Mobile application for my business

It serves to have a mobile application for my business?

This content is aimed at clients who own a medium or large company, dedicated to the commercialization of products or services.

Today we know that most users around the world, are using their Smartphone every day to surf the web, make purchases and connect with companies, being very tempting when thinking about having a mobile App of their own to offer customers and strengthen the business. But not all companies, products or services are really beneficial to have an App. In addition, not all customers are interested in filling your phone with unnecessary mobile applications. However, for those companies that have the opportunity to offer a mobile application, it will allow them to obtain some (or all) of the main advantages over this channel that are:

When to develop a mobile application?

Now, developing a mobile application can be expensive, according to the complexity of the project, the strategy and the need of the company. Therefore, the justification of investing in the development of a mobile application for different Smartphone devices and seeking to increase the profitability of your business depends on:

• Market size: If your products or services can be acquired by a large number of potential customers and a wide geographical area that can cover.
• Relationship product / service with the client: In this case there must be a need to relate the company with the customer through this channel, either, so that they can buy the products or acquire and manage services. For example: reservations of shifts.
• Recurrent customers: That their customers repeatedly request their products and services, since we will be making them download an application that will benefit them at the same time and on subsequent occasions providing convenience in the service. (It will not make sense, neither for your business nor for your client, to download an app that will be used only once)
• Marketing Campaigns: When you want to carry out a massive advertising campaign (for example with a game that demands use by a large audience of potential customers), a mobile app is an excellent tool.
• Strategy and opportunity: When there is a real demand and need in the market for your products and services, in which this new channel will help your business to conquer a larger market, provide a new sales channel and differentiate itself from its competitors.
• Communication and management: You can improve the service of communication and management of your services by transforming traditional methods to digital channels. This is intended to provide greater comfort to your customers and save time, labor, resources and money in your company.
  • If your company does not have any of the above needs, it will be useless to invest in a mobile application. Since the main strategy of an App is the daily or repeated benefit it will provide to its customers and your company. Once you have well defined the above points, you proceed to define what type of development meets the needs and strategy of your business model.

  To meet the above objectives, we have 2 types of mobile applications that can be developed.

Native applications / hybrid

The “Native” Applications are named like that because they are exclusive developments under technology used and housed in the operating system of the Smartphone: Android – IOS (Apple) – WindowsPhone – BlackBerry. They are more complex developments, since they use all the tools provided by the cellular operating system, from geolocation to push notifications. Being hosted in the system itself, allows it to operate at a more agile level, without the need for internet (according to what content and information shows) and with design features and functionalities adapted to the type and model of cell to which it is installed.

Although they are downloadable applications from the OS store on any Smartphone, it has a less complex and lower cost development, since it uses the functionalities of the website as a basis. It is played by browser of the cellular device and uses limited resources of the operating system of the Smartphone. It needs the internet to work, since most of the data, contents and functionalities are not housed in the device but are consulted from the server where the web page is hosted.

The main differences between these two types of applications are the cost of development and limitations in functionalities, navigation agility and design.

When to develop a hybrid application?

If the company already has or is creating a responsive web page (adapted to mobile devices) when you do not want to allocate a high budget and be able to reach all your customers’ smartphones and the need for functionalities is not complex, this is an ideal tool, low cost but with its limitations.

To take into account, many companies, startups and startups first resort to this type of development to test, validate market and customers before investing a large budget to develop a native app that still does not know what answer will generate a business mode and profitability.

When to develop a native application?

When there is a budget to allocate in the development investment, when you have well studied the opportunities and market demand, the profits and the return of investment that will occur when selling and promoting through this new channel. And when it is intended to provide a good service and experience to the user. All this will lead to substantially improve the image of the company and the competitive position with other companies in the sector.