When a lot of businesses think about getting their own mobile apps made, they often consider this as a means of customer engagement. Apps can be very effective marketing tools, and can also allow your customers access to your services on-the- go, so it makes a lot of sense to consider them for these purposes. However, what many businesses don’t tend to think about is whether internal mobile apps to be used by their teams could boost productivity and streamline processes. Here, we take a look at why mobile apps, bespoke to your own business, can make your company run more efficiently:
It Leverages Your Investment in Mobile Hardware
One of the biggest technology trends in 2014 has been the rise in mobile usage by small businesses. Mobile technology allows your team to work in all kinds of situations, and so it makes sense that you might invest in a fleet of iPhones or Android devices so that your team all have access to these benefits, and you can manage it properly rather than having everybody running their own different devices. If you have invested in tablets or smartphones for your people, then it makes sense to have them use them as much, and as effectively as possible. Allowing them to do more than just send email on the go or access the web by giving them apps that support your internal processes, for example for CRM, HR and other key services, means that you will be giving them a true working platform with their mobile phone or tablet, rather than simply a portable way to go online.
True Efficiency Through Internal Business Apps
If one of your sales people is at a conference, and he or she starts networking and picking up new potential leads, how do the details of these leads make it back to your internal database? They could take a note of them, and enter them later when they are on their computer. They could email an administrator back at the office with them and ask for them to be entered. Wouldn’t it be better, however, if they had an app that let them take them straight from their new contact’s mouths and into your CRM system? That is the kind of thing internal business apps enable for companies – a very fast and efficient way to do things you do all of the time. For promotional work or market research, you can equip the people you send out with a way of logging the details and answers of the people they meet slickly and instantly on a tablet. There are a wealth of ways this is efficient compared with using a laptop and general office software. This doesn’t mean normal software can be replaced, but that it can be hooked into in new ways by remote users through easy, touch screen interfaces.
If you are looking at an app development strategy for your business, it is definitely worth thinking about the apps your own staff might use to become more productive, rather than just client-facing mobile apps.