SOLUTIONS

Mobile Applications in Business

Record sales of intelligent phones and growing importance of tablets in our market force still more companies to be interested in using mobile devices for their benefit. Company managers see this trend and the intuition speaks to them to join it. They prepare meetings, publish declarations, all around we can hear metaphors on how do not miss the train and all the management starts thinking how to control this segment and how do profit from it. There are many options. In this article we describe more two of them: the first one concerns using tablets and mobile phones for business applications, and the second one speaks about applications that companies can offer to its clients.

What is the difference?
Firstly a little digression: if we want to speak about advanteges of using mobile devices, we have to say by what these devices are specific. There is a one main difference differing mobile phones and tablets from office computers – and the difference is connectivity.
Standard PC is able to make connection to LAN network and internet by a network cable; notebooks have in addition a wireless connection via Wi-Fi. That gives you some freedom compared to workstations, but a company wireless network usually works only in the company premises.

Contrary to that, mobile phone has got connection to 3G that works always and is available almost everywhere. That means that a relatively fast access to internet is enabled everywhere and always. In addition, it uses GPS and with its help the mobile phone knows its location. And finally, it has got GSM network enabling making calls and short messages.

And finally, besides the better connectivity there are also further advantages – touch-controlling, fit camera, compass, accelerometer, gyroscope, exterior lighting sensor and other types of sensors. User's experience that rewards the business success of intelligent phones completes all that mentioned.

A really good mobile application should use at least some of such interesting things.

Using mobile phones and tablets in company sphere
The first option we are going to describe is extension of company systems by mobile platform – e.g. applications for sales representatives. Sales representatives spend a significant part of their working time with clients. A regular day of the sales representative consists of hunting clients, showing samples, distributing booklets, managing meetings and preparing offers: doing those things is a long way from end of the day. At the end of the working time he usually has to update company records related to all the clients who he visited at that day, and that is very boring and not very popular activity.

Such a process setting has several disadvanteges. The first of them is a low error resistance: the sales representatives have to maintain changed client data aside all the day, on a special support mean (many times it is just a paper), in order to entry them into system in the evening. Another problem is the time delay – the changes are several hours delayed in the internal company database. These and others disadvantages are solved with elegance by a mobile application.

Tablet for sales representatives
Companies having a large number of sales representatives (that is typical for e.g. insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and financial credit providers) are big on optimization of work of such a staff. Mobile solution brings several advantages for them:

Shortening the time needed for planning a business day
Immediately update of client's records in the direction from as well as to the sales representative
Higher productivity because of lower error rate
Detailed control of employee's daily activity (with help of GPS)
Making terrain employee management more effective
Lower usage of office material (papers)

If GPS coordinates of each client are available, the system is able to show the sales representative data on the customer in relation to his position. So, no tedious slow searching – the mobile phone solves anything. If the sales representative makes his visit for the first time, the navigation prevents getting lost; and we save time. If the representative cannot manage to come on agreed time, the application offers to send a predefined SMS that will inform the client on delay.

If the mobile device is a tablet, that has a bigger display in comparison with a mobile phone, the sales representative can use it as well as a sales and marketing device: a special designed application presents the company solution by a modern way and in active participation of the customer. The customer is able to change e.g. parameters of the credit (sum, repayment frequency) with help of touch-screen display and he can immediately see his repayment amount.

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Mobile application for customers of the company
Providing customers with services in higher quality is motivation of each company. Applications for customers are going through a boom nowadays. Companies of diverse industries compete with one another for introducing their own solution as the first one: banks develop applications for consumption controlling, insurance companies conclude insurance policies with the help of mobile phones, transport companies offer navigation in town, radios bring interactive applications for reading and reporting traffic incidents, ZOOs enable their visitors to orient themselves in the area with the help of phones having GPS. Many companies have had analyses prepared – how to take an advantage of compass, or camera fit in customer's mobile phone, how to offer him a good service on which he is used to, and in even better design.

Such companies have only one thing in common: they have taken time by the forelock. Although branded mobile applications spring up like mushrooms, they are not still a standard, they are still something uncommon. Because of that the companies, which have caught the imaginary train, get better reputation points immediately. Such a situation reminds the time 15 years ago – do you remember? In that time www.pages instead of the mobile applications experienced the boom, but every other thing is the same.

However, the company business can only profit from the branded application for mobile phones and tablets. The company gains new customers and increases its turnover; marketing department finds a new distribution channel, and the clients have good feeling of using modern technologies. Not to be wrong about the feeling: that feeling is important, very important. There are many people who want to test your services only for that they can use their new “souped up” mobile phone by a new interesting thing.

Naturally, it is generally true, that modern technologies are not everything. If the company wants to keep its new customers, it is needed to provide them with an added value, give them some reason for using branded application. Simplification and speeding up the communication with bank, insurance company, operator, energetic company belong among the most common advantages.

The client appreciates every tool that makes his communication with service provider easier, and the mobile applications are just the easy-to-use things.It is not needed always to search for number of policies and the client has all the necessary alongs, and available “on a click and password”.

We are ready to help
Softec and its team of specialists for mobile technologies have realized several projects in various areas of this segement. Besides rich experience in the mobile software programming, we have been engaged in preparation of concepts of branded company applications. We have developed professional studies of applicability of web pages on mobile devices for several clients.

We are able to advise the clients on different technical matters – from selection of platform for extension of business agenda, through specification of details of data synchronization, to a suitable way of the application distribution.

We aim to keep eye on the world of tablets and intelligent phones, because we are excited by these technologies and because we enjoy it. In addition, according to this year's surveys two thirds of computers are mobile computers on a worldwide scale – and we cannot and don't want to ignore this fact.

	Author: Peter Polák works as a system architect and developer in Softec. His hobby is everything what concerns mobile applications, therefore he is glad he can apply his hobby in projects for customers. Besides the work in the field of IT he devotes himself to photography and he owns a professionally equipped photographic atelier.