's environment, there is need of
smartphones to assist the people in their day to day working. It has more benefits for all types of
users preferably for elderly people. It is further concluded that smart-phone market in UK has
rapid growth mostly among adults because it provides huge benefits through their different
applications. It is also provided that there is various opportunities available to the companies in
this sector as evaluated by pros and cons analysis. The Eco-Fone company should start its
business operation in Kingston city for increasing profitability of the company as there is more
strengths and opportunities as compared to internal weaknesses and external threads. It is
concluded that for establishing business in Kingston by Eco-Fone company, strategies shall be
such that which enhance the customer loyalty and increase customer satisfaction which will
12

result in high revenues and increase the profits of the company. It is good for a company to
prepare questionnaire which will assist the company in improvement of its business operations.
13

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Anderson, W. P., 2012. Public policy in a cross-border economic region. International Journal of
Public Sector Management. 25(6/7). pp.492-499.
Asgharzadeh, A., Bakouch, H. S. and Esmaeili, L., 2013. Pareto Poisson–Lindley distribution
with applications. Journal of Applied Statistics. 40(8). pp.1717-1734.
Battaglini, A., and et.al., 2012. Perception of barriers for expansion of electricity grids in the
European Union. Energy Policy. 47. pp.254-259.
Curado, E. M. F., Gazeau, J. P. and Rodrigues, L. M., 2012. On a generalization of the binomial
distribution and its Poisson-like limit. Journal of Statistical Physics. 146(2). pp.264-
280.
Faisal Ahammad, M. and Glaister, K. W., 2018. Recent trends in UK cross-border mergers and
acquisitions. Management Research News. 31(2). pp.86-98.
Goldie, J., 2017. Letter and Questionaire from James Goldie to HB Everand, April 17, 1940.
Hazra, U. T., 2014. Understanding acceptance decisions and identity associated with
smartphones: A qualitative enquiry(Doctoral dissertation, University of Cape Town).
Luen, B. and Stark, P. B., 2012. Poisson tests of declustered catalogues. Geophysical journal
international. 189(1). pp.691-700.
Mishra, A. and Mahesh Kumar, M., questionaire survey”. International Journal of Current
Research Available onl Key words.
Ocran, T., 2017. Implementation of mobile technology based library service: case study of
University of Cape Coast(Doctoral dissertation, University of Pretoria).
Online
Global mobile consumer survey. 2017. [Online]. Available through:
<http://192.168.1.18/projectfiles/internal_chat_attatchment/deloitteglobalmobileconsumersurvey
2017_ukcut1552049277.pdf>.
Smartphone sales boom. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41319684>
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APPENDICES
1. Calculation of Monthly Cost for repayment of Mortgage Loan:
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