A survey conducted, by Daniel Burns with over 700 companies asked them, if they had developed any mobile apps internally to help them with supply chain management, logistics, purchasing or sales and or support. At this point only approximately 4 percent said yes, which is extremely low considering how many smartphones and mobile devices are on the market today. The follow up question was even more interesting: ” Do you think that at least half the businesses in your industry will have their own mobile apps for these types of functions within the next 2 years?” The response was amazing, 100 percent said “YES!”
So what does this mean for your business? It means that mobile apps designed by business for either internal use, or to gain a competitive advantage will explode over the next 2 years. Which way is your business leaning? What are the trends? A hard trend will happen; a soft trend might happen. The hard trend is that businesses will be developing mobile apps customized for their company for various functions. The soft trend is whether your company will be one of them.
Here’s something else to consider: The number of smart phones and tablets in all sizes of companies has obviously exploded in the last couple of years, and this hard trend is picking up speed. So with costs decreasing and capabilities increasing, the time to act is now. The question is, “How?” A mobile app that targets your customers and is able to deliver your marketing message in a way that is unique and current. A platform your customers will see value in, and an app that they will not only download, but keep on their mobile devices. What better solution than a custom mobile loyalty app, this addresses both issues. Your customers will find value in it because they are getting something back in the form of reward dollars of points, and you will have the ability to market to those same customers. Marketing via mobile ensures your message is being seen, any app that is of value will have the ability to send push notifications. A push notification is basically a text message that is targeted to your customers, and the open rates are astounding…98.7% as compared to 12-20% with emails.
You need to get ready for the mobile business app revolution now. Remember, there are two revolutions taking place: a hardware revolution (where our primary personal computer is shifting to our mobile devices like smart phones and tablets) and a software revolution (which is the mobile apps that will run on those devices). That means the rise of mobile apps for all business functions is a hard trend you can’t ignore. The companies that transform their business processes using mobility will achieve new levels of success. The time for business process transformation is now.