Mobile business apps

If you thought that your life was already dominated by your mobile phone, think again. New surveys and reports show that, with the growth in purchase and use of smartphones and tablets, mobile apps will play an even larger role in business and commerce in the short-term. How you and your business use these apps may determine your success in the long-term.

Mobile Apps in Business

Kony Solutions and MGI Research have recently released a report that shows that delivering a high-quality user experience and improving mobile app performance are top business priorities, and that mobile apps are increasingly viewed as a business differentiation tool to increase customer engagement, reinforce brand value, and provide better customer service. The survey specifically called out enhanced application performance and multi-platform app support from a single code base as two areas where businesses were focusing.

Harold Goldberg, CMO, Kony Solutions

“From increased attention to the user experience and planning bigger investments in multi-channel offerings, this report demonstrates that more organizations are adopting a ‘mobile first’ mindset.  It also confirms something our customers have long known – mobile is a key driver of business success, and an essential channel for increasing customer loyalty and improving customer service,” said Harold Goldberg, Kony’s CMO. “While it’s crucial to stay at the forefront of trends such as BYOD and HTML5, it is clear that a multi-channel, hybrid approach is what enterprises are looking for to stay ahead in today’s mobile environment, ensuring that they can future-proof their mobile strategy and position their organizations for continued growth.”

The use of smartphone and tablets is becoming more prolific. As more and more businesses encourage their teams to work smarter and with more flexibility, mobile applications will take on a greater importance in the workplace.

Mobile Apps for Consumers

As this new report from Juniper Research shows, mobile apps are about to replace the traditional search engines and tools when consumers and customers look for information. Already, mobile devices account for 10 percent of Internet traffic, up from just one percent in 2009; 71 percent of that growth was from applications.

Location based apps are already big news and can bring real benefits when it comes to marketing and consumer awareness. What may come as a surprise is the use of in-stores apps, that customers are using while on the ground. Using these apps significantly  affect their buying decisions and can lead to much higher in-store conversion rates.

Understanding the Technology

Essentially, businesses are now faced with a situation where a single technology is becoming remarkably important to both their business and consumer interests. Something like this hasn’t really happened since the dawn of the Internet, where businesses who invested in early connectivity initiatives reaped benefits both in internal productivity and consumer sales.

Mobile apps will dominate the tech landscape over the next few years, and midsize businesses are in an ideal spot to take advantage of it. These businesses are small enough to be able to quickly pivot toward new application solutions, while remaining large enough to handle the cost of multi-platform app development.

What businesses need to be aware of is that within a few years, the average consumer is going to expect business apps from those companies that don’t have a strong web presence. This may have long term consequences if businesses are forced in to releasing apps in a rush to capture potentially lost market share.

If you can understand what is happening now and how mobile apps are becoming a key component to a business’s technology presence, this may allow your business or IT department to stay ahead of the curve and start engaging with customers and employees at a time when some competitors may still be wrestling with spending the money on app development.

Source: Midsize Insider