Have you ever wondered how multi-level companies and big enterprises managed to stay functional, even when the pandemic hit society?
How did the educational and financial institution succeed in delivering the service, even when one could not step out into the streets?
A significant section of the credit goes to the mobile application, which opened an exposure to technologies and ensured us a channel to fulfill our daily needs.
Whether it is Microsoft teams or the Power BI application, the tech giant has left no stone unturned to maintain a communication bridge among its employees.
So, mobile applications are the initial kickstart of digital transformation. The same digital transformation enables you to bring the market and malls to your doorstep, which helps you make a virtual office in your living room and the one which can certainly make your business grow like anything.
Now, What is Digital Transformation all about?
To be precise, Breaking the walls of stereotypes regarding technology usage encapsulates the complete definition of digital transformation.
It is about introducing technology or a gadget to the marketplace but inculcating any new idea, Culture, business model, and investing in digital technology to revolutionize the old school business pattern and make up the notion of digital transformation.
As per the 2018 Tech pro research survey, 70% of the companies have already embarked their employees on the voyage, and the number tends to increase post commencement of the corona disaster.
The current research exhibits that 89% of all the companies have either adopted the digital transformation or they have made the plan to do so.
Some foremost objectives of digital transformation are:
- Making the operation more functional.
- Designing the service more sustainably.
- Upgrading the graph of the customer’s expectations.
- Staying parallel to the competitors.
- Proximate the service with the customers to make it user-friendly.
Irrespective of any industry you belong to, you can see that pioneers are striving hard to synchronize their work culture with digital technology as it is the only way to make their service and product universal across the globe.
How are mobile applications contributing to the growth and advancement of the business?
Few major procedures are:
I. Customer Engagement:
Integrated software solutions will build a virtual support system to help customers navigate the most convenient resources. Gone are the days when one must stand in the long queue of banks for the money to be sent to any other. Bank transactions, Communication, Marketing, and many more processes have changed drastically ever since technology integrated with the respective process.
Embracing the transition is not a choice; it is indeed a compulsion. It has become the primary strategy to run a functional business. The service does not need to manually entertain the customer since it is already available at his/her fingertip. The service system has also been designed so that the customers can themselves request to get connected to the relevant team and get further assistance. This ineffable structure would be a sandcastle without the existence of a mobile application.
Azure Bot Service is one of the trending services that offer the ability to add intelligent agents capable of conversation without having to commit the resources to develop one’s own AI. The service can be added to websites, apps, email, GroupMe, Kik, Skype, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Telegram, SMS, Twilio, Cortana, Skype, and so on. These all application plays a key role in terms of engaging your regular customers.
Azure Bot Service also offers more advanced features through Cognitive Services, such as:
- Scaling to support growth
- Ability to make smart recommendations.
- Language translation
II. Recognizing the targeted customers:
Any services floating in the marketplace must be having a separate mobile application along with the website. These applications optimise the sales and help you to get more targeted traffic. They tend to be more accessible and interactive as compared to traditional websites.
When customers start using the service frequently, the technologies like Microsoft Power BI and extensive data analysis come to the picture. They use the vast pool of data to make logical analyses and bifurcate the targeted customers.
Almost all E-commerce websites like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Myntra use such tools and technologies to evaluate the customers’ preferences and make big decisions or move accordingly. They figure out their premium customers, roll out special offers, and create new services with a new dimension of customer experience. This is only possible which mobile applications of these platforms and a business intelligence tool like Power BI and others get integrated.
III. Build a brand and recognition:
Your mobile application is itself a brand representing the reputation and value of your business. The more often you can make customers engaged with your mobile app, the sooner they will be inclined to buy your product and/or service. This is the thumb rule of effective frequency in the advertising segment.
Hearing and/or seeing your brand approximately twenty times is what will get you truly noticed. The mobile applications hold the capability to do so. A mobile app seems to like a blank billboard sign. You can do what you want with it; you can make it hip, stylish, functional, or informative. But what you must do is build an app that has features your customers will love, while at the same time is well branded and interactively designed.
IV. Real-time communication:
Along with the other benefits, mobile apps are also facilitating real-time communication. Real-time communication apps like WhatsApp, Apple Messages, Google Chat, Slack, Facebook Messenger, etc., are used by all users. These mobile apps have capabilities that go beyond the traditional messaging systems. Almost every application gives you the facility to initiate a conversation with BOT or an automated messaging service. If you are not satisfied with them, you will be redirected to the customer support team, who will further assist you with any sort of questions and queries. These transparent modes of communication would not have ever been possible without the contribution of the mobile application.
The Advantages of Mobile Apps in Education: How Mobile Apps Have Changed the Education Sector?
With the advancement of technology, students are more driven towards using a mobile phone for every purpose. The world is at the fingertip, and they can access any information from anywhere. This allows them to refrain from visiting a library and searching for the data by all physical means.
What makes the information easily available is mobile applications? Every mobile app has a unique feature that offers its own set of services.
eLearning is the terminology that has created a buzz in recent times. Due to the mobile phones and the various feature-oriented applications, students can learn at their pace and take their time at understanding things, as everything is just a click away.
Advantages of using mobile applications in the classroom:
I. New learning methods:
The involvement of various mobile applications in the education sector has introduced some new learning methods. Some explicit features of the application enable the students to understand things from a different perspective.
II. Enhanced parent-teacher communication:
Parent-teacher communication apps help in building parent-teacher relations beyond the structure of traditional education institutes. A transparent bridge of communication helps them figure out how to give overall growth to the students.
III. eBooks And Online Study:
These days, students are generally very fond of online studying. This is where library apps and book search apps come into the picture. These applications make it easy for the students to search for the appropriate study material in the mobile application. It keeps them closer to the study material and helps them segregate their studying materials over the web.
IV. Decreased Communication Gap Between Students and The Institution:
It can be said that, following traditional methods, institutes cannot pay equal attention to all students. Now, however, it is possible to reach out to all of them. School communication apps make it possible to impart information to every student. They can inform them about new schedules, different forums, various conferences, and social school activities.
There is no educational hierarchy when it comes to eLearning. Students can broadly access the syllabus and learn things at a higher standard. The education apps are improving the education system in the world and making the student smarter. It is the most synchronized way of learning, and it is also available for everyone.
Categories of mobile applications which the schools are looking up to:
- Online tuition apps
- Online school fee payment apps
- Attendance management apps
- Managing workbook & worksheet apps
- Storytelling for kids’ apps
- ERP software for colleges and colleges
- School pee payment apps
- Quiz and puzzle with answers apps
These are some of the fundamental features which make a mobile application trending these days. Even during the lockdown phase, Classes are conducted via various applications like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, WebEx, and many more. If the usage of these applications were not implemented in this sector, there could have been a significant setback in the academic background of every nation.
How are mobile applications playing a role in the advancement of business?
- By utilizing AI in mobile apps:
The benefits of artificial intelligence for the up gradation of the customer’s experience are worthy of being appreciated. AI can search and contain a massive amount of customer data. It can comprehend complex data, organize, integrate, contain, and translate it to produce insights from the collected data. So, it not only automates the process but gives a proactive analysis of possible market loss.
- Using IOT mobile application:
Companies are using IoT mobile applications to make the supply chains more effective and empower the growth and firm establishment of the business.
Medical and healthcare are one such field that has seen a drastic change due to IoT applications. According to Frost and Sullivan, The IoT in the medical domain is expected to flourish at the growth rate of 26.2% and reach $72.02 billion by 2021.
- Real-time analysis:
Having a real-time mobile analysis tool is a boon to your business or enterprise. You can use this analysis to determine productivity, Future problems and calculate how a particular task is upgrading or degrading your company’s value.
Few major tasks of mobile application in any business segment are:
- Integration of technology.
- Building a great customer experience.
- Introduce a new business model.
- Update the current work structure.
- Adding the number of clients and customers to the service.
The primary purpose has always been to make the business more flexible, Flourish at a global base, Make the company customer-centric, receive continuous feedback to improve the services and offer new exposure.
Digital transformation in the cultural and creative industry:
The creative industry has also witnessed a digital transformation on a very large scale. Before the penetration of digital technology, the creative industry was limited to the multiplex, theatre, and television; after that, comes the disruptive OTG platforms like Amazon Prime and Netflix for online music or video streaming.
Hence, in this case, mobile applications played a pivotal role in flipping the entire entertainment genre. Not only the visual segment but the print media too has been digitalized over a couple of years. Paperback, Hardcover books, Newspapers and magazines, everything has been digitalised. Either they are compelled to embrace the exposure, or they stay far behind the rapid digital change. Mobile applications like prime, Netflix, Kindle, Google books, Voot, Jio Cinema are the frontline spearhead to shatter the traditional medium.
How have mobile applications changed the retail industry?
If an industry has seen a complete turnaround, especially after the corona outbreak, it is undoubtedly the retail market. By offering a personalized shopping experience and accessible mode of payment, the retail market has been reshaped by the digital transformation. The mobile application has become the essential component for customer engagement and boosting their experience.
Some of its beneficial aspects are:
- Helping the customers to fetch the information.
- Automate the procedure of purchase.
- Cut down the manpower and make it cost-effective.
- Develop a hassle-free service.
So, there’s the bottom line. There are around 2.71 billion smartphone users around the globe, which makes the mobile application the most conventional and accessible medium to communicate with such a vast population, and no other worldwide medium can be proven such an effective route to get connected and engage with people.
Without the implementation of mobile applications, it nearly impossible to reach such a wide range of customers with distinct requirements and demands. It has become the most integral part of the business, which builds the connectivity and automates the process to the maximum extent.
The mobile application seems to be the only mode to establish a two-way communication channel between the service and customers. It is not just a part of the future; it is the future itself! Constant feedback allows you to constantly watch on customers’ interests which eventually makes you deliver a contended service.
Austin Joy is an IT Consultant at a leading Microsoft Partner firm called Bitscape. He helps businesses with WorkPlace Modernization Services on behalf of Bitscape in the USA and Canada. I come up with various articles on topics related to Technology matters.