Deploying Mobile Technology to Give Your Team a Competitive Edge

When it comes to digital transformation, mobile is a pivotal technology. Research indicates that 49% of mobile users open apps more than 11 times every day, and the average smartphone user will take advantage of more than 30 unique apps in a month.

By participating in mobile digital transformation, businesses have an enormous opportunity to expand their business by improving the customer experience, connecting with new audiences, and reimagining product and service offerings. Furthermore, business leaders can use mobile software solutions to redefine internal procedures and make improvements to benefit a team’s overall performance.

According to a national workforce study, 62% of respondents say that mobile phones or tablets play a key role in helping them be productive at work. And, roughly 40% of respondents say their mobile device usage at work has increased more or significantly more than a year ago.

By undertaking a mobile digital transformation that spans customer experience and personnel workflows, companies investing in feature-rich mobile apps expect their businesses to grow 35% upon deployment of the new technology strategy. 

How Companies and Industries Leverage Mobile For Maximum Impact

Mobile applications are a digital enabler that can offer a competitive edge to organizations regardless of size or industry focus. Let’s consider some examples of mobile technology done right.

Retail Use Cases

Sephora is a long-time leader in customer experience development and was an early adopter of mobile digital transformation which has given them a significant competitive advantage.

They leveraged their customer data to see that 70% of traffic to Sephora.com came from mobile traffic initiated on iOS devices. In response, they implemented a mobile transformation strategy that has grown year-over-year and initially included the creation of a Sephora app. With the application, Sephora also built out the ability for consumers to make purchases using Apple’s Passbook. After deploying this feature, Sephora not only saw an uptick of app downloads (which averaged 87,000 app downloads per week), but they also noted that customers with Passbook spent two times more annually and purchased twice as frequently as the average Sephora customer.

Health and Wellness Use Cases

With creativity, strategy, and a team to help bring the transformation to life, the sky's the limit with mobile innovation. For example, Aditi Consulting recently worked with a popular gym chain in the U.S. to develop a mobile strategy dedicated to the delight stage of its customer journey, giving customers the ability to use an app to manage membership agreements, billing, and access amenities. 

The specific feature of being able to add new memberships via an app helped this organization increase its customer base, user satisfaction, and engagement across its chain of gyms.

The Long-Term Value of Implementing Digital Transformation For Mobile 

The solution of mobile technology for your specific use case will vary based on an understanding of your customers, and your ability to collect data in real-time to help you identify the specific opportunities to solve problems. 

In order for a digital transformation to have long-term value, it’s critical to understand that incorporating mobile technology isn’t only about ideating an app and then creating it in a vacuum. It’s about putting the customer experience first, developing a solution that reimagines your existing business models, processes and technology to respond to a consumer pain point. 

With the growing number of technologies like IoT, ML, AI, AR, VR, that can enhance mobile digital transformation, it becomes increasingly critical for organizations to place thoughtfulness and consideration in the following areas:

• Security: From issues like not performing security tests thoroughly, to adding weak encryption, to forgetting Enterprise Mobility Management processes, there are many security and privacy flaws that can weaken the mobile experience. And if an organization doesn’t protect its data or IP or stay up to modern compliance standards, the resulting reputation damage and financial losses can be detrimental to a brand. 
• Cross-platform mobile development: Understanding where to reach your audience, and how to span multiple devices with the least amount of output is strategic for protecting your bottom line, and the scope of your mobile digital initiative. By considering cross-platform development tools, you can reduce development work by only coding once for each platform you’re entering like Android, iOS, or Windows.
• Bring your own device (BYOD): As remote working continues to rise in popularity, so does the use of mobile devices to conduct business. In fact, 87% of businesses say it's critical for their employees to have access to mobile business apps to conduct business. While developing a mobile strategy for your organization, considering a BYOD policy internally, so the rewards of mobile transformation can be reaped by both your consumers and your employees, is a critical link in the chain of mobile development. 

Though the possibilities for mobile digital transformation seem endless, the process can be daunting. However, the ability to transform the interactions with your brand into an even more positive one is more accessible now than ever. Especially when partnering with experts in digital transformation to help guide your strategy.

Want to learn more about the possibilities of mobile digital transformation at your organization? Learn how Aditi can help ideate, and execute your next digital transformation.