The Decisive Role of Mobile in Digital Transformation
Digital transformation has been the primary agenda of companies both big and small across the global business landscape. While most companies diversify their product portfolios, step into new markets, or acquire new components to add to their value chain, these initiatives are not transformative.
However, with digital-first being the future, not adopting the measures to transform at the right time could even threaten their very existence.
A full-scale change in foundational components leading to modification of every aspect of the business, in its essence, is the path towards digital transformation. This is what the enterprises have to achieve if they are keen to build the competitive advantage to secure market supremacy. Also, they have to do it much faster than the competition as only the businesses with digitally-agile capabilities would be in best place to grab it.
The demand for superior offering through innovative technology to beat the digitally evolving competition is the primary driver of transformation. This can be achieved when businesses start targeting the various customer engagement touch points through which they can deliver the products and services that augment the value chain. Going by the trend, this simply means businesses have to shift their focus on mobile, as it is the vanguard of enhanced digital experience that companies are competing to provide to their customers.
While businesses can look to build interactive user experience through various other options such as website and CRM, ignoring mobile may not be a fruitful strategy in the long term. This is evident through the ample statistics that convey the rapid growing obsession for mobile devices. People from all walks of life, irrespective of the geographic, cultural and social diversity, are embracing mobile like never before.
Hence, it makes sense for enterprises looking to tap into this massive, yet evolving market, to recalibrate their digital transformation initiatives around futuristic mobile needs of the mobile-driven consumerism. Here are some of the checkpoints that capture the vital role of mobile in digital transformation.
1. Impact on customers
Most of the users have already moved online. This has already changed the way we shop, as the buying cycle starts with an online research about the product they are planning to purchase. Smartphones or tablets have already become the preferred devices to browse the internet, it is highly possible that they would initiate the search through their mobile devices than a computer or laptop.
This directly puts the e-commerce businesses with no mobile platform in a spot of bother, as they might not be able to cater to the needs of such mobile shoppers. Businesses offering viable mobile apps to help both the prospects and customers to connect directly and instantly with their brands would be able to provide a superior experience.
Integrating social media networking channels with the mobile apps would further allow the consumers interact freely with the enterprise, paying the way for increased brand loyalty.
2. Impact on employees
Employees working on mission critical projects can have much better collaboration with their team members, which in turn can boost productivity. In the case of sales personnel, being able to access the latest information about the prospects while on the move and before meeting them, can improve their conversion chances and add a sense of professionalism to their fieldwork.
Companies can even initiate the digital-first culture with the way the employees interact with the management through self-service apps. Helping the staff to process some routine tasks right from their mobile could also save the organizations on upfront IT infrastructure expenses.
3. Impact on organization
Mobile devices provide a huge scope for enterprises to become much more agile in terms of their day-to-day operations. Organizations developing their digitalization initiatives around mobile can also cut huge overhead costs, as it is evident from the increasing affordability of mobile devices.
By allowing their employees to work from virtually any corner of the globe through their smartphones, organizations can reduce the need of constant traveling for frequent boardroom meetings, helping the enterprise to cut down on traveling expenses. Being able to share and access information and files by employees augurs for better synchronization of technology.
This can give the necessary motivation for organizational leaders to move towards better platforms, minimizing the information silos and increasing the data transparency. It could also improve the synergy among various departments, making the overall business process much more seamless, effective and agile.
As the Role of mobile technology looks decisive in achieving comprehensive digital transformation, enterprise leaders should also understand the broader perspective that is about providing the much-needed freedom that underpins the relationship of the company with its customer, employees, and other stakeholders.
Allowing both the customers to communicate and make decisions on their own and from the device they are quite comfortable with, can improve their overall experience. This can go a long way in helping organizations fathom the depth of digitization much more effectively while working towards creating a truly value added enterprise.