Building a mobile app has been an increasingly popular option for many business in recent years. There are many reasons why businesses want and need a mobile app.
A mobile app can increase engagement and loyalty with your customers.
– access to discounts, loyalty or rewards programs
– instant feedback or extended support
– event information
A mobile app can increase productivity within your organization by surfacing the right data to your employees.
– location-aware incident tracking
– plant-wide communication and reporting
– spot auditing and traceability lookups
A mobile app can increase access to support for your vendors and distributors.
– Access to support documentation
– Access to parts lists and replacement parts
– Product catalog access and display.
As you can see a mobile app can be utilized by many different companies in many different ways. Which of these options apply to your business? Is there more than one scenario that applies?
Scenario 77 has built many mobile apps, large and small, for businesses however we’ve talked more clients *out of building mobile apps*. You read that correctly and the main reason we’ve done that is that after understanding our client’s problem we found a better, often more cost-effective, way of achieving the same goal.
Is a mobile app the correct solution?
So how do you determine if a mobile app is necessary or if there are better alternatives? Without knowing the specifics of the mobile app you want developed this can be a little tough however here a some quick questions to ask yourself.
– Do you need to be able to take advantage of something unique to a mobile device? For example, is GPS location or the ability to take a picture or video a critical component?
– Do you really need the mobility of a phone or tablet? Are users really going to be walking around while actively utilizing your app?
– How much information are you wanting to present? Will this information, in practice, make sense on a phone screen that’s at most 6.5 inches by 4 inches or for tablets maybe 13 inches wide before becoming impractical to carry?
If you can’t answer yes to at least one, if not more, of these questions; it’s going to be hard to imagine a mobile solution is going to be practical. Of course, all situations are different and sometimes there may be more than one way to accomplish the same goal and a mobile solution is simply the preferred method. There’s nothing wrong with that.
So what’s next?
You’ve clearly identified a problem that you, at least initially, believe could be solved by a mobile app. We’ve helped a lot of clients solve these issues. We always start with a no-cost Discovery meeting with you and your organization to understand your goals, your requirements and the expected results. We’ll generate our recommendations and create a custom quote that meets your needs. We then hope to move forward with our partnership. Call us at 260-310-2291.
