Mobile technology has infiltrated every part of modern living, enabling us to pay our bills, keep in touch with friends, and enjoy the latest entertainment. Much like desktop computers in the 1980s and 1990s, mobile devices have revolutionized work and play, creating new mediums and interactions. For innovative and engaged businesses, the popularity of mobile technology has offered an opportunity to maintain lines of communication with customers and employees regardless of industry.
According to research firm Forrester, global smartphone adoption is expected to reach 85% by 2020, as mobile devices become more widely available. Much of this adoption is driven by the popularity of mobile applications, which saw a 58% increase in usage during 2015 according to mobile insights company Flurry. Furthermore, mobile applications are incredibly popular regardless of the user’s age. Media research firm Nielsen estimates that users spend between 36 and 40 hours per month on their smartphone applications.
Catalysts for Digital Transformation
The ongoing mobile revolution represents a unique opportunity for organizations looking to stay engaged with their customers, more of who are on the go and accessing information through their devices. Savvy leaders especially understand that the emergence of mobile has transformed customer expectations for communication, product delivery, and customer service. To accommodate these tastes, mobile experiences must be created that integrate with already-existing architectures on all available operating system platforms.
Though a tall task, simply developing applications and integrating within the organizational experience is not enough. In charting the development roadmap, some consideration should also be placed on developing with application programming interfaces, or APIs, which Perficient has successfully done for clients across industries. APIs provide additional connectivity for mobile users, extending the features of the platform which can include capabilities such as credit card payment gateways, social media logins, and automation.
Finally, mobile digital transformation impacts internal organizations as well, changing the way management communicates with employees and employee collaboration. Many collaboration technologies in the last few years have built their platforms in mobile applications as well, offering employees the opportunity to work flexibly.
To learn more about implementing a mobile strategy to drive digital transformation, download the third guide in our digital transformation series, Building a Mobile Foundation to Drive Digital Transformation. Be sure to check out our other complimentary digital transformation resources here.
With respect to mobile applications, it has been said that within a few years, this technology will be phased out in similar manner to how software, to which was once dedicated to being downloaded and ran from centralized PC’s, is now run on cloud based solutions, thus relinquishing the need for dedicated downloads.
As mobile internet and download speeds continues to increase, do you foresee the need to dedicated mobile applications and or do you feel this will start transitioning into mobile web based apps running on cloud based solutions?
@Jason – I believe it will be mobile-based apps running on cloud solutions. Retail app stores (and by extension enterprise applications) already are supported by the cloud, and so I believe the model will be consistent throughout.