Dynamic Modelling to Assist in the Understanding of Consumer Takeup and the Diffusion of New Telecommunications Services, paper presented at the 17th International Conference of the System Dynamics Society and 5th Australian & New Zealand Systems Conferen

With the approaching new Millennium, the rate of telecoms evolution is continuing to grow with business and market opportunities in abundance. This in turn creates a necessity to understand the success or otherwise of the temporal take-up by consumers of new products and services, (innovations). Such issues not only have serious implications for the fundamental network infrastructure, dimensioning and traffic, but also for profitable revenue generation. Traditionally, the Bass diffusion curve has been used to simulate customer take-up. This paper investigates the use of alternative methods to create different types of diffusion curves to simulate the take-up of an innovation by a customer base. A System Dynamics approach has been taken to examine the effect of different market diffusion processes on the take-up of innovations. Successful diffusion and take-up of any new innovation depends on a large number of attributes, such as perceived quality, perceived need, actual quality and actual need. One System Dynamics methodology discussed examines the drivers and attributes, which determine the particular type of diffusion curve that a new innovation will probably follow. This then indicates the likely success or otherwise of that innovation in the marketplace. The paper also suggests future developments of the work, within the Telecommunications environment. This is to assist in the creation of models that are more accurate in modelling the diffusion of products and services into the UK market