The Role of Mobile Apps in Digital Transformation + Success Stories

An increasing number of companies are busy formulating their digital transformation strategies today. One survey found that 70% of organizations already have a digital transformation strategy in place or are working on one at the moment. Are they aware of the role of mobile apps in digital transformation?

Have a look around the web, and you’ll find plenty of educational materials about a digital transformation like frameworks, roadmaps, and solutions to challenges. Leaders should know many things before embarking on a digital transformation journey.

But what about the specific technologies and their role in accelerating digital transformation success? 

At Droids On Roids, we specialize in mobile app development, and we’ve seen what kind of impact a well-designed mobile app can have on the company’s digital pathway.

Read this article to find out how mobile applications help companies to speed up their digital transformation and deliver an excellent experience to both employees and customers.

Skip to a section:

1. But first, what is digital transformation all about?
2. Benefits of digital transformation
3. The role of mobile apps in digital transformation
4. Benefits of enterprise mobility
5. Enterprise mobility – success stories
6. Conclusion

1. But first, what is digital transformation all about?

Leaders sometimes make the mistake and think that digital transformation refers to the simple process of increasing the use of technology in a company. More technology will naturally translate into improved experiences of employees, customers, and other stakeholders.

But sprinkling different technologies across your departments isn’t digital transformation at all. In fact, digital transformation is something that occurs beyond technology innovation.

We believe that digital transformation is a broader cultural change that helps organizations embrace a new culture that encourages challenging the status quo, experimenting, and learning from failure. 

It’s not only about integrating digital solutions into different areas of your business. Digital transformation fundamentally changes how you operate and deliver value to customers. That’s how it helps companies to create new business models, rethink their leadership style, and create products that gain a competitive edge.

• Go deeper into digital transformation definition & its meaning for businesses.

2. Benefits of digital transformation

There are many reasons why it’s a good idea to start thinking about digital transformation right now:

• Research shows organizations that are digitally mature are 23% more profitable than their competitors who failed to invest in digital transformation.
• One survey showed that the most important values digital transformation brings are the improvements in operational efficiencies 40%, faster time to market 36%, and gaining the ability to meet customer expectations 35%.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Here are some other critical benefits of digital transformation:

• It helps to enhance business processes by automating manual tasks. Digital solutions free employees to dedicate their time to mission-critical tasks that machines can’t do (for example, being creative or advising clients).
• It significantly improves the customer experience. Integrated software solutions can create an omnichannel support experience to help customers access your services in the most convenient way.
• It enables data-driven decision-making. Using software solutions to automate processes brings greater visibility into the organization. Such tools collect data in real-time, helping leaders recognize patterns and identify opportunities for meds.
• It brings greater flexibility and agility. Innovative software tools can be easily integrated to create one space that serves different business functions or departments. That way, you avoid the serious mistake of siloing your data by department. This is how organizations can become more agile and responsive to evolving customer needs.
• It ensures greater security. A company that is experiencing rapid growth may find it difficult to rely on its legacy systems, processes, and technologies. Moreover, such systems are prone to failure and may be most susceptible to cyberthreats. By switching to modern software systems, companies can better maintain and protect their data. Today consumers are more aware of data security issues than ever, so this is the best strategy to win their trust and loyalty.

Read more: Digital Transformation Benefits and Challenges for Businesses

3. The role of mobile apps in digital transformation

The rise of mobile devices and mobile internet has changed the face of many sectors as we knew them. Mobile brought about entirely new audiences, services, products, and industries. We can safely say that since 2017, mobile has served as a baseline platform for all digital experiences in which global brands have been investing.

In short:

What happens on the mobile scene sets the standards for what happens in other digital areas when it comes to shaping customer expectations. 

There’s no denying that organizations looking to provide the best possible customer experience need to take advantage of mobile platforms today. This is what customers expect today.

Digital transformation initiatives have a massive impact on customers, but also on company employees.

So, what happens when mobile applications enter an organization? This phenomenon is called enterprise mobility. 

Enterprise mobility allows employees to connect into the core processes and tasks even when they’re not sitting at their desks. Enterprise software that can be accessed with the help of mobile devices improves the employee experience and increases team productivity. That’s why an enterprise mobility strategy is a critical component of digital transformation. The role of mobile apps in digital transformation is extremely important.

4. Benefits of enterprise mobility

We all know how customers benefit from mobile apps – for example, in the context of mobile e-commerce. But what about entire organizations? What kind of advantages mobility brings to companies looking to launch their digital transformation program?

Take a look at the research on enterprise mobility:

• According to Strategy Analytics, the enterprise mobility market will grow to reach $2.2 billion by 2022.
• 67% of CIOs and IT experts think that enterprise mobility has a massive impact on their business.
• Companies that invest in feature-rich enterprise mobile apps see 35% of business ROI.

Here are a few good reasons why so many organizations are investing in mobile apps as part of their digital transformation journey:

Productivity and efficiency

Offering employees access to enterprise applications on the go is a smart move. Apps make workers more productive by allowing them to complete tasks and keep an eye on business processes from mobile devices. People don’t need to sit at their desks to get their job done. Investment in such systems also opens the door to introducing flexible schedules and remote working options, which are attractive to younger professionals.

Transparency

Thanks to mobile apps, users can access and share content on the go, at any time and from anywhere. As a result, employees can take advantage of real-time updates to make their decisions more relevant. This type of collaboration also increases the level of transparency involved in teamwork. Mobile apps can track the tasks completed by team members or even show their real-time location – for example, in-vehicle tracking solutions. By implementing a custom mobile application, enterprises gain a central dashboard that allows controlling users, systems, and approvals. These processes and workflows are fully digital.

Workflow optimization

Mobile software systems enable team leaders to formalize workflows and analyze the team’s performance with future optimizations in mind. Such tools can be combined with various project management methodologies such as agile or the Scrum framework. Since mobile apps can be equipped with powerful analytics features, it’s easy to identify process bottlenecks or potential roadblocks.

Organizations that fail to support mobility through investing in custom mobile app development (Android app development or iOS app development), will pay a steep price for their mistake. Such companies will have a harder time in digitally transforming their operations. For example, organizations with less enterprise mobility suffer from a lower quality of asset data or increased costs of maintaining assets.

4. Enterprise mobility – here’s how to get started

Here are three tips to help you build a mobile application that drives your company forward in your digital transformation journey.

• Adopt a mobile-first approach to design and delivery – early adopters of enterprise mobility strategies have adopted this approach with great success. That’s why it pays to think about the design and delivery in terms of “mobile-first” or even “mobile-only.” Note that “mobile only” doesn’t mean that you’ll be designing tools for just one channel. Rather, it means that mobile will serve as your primary design parameter.
• Identify areas for mobility – the next step is analyzing all your workflows and operations to understand which department, teams, or functions will benefit from mobility most. You don’t want to start reinventing a process that works just alright. Instead, focus on areas where mobility could help to streamline processes, automate tasks, and bring value through on-the-go accessibility.

 

Digital transformation is a work in progress. It has its starting point, but I believe it has no end. When you think about all of the steps and changes required to make the process smooth, it might become overwhelming and cool down your enthusiasm.
Be sure to have a firm strategy and plan to start small. Listen to the data and improve the process. It will take time, and it has to. At the end of the day, if you look at the stats you’ll see that it was well worth it.

If you want to learn more about the mobile app development process, read this: How to build a mobile app – step by step guide for businesses.

5. Enterprise mobility – success stories

Walgreens

The US-based pharmacy chain Walgreens is more than 100 years old, but its recent digital investment made as cutting edge as possible. Walgreens offers its customers a mobile app that provides outstanding user experience and helps to make purchases more efficiently.

For example, users can refill prescriptions by scanning a barcode, set reminders to manage medications, or even arrange a live video chat with a doctor. The app also allows checking the availability of products in the nearest stores, which is a common mobile e-commerce feature.

Learn more: Top 24 E-Commerce Mobile App Features 

Domino’s

In 2008, the pizza company experienced its share price, hitting an all-time low. That’s why Domino’s had to rethink their entire business model. To do that, the company invested in digital transformation initiatives. Among them was the development of a mobile commerce application. Domino’s customers can use the app to order pizza easily, and then track their order from the moment it’s placed until it’s delivered or ready to be collected.

Domino’s digital-first strategy helped the brand to reach new audiences and outperform its nearest competitors, Pizza Hut and Papa John’s. The company is constantly revamping its offerings. Today, customers can order pizza using their smartwatches, Facebook Messenger application, and virtual assistants Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa.

Nike Fit

According to the sports footwear company Nike, 60% of people wear the wrong size shoe. Nike decided to address this problem by releasing a special mobile app as part of the company’s outstanding digital marketing initiatives. Users can scan their feet using their smartphone cameras and find a perfect fit. The app creates a practice scan that collects 13 data points and builds a map of both feet. The combination of machine learning, computer vision, and recommendation algorithms created a winning recipe.

The app provides its users with personalized and targeted suggestions for the ideal shoe. Nike is planning to improve the design of future products by using the data gathered in the process.

Conclusion

Mobile applications play a critical role in digital transformation programs rolled out by companies across practically every industry. Customers now expect mobile experiences from brands, and employees happily embrace mobile solutions because they make their lives easier too.

Investing in a mobile app will help your business accelerate its digital transformation and gain a real competitive advantage.

Are you looking for a mobile development team to help kick-off your digital transformation mobile app development? Reach out to us. Our experts have delivered many applications that improved business processes and delivered value to customers.

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