July 20, 2020
By: John Tomblin, Senior Solutions Architect
Tucson Bizz, a division of Sofvue, LLC
Printed with permission of Data Titan, Sofvue LLC, and the author
The technology landscape is in a continual state of flux. As a result, it’s essential that small businesses do all they can to stay on the forefront of technology. This can produce a competitive advantage, improve leverage, produce greater sales opportunities and improve overall ROI. It can even lead to greater employee retention and the ability to compete against larger competitors.
Customized mobile apps are becoming increasingly more popular for small enterprises who want to expand their brand, boost sales and ROI. Additionally, some businesses create custom apps to enhance their marketing strategies, whether for A/B test models, better customer targeting or automated push “call to action” tools.
The most common platforms used for mobile app development are iOS (Apple) and Android, but mobile apps for the Windows platform are expanding. Having these common platforms available for development greatly improves go-to-market strategies, expands mobile marketing opportunities and simplifies how small businesses complete transactions, whether reducing the amount of time needed to complete transactions, to using RFID and QR’s codes to track fulfillment, to name a few.
Here are three good reasons why a small business might develop a custom mobile application for their business:
1) Lower Cost to Entry: The cost to develop custom mobile apps has fallen sharply over the past five years. This is the result of smarter and more readily available development tools, greater resources and thousands of “plug-n-play” and SDK’s readily available for both Android and iOS.
2) Real-time Data Capture: With the increased capacity of QR codes and RFID technology, inventory control, distribution and fulfillment tracking have gone stratospheric. Mobile is used everywhere now, from merchandise tracking at Disneyland to logistics management in for shipping fleets, all using mobile to manage their business.
3) Gain a competitive advantage: We live in a world today where consumers are addicted to their smart devices. With this point in mind, does it make sense for your small enterprise to develop a custom mobile app? Will the finished app create a competitive edge over the competition? The answer is not always yes, but when it is, offering your customers and employees the ability to work with greater mobility can build loyalty, greater customer retention and in some cases, even produce greater revenue and ROI.
It goes without saying that mobile technology has transformed the marketplace, both in small and large business. You should always be asking yourself the following three questions:
1. What benefits might we offer our customers, clients, stakeholders and employees in developing a custom mobile application?
2. Will it be cost efficient to develop a mobile application?
3. Will a developed solution improve the company’s marketing efforts?
4. Will developing a mobile solution improve employee productivity?
5. Will the completed mobile application improve ROI for the company?
To learn more about developing a custom mobile solution for your business, contact our corporate office at 623-845-2747.
