From the way we communicate and learn to the way we do business, we must accept that life on this planet is becoming increasingly mobile. This has led to some major shifts in some long-established industries, as well as creation of new industries or areas of opportunity around.
Given this, it is not surprising that more and more companies across the globe, from small local businesses to major enterprise organizations, are actively adopting a comprehensive, mobile-first strategy to meet the upcoming challenges. But what does this mean for your own business? How can you turn it to your advantage? To answer these questions, let’s find out the benefits and best practices for building a mobile-first business.
The term Mobile First was introduced by Luke Wroblewski in 2009 and was used to denote a design approach where you start with the smallest screen resolutions, designing mobile experiences first, and work your way up to complement larger screens. In short, this concept offered a new approach about design. Instead of building a full-fledged product to later find out that half of its capabilities cannot be implemented on mobile, you focus on what’s important initially and add more elements and features if needed later.
Whatever, nowadays mobile first is no longer just a design principle and there are many reasons to make sure your business is truly mobile first. Besides that by 2019, the number of mobile users is expected to exceed 5 billion, already this year is expected that the 75% of internet use come from mobile devices.
One of the main ones is the additional competitive edge: is expected that m-Commerce to reach around 45 percent of the total US e-Commerce market by 2020. However, today only 15 percent of US merchants currently have a mobile shopping channel. This strongly suggests that mobile adoption might be a winning strategy for the ones who adopt it.
Moreover, mobile technologies can help you increase customer reach, open new markets with untapped potential and reduce the distance to your customers. Think about it this way: whether physical goods or services, it is much easier to use a mobile website or app to reach out to your potential customers, than creating an store. In fact, you can be in touch with your customers almost 24/7, driving their engagement and increasing your profits. Besides, mobile capabilities are crucial for establishing an omnichannel customer experience.
But this is not all. A Mobile First Strategy also means new revenue channels, an unmatched data source, and an overcoming approach in terms of UX. With so many advantages, a mobile-first approach seems to be an indispensable business strategy. To maximize the benefits of adopting this strategy, apply these five simple principles.
Always start from within
Before you focus on a customer-facing mobile innovation initiatives, confirm that your internal business processes are in line with your strategy. If your company has a strong enterprise mobility strategy, you are more likely to win at customer-facing mobile experiences as well.
Optimize existing products for mobile users
If you already have any customer-facing products, make certain they are updated and provide a decent user experience on mobile devices. Any web-based product needs to be responsive by default to be able to cater to the mobile audience, regardless of the device or screen resolution they use.
Embrace agile methodologies
Mobile and agile software development methodologies go hand in hand. A software development approach allows you to focus on one thing at a time. By scaling your product concept down to an MVP you prioritize what’s most important, keeping the development timeframe and investment reasonable.
Invest in new mobile products
If you have an established business, maybe you didn’t start as a mobile-first company, but by expanding your portfolio with more customer-facing mobile products, you increase your likelihood of success. The more facets of your business digitized, the better. By introducing new products from time to time, you keep the existing customers engaged and grow your customer base.
Leverage customer data
Data analytics and machine learning solutions are driving innovations in many business components. Depending on the industry you operate in, you can use it to personalize your customer experience and provide tailored content suggestions, or simply offer an easier, faster, or cheaper way to solve customer problems.
Now well, is good to know that while mobile first is revolutionizing almost every industry and business domain (even the ones that seemed the most resistant to innovation), having a mobile app is no longer enough. A modern and competitive company must incorporate the mobile-first viewpoint across all features of your business. Questions? Comments? Feel free to contact us.
About Emiliano
Emiliano is a Software Engineer with more than 7 years of experience developing Web and Mobile applications for some of the most important Fortune 500 companies
Nowadays Emiliano specializes as Engineer on the Mobile department of TISA, looking for implementing the latest technologies and frameworks to be used in future projects.
Beyond his technical knowledge and passion for the technology Emiliano enjoys playing Volleyball, Swimming and going to the Gym, he also like reading books and playing online video games.
