A Mobile App: Why Your Business Needs It

If you are a business owner who is still on the fence about whether your company needs a mobile application or can do without it, this post is for you. We are going to look at various challenges businesses face and provide evidence for how mobile solutions can solve them. Once you’ve read this article, you will see the benefits you can get if you decide in favor of mobile app development.

About the Mobile App Industry

For our contemporaries, it’s crucial to be mobile in every aspect of life, be it traveling large distances fast or real-time communication across the ocean. If the former challenge falls under the purview of transport systems, the latter is addressed by the increasing usage of mobile devices, which we have witnessed over the years.

Since numbers speak louder than words, here are some statistics:

• In 2018, the number of people who have mobile devices was estimated at more than 5 billion, and over half of these users possessed smartphones
• By 2025, the number of unique mobile users will reach 5.9 billion, which is 71% of the world’s population
• According to Statista, smartphone adoption is rapidly growing in all regions of the world, and a global median is predicted to hit 79 percent by 2025

Source: Statista

• Users spend around 90% of smartphone time in apps, says eMarketer
• The annual number of global mobile app downloads was 140 billion in 2016, 192 billion in 2018 and 204 billion in 2019, indicates Statista research
• 85% of users prefer mobile apps to mobile websites, concludes BiznessApps
• Among categories of applications available in the App Store, the most popular are games, business, education and lifestyle solutions, according to Statista

Most popular app categories in November 2019

Source: Statista

As you can see, business mobile applications — productivity apps targeting B2B and B2C audiences — are gaining traction. Such popularity can be attributed to the core purposes they serve:

• To increase productivity
• To reduce expenses
• To satisfy customers

Takeaway: Businesses across various industries (logistics, eCommerce, medicine, education) that want to stay ahead of the competition, reach their full potential and experience success cannot ignore these trends in the mobile world. In this case, utilizing the power of mobile applications is the best way to easily connect customers to your brand and making their journey seamless and efficient.

What Is a Good Mobile App?

What distinguishes a successful application from a poor one is that it addresses certain needs in order to improve certain processes. If an app doesn’t solve any issue, it is useless, regardless of how technically well it is developed and what an attractive interface it has.

Note! Before diving into mobile application development, a business owner should think about problems it will solve and the benefits it will bring to the company.

Let’s talk about how mobile apps are changing the world of business-to-customer and business-to-business relationships.

Challenges a Mobile Solution Can Cope With

1. Ineffective Internal Cooperation

Within any company, there are numerous interconnected processes that should be properly managed in order to reach desired results. Assets tracking, allocation and coordination of tasks, inventory management, goods delivery monitoring, financial control and many other business functions should perform as a whole to run a business effectively and avoid the chaos.

Unfortunately, when everything is done manually, you can’t avoid delays and various human errors. Hence, the effectiveness of internal processes suffers, and the outcome may be far from adequate.

Solution

To create irreproachable processes and make them work like a clock, you need automation. A mobile application is a great tool for automating routine tasks, providing visibility, transparency and agility.

For example, in an app you can:

• Set up meetings, invite colleges and get automatic reminders
• Allocate tasks and monitor their progress
• Handle orders
• Monitor delivery of goods online
• Control assets and inventory

It’s a great practice to unify essential working processes in one digital solution installed on employees’ mobile devices so that they can access them anytime and even work on the go.

Corporate mobile apps help establish better communication between departments, quickly address issues and complete tasks with more agility and higher efficiency.

2. Poor Customer Service

We live in times of instant gratification when people hate having to wait for anything: an answer, an order confirmation, a delivery. And many businesses suffer from customer outflow just because they can’t provide instant and efficient communication with end-users.

Meanwhile, a customer-centric approach has become the main pillar of the business world. Whatever goods you produce or whatever services you offer, first and foremost you should focus on the needs and desires of your customers, by trying to build unique and careful customer service. It is highly important for retaining users and increasing their loyalty.

Solution

A fast and convenient mobile application attracts loyal users by providing an opportunity to order a product or receive a service in a couple of clicks. Utilizing a mobile app, you can ensure the 24×7 availability of your brand to your users. In addition, you can develop a special program for authorized users that will offer bonuses, discounts, personalized offers and notify them about the latest product updates and urgent news.

Your clients will be grateful to you for a convenient solution with extended functionality that is able to reduce their time and labor costs on fulfilling certain tasks.

3. Lack of Timely Data

A common problem for many businesses is either the absence of reliable data needed for better decision-making or the inability to analyze available data and put it into practice. Eventually, randomly made decisions don’t produce desired results or can even hurt the business.

Solution

Mobile apps are excellent tools for the automatic aggregation of different types of data about clients and business processes, its analysis and conversion into meaningful information.

Via an app you can:

• Gather customer feedback, which helps improve your products and services
• Сompile a complete portrait of the audience (age, gender, geolocation, language, type of device used, etc.), which allows you to better understand the preferences and interests of your clients

With the detailed analytics at your disposal, you will be able to make insightful managerial decisions, provide more personalized offers and create successful marketing campaigns.

4. Poor Sales

It sometimes might be that quality and demanded goods are selling well in regular stores but not on the internet. Why does it happen? The main cause of slow eCommerce sales may lie in the complicated and inconvenient process of making an order.

Solution

There are specialized digital eCommerce solutions, e.g. Sitecore, SAP C/4HANA, Magento, for creating excellent websites for online stores. They make the life of buyers easier and streamline revenues.

However, according to Criteo, mobile apps are more efficient at motivating people to purchase, as compared to mobile websites:

• Their conversion rate is three times higher
• Their bounce rate during checkout is much lower
• The number of mobile app sales is increasing year by year

Here are some reasons for apps superiority:

• Speed — they load and respond to user actions faster
• Usability — carefully planned solutions are intuitive, and users need only a couple of clicks to find the information they need or to complete a transaction
• Saved credentials — authorized users don’t have to fill out their personal data every time they make a purchase; hence they are not annoyed and are more likely to complete a purchase and not abandon their shopping cart
• Buying on the go — since the smartphone is always at hand, users can easily interact with applications regardless of time and location due to convenient usability, saved credentials and the usage of voice input
• Repeat purchasing — after downloading an app once, users turn to it when they need your product again because it is simpler and faster to find the right icon on the smartphone screen than to search for a site (even bookmarked) in a mobile browser

5. Low Brand Awareness

The situation when a brand is not recognized by the majority of the target audience doesn’t promise prosperity. So, it’s crucial to make a company “visible” to potential users.

Solution

A mobile application can become the most effective way of branding as it is constantly in the eye of your audience. Just imagine:

• Users download your app on their smartphones and look at the icon dozens of times a day (every time they glance at the phone screen)
• An attractive icon draws attention and builds a subconscious positive attitude to your brand
• Apps save customer credentials and allow for one-click checkouts
• Push notifications unobtrusively remind customers of your brand by informing about discounts, promotions, as well as their wish lists and abandoned shopping carts

Promotion via useful and engaging mobile solutions is really worth a shot. Try it!

Key Mobile Application Benefits for Business

Well, what conclusions can we draw from the above-mentioned reasons? Mobile applications are undoubtedly profitable for businesses, but only if they are well-developed and designed. They provide new opportunities to connect customers and vendors, enable fast conversions and drive sales.

Their general benefits are:

1.     Better internal communication
2.     Customer loyalty
3.     Data-based decision-making
4.     Successful marketing campaigns
5.     Increased sales
6.     Higher brand awareness

Think Twice Before You Develop

If you are planning to develop an app, take a look at these tips:

1. A mobile application is a large investment. Before starting this journey, you need to carefully calculate whether this investment will pay off. Make sure you have a clear understanding of the goal you are trying to reach.
2. Profit for business owners is determined by the level of popularity of a solution among the end-users. Investigate practical problems your clients face and address them by your digital solution. Popularity is guaranteed.
3. An advertising and promotional strategy is a must for all new products. In the initial stage, promotion via numerous channels will make people find out about your innovation, and, later on, word of mouth will become the most effective form of advertising.

Highly qualified and experienced mobile app developers at SaM Solutions offer comprehensive consulting on the topic. Contact us and get assistance in planning, developing and deploying a mobile solution specifically tailored to your business needs.