I have been on the road since almost a year, meeting clients and colleagues to discuss apps and start up app initiatives. My journeys have taken me to the US, Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Spain, UK, India, Dubai and Greece.
The app goes business.
More and more companies look to the app to leverage improved reach and increased time window in which they can interact with customers. It’s beyond branding. It’s now transactional and revenue generating. Users download and use apps that allow them to transact with businesses. From banks and insurance companies to retail, businesses discover a new business development channel in the app.
The app stands out as the better choice over a mobile web site. The user experience factor alone is strong enough to lead to the app, rather than the web. But it is not an either/or choice as the user might be redirected to a site from a link and an email, a tweet or a Facebook post. In that type of indirect scenario, the user still wants the site to render nicely on the user’s phone. App and mobile web walks hand in hand.
Major brands across all markets use their apps to illustrate competitive advantage, just as in the early days of the web. A business with a web site was considered to be innovative. Today, a business is seen as suspect if it doesn’t have a site. The window in which business can use the app to appear innovative is quickly closing. It’s won’t close until 2012, I believe, so we are still seeing huge ads focusing the app as a characteristic of products and services. Eventually businesses will be seen as suspect if it doesn’t have one or several apps. See the following photos as illustrations for this.
The second most important trend is internal in nature. Business intelligence on mobile devices is booming. Managers, executives, and in fact any role in the company, are looking to get quicker access to decision support. A common scenario I have seen in meeting clients is that top execs have gotten iPads. Business managers are looking for dashboard and reporting features in an easy to use app context. Business intelligence solutions will be increasingly adopted due to the spreading of iPads and app phones, and vice versa.
In conclusion, the app is a catalyst for both internal and external business development. Business value is found in opportunities in increased revenue and accelerated internal decision making.