Mobile Apps and Business – How Apps Became a Part of Business Strategy

Mobile apps have became a part of our everyday life and the numbers are here to prove it: an average app number per person is now somewhere around 41! Total iPhone app downloads are close to 30 billion and for Android apps, the number is over 15 billion!

When it comes to the business world, you may think that this perk is reserved for big-name brands only. However, more and more small and midsize businesses are using the benefits of this mobile trend. And we are not talking about a mobile-friendly website only. Maybe you’ve noticed that many small businesses you interact with have their own dedicated mobile app. It’s that cute coffee shop around the corner or you beautician salon that is taking their marketing to the next level. And not because they are so innovative and ahead of their time. They are simply going with the flow and the flow is taking us all straight to the future of communication.

It’s no more a secret that mobile apps opened a vast number of opportunities for all size businesses. They are all using it for issues like customer relationship, management or documenting expenses to facilitating payments. Nowadays, mobile apps are really changing the game and creating new rules while playing an increasingly significant role in fueling business growth.

It’s only fair to say that the digital revolution impacted the business world quite a bit through apps. They changed the way companies interact with their customers and clients, making customer engagement more rigorous and direct (customers today expect everything to be at their fingertips) while, at the same time, it enhanced employee engagement and collaboration in the workplace. So, we are not exaggerating when we say that these tools for connecting people are improving the organization’s bottom line and business revenue.

So, let’s not look at business apps only as software specifically designed to solve a business problem. It is, in fact, helping you expand your market and increase revenue. Plus, they tend to be user-friendly as much as it’s possible so that people with any level of IT knowledge or experience can use them. What more can one want?

And how it all began?

Mobile App History

Apps emerged from early PDAs, through the addictively simple game Snake on the Nokia 6110 phone, to the first 500 apps in the Apple App Store when it made its debut in July 2008.

The first smartphone with features like calculator, world clock, calendar, and contact book was announced for the general use by IBM in 1993. The next game-changer was BlackBerry Smartphone released in 2002, with the BlackBerry Limited, formerly known as Research in Motion Limited (RIM) and with the innovative concept of wireless email integrated within. It was a let-the-games-begin moment!

Matthew Panzarino, co-editor of TechCrunch, has charted three phases of app development. He focused on the development of mobile technology all the way from telephony and gaming and utilities, to apps that dominated users’ experience, and apps armed with content that “are more about maximizing their usefulness without dominating your attention.”

Today, apps are so easy to access since most people have smartphones and iPhones. On the market, we have millions of mobile apps to make your life better, easier and more interesting – these are apps for social networks, travel, health, banking, fitness, calendars, games, news and much more. Just to illustrate the volume of its expansion, we’ll tell you that the Apple App store adds more than 20,000 apps every month!

What is the future of apps?

The main focus in the app industry is the idea of multiscreen becoming “every-screen”. In the near future, app developers won’t design for desktop and mobile anymore. Instead, they will have the means and the technology to design a single experience that will stretch across any internet-connected terminal. As a user, the very idea of content working well on almost any type of screen is more than meaningful to me.

In a word, the future of the app is likely the reality of wherever-we-are-and-whatever-device-we-use experience.

And how does this fit into your business development plan?

App Benefits

Let’s see. Listing the crucial benefits of using apps might help see where they could be the most beneficial for you.

• Reaching customers

Mobile apps play a crucial role in reaching more customers across different locations, so you no longer have to provide only local clients. Any company can build a much better brand presence in faraway places without the need to be concerned over local competition, as it can keep constantly in touch with users on move.

• Creating brand awareness

Visibility is a major component of branding, and mobile presence can get you far along in this.

• Engaging clients and creating loyal ones

Gathering organic traffic for your website may seem like an arduous task that requires continuous involvement and considerable time. On the other hand, it’s different with apps as they get downloaded and installed by users themselves, consciously and on purpose. This way, your brand is attracting attention and creating loyal customers.

• Collecting insights on users and better workplace collaboration

As apps are now the most popular digital space with the highest customer engagement, it has become clear that real-time collaboration among employees, partners, and customers has become much easier. And the final result? Better workplace collaboration, real-time user feedback, and diverse insights into user responses.

• Best way to gather and collect valuable analytics

This one is maybe the most important advantage of getting a mobile app for your business. Analytics data helps you enhance your user experience. Knowing both your employees and your clients is the key to success in any industry.

Being multi-channel is one of the modern digital environment’s key demands. Building a powerful and effective presence is the most important business challenge there is nowadays. Mobile apps for your business can provide you with every relevant information there is about your business and brand. So, what are you waiting for?