As one of the world's leading players in the e-mobile business sector, iWORLD Group (iWG) presents an innovative and evolutionary business concept that marks the beginning of an era for the Net economy. There are over 500 million mobile phone users in more than seventy countries offering GSM protocol digital mobile systems already, and predictions are that these figures will increase dramatically in the next few years. European revenue for m-commerce in 1998 stood at 323 million euro; it is forecast to rise to 23 billion euro by the year 2003 (source Durlacher Report, Nov. 1999). iWG was created with a clear focus on this fertile and burgeoning market.
iWG founders recognized the e-mobile (evolution of mobile) potential to transform the phone into a 'multi-purpose joystick'. They responded by creating one of the world's first ever e-mobile business incubators focusing exclusively on this emerging multi-million dollar hybrid market. The business concept, strictly focused and straight-forward, has been able to attract globally acting vintage investors from three continents. iWG has been valued at US$ 350 million less than six months after its creation.
With founders whose pioneering pedigree in the world of telecom, digital mobile and Internet business around the world is unparalleled, iWG is perfectly placed to achieve the maximum potential from this significant new market. The initiators of the business idea have been able to magnetize a handful of world-class experts to join them as co-founders and hence give the business an outstanding basis for future success. Global partners were selected as investors, and these include Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, McCaw and Paine Webber as well as Hikari Tsushin, the Japanese corporation that controls over 60% of the Japanese mobile sales and distribution markets.
iWG's role is to generate ideas and spawn individual companies - worldwide. As a business builder, its organization, management and networking structure has been specifically designed and focused to filter ideas-flow, incubate and roll-out strong and dynamic mobile e-businesses.
All of iWG offspring ventures are born in iDeasTank, the leading global think tank and innovation factory of ideas in e-mobile. iDeasTank creates innovative business ideas for e-mobile ventures, validates their potential and then transforms them into viable business cases ready for incubation. iDeasTank boasts an impressive team of in-house specialists as well as a multi-national network of advisors, who together bring a wealth of experience and diversity to bear as they brainstorm, develop and finally select which of the ideas is carried further.
iSmartMoney is iWG investment group, and it is here that decisions are taken on which business cases presented by iDeasTank should be nurtured, awarded funds and passed on to GlobalIncubators for development into fully operational, viable ventures. iSmartMoney decides which offspring iWG should invest in, raises outside investment and evaluates and benchmarks the ideas against other ideas already on the market.
GlobalIncubators is the actual production arena of iWG. From a simple spark, the innovative business ideas that have won investment from iSmartMoney are nurtured and developed into viable enterprises. In the first six months of operation GlobalIncubators has already nurtured three fledgling companies that are now poised for imminent graduation.
Business incubators have fast become a booming industry, with over 356 for-profit incubators operating in the world today. The rapid expansion of the incubator marketplace is in itself an indication that a new era in the history of business is beginning. A recent report in the Harvard Business Review highlighted the fact that between November 1999 and May 2000 alone, the number of incubators more than doubled, rising from 150 to 348 in just six months. Not all of these incubators will achieve what they set out to do. But iWG's focus on fostering an entrepreneurial spirit while mobilizing a vast network of international advisors gives the company added strength and advantage; the Harvard Business Review concluded their report by confirming that it is these two factors that will determine the success or otherwise of a business incubator. iWG is clearly set to retain its position at the cutting edge of this dynamic new business arena.