Business Strategies for Technical Progress

The modern world is getting progressively mobile. The penetration of mobile devices in the market has been extremely rapid and overwhelming. Mobile technology influenced and changed the way people live, work and entertain, and have completely revolutionized the way companies conduct business. Nowadays many activities are carried out on the move- socializing, business, learning etc., because many business process can be extended to mobile ones, and nearly every activity can be turned into mobile application. Due to the widespread of mobile technology, people are always online, they can talk and hear regardless of the place where they are. Mobile communications are based on wireless solutions, transparent and cheap, and in the course of time it has a real potential to replace traditional computers (Deibert and Rothlauf, 2006).

Business strategies have evolved vastly together with the rapid technical progress of mobile technologies. The organizations are using mobile technology to function better and smarter. The swift development of mobile devices and integration of technological tools in the business operations have allowed new opportunities for improving the performance of a company, by making the processes simpler and more effective.

Mobile devices have become an internal part of our lives and made distance and location factors increasingly irrelevant. The impact of mobile technology on places of work and the business environment is visible. Business systems can take advantage of mobile technologies to improve their productivity and efficacy in many ways. It is now feasible for people to perform business operations from almost anywhere. The ability to access Internet through their phone allows the executives to gather real-time data that can help them with taking informed business decisions (Cellary and Iyengar, 2002). Furthermore, the recent developments of mobile technology have created a countless benefits for businesses and led to tremendous improvements in many business areas. Below are presented several examples of how mobile technology make a true impact on business communication.

Improved customer support

Mobile technologies are playing a vital role in improving customer-satisfaction and social impact in business. The ability to convey issues and feedback to employees about a product or a service at any time makes an important improvement to customer service. In addition, the increasing number of users using Internet on their smartphones for various services has led to the boom of social media apps, and consequently many businesses begun investing in making their social media platforms responsive to customers (Smith, 2016). In this way people can connect with the brands through online messaging options and get an instant response to their inquiries.

Better sales performance

One of the major tools for sales personnel is to know their customers. By using mobile phones, sales representatives can access the customer’s record and get up-to-date information about his essential needs and preferences, sales and inquiries prior to the meeting, and thus be prepared to offer him appropriate solutions. Furthermore, sales executives can track the inventory, obtain sales reports and status of orders in real-time, and inform the clients by email or phone in order to speed up the process and hence bring customer satisfaction (Mincey, 2016).

Enhanced collaboration

Smart mobile devices enable all employees to join regular meetings and colleagues to collaborate with each other from anywhere in the world via Internet. Whether it is a web conference, video call or online meeting, this mobile phone service allows the team members to contribute to the discussion and exchange viewpoints, which can prevent any delays in work and helps increasing the team motivation and productivity.

Optimized operations

With the evolution of mobile technology, business operations have been carried out simpler and quicker. For example, cloud computing allows employees to easily access important files from anywhere using mobile phones with Internet connection. They can also retrieve sales records and any other needed data from the databases, and thus provide accurate and quick service to the customers.

The Sage Mobile Device Survey, which was conducted in April-May 2014, examined 1,090 U.S. small and medium sized enterprises about the way mobile technologies impact both their business and society. Two organizations stood out with their approach of using innovative technology tools for achieving economic empowerment and generate value for society.

Good World Solutions organization implemented a mobile-based program called Labor Link that is helping business to acquire feedback from employees about the working conditions and also are providing them with information on health care and education. “Marks & Spencer” company have used the program to help for the improvement of financial literacy among Indian factory workers. They have distributed a simple survey through their mobile phones and thousands of workers took part in it. The results helped Marks & Spencer to generate information that allowed them to adapt its training according to the specific needs of the workers, and also have contributed by educating them to save, as the number of workers having bank accounts is reported to have increased with 33% after the first part of the survey.

Grameen Foundation is providing for organizations working to prevent poverty by supplying them with products and services that can increase their efficiency. TaroWorks is a product of theirs, a mobile enabled tool with a cloud-based back end. It is often used by workers on the field, who submit real-time information through a mobile phone. VisionSpring is another company that uses TaroWorks for the purpose of improved business operations and social assistance. The business is selling eyeglasses to poor people, in order to alleviate poverty by encouraging them to learn and work. In the past VisionSpring was not able to obtain information about its customers because it was expensive and complicated, but now with the use of TaroWorks and mobile phones the company is collecting vital information that will help adapting its products. (Adesnik, 2013)

In spite of the positive impact that mobile technology have on the success in business in our world, there are many companies which do not understand the benefit they would gain from adapting such technology in their business. A study released by business and accounting software provider Sage North America in 2014 have found that 77% of the companies do not intend to invest in mobile technology. The study revealed that only 5% of the businesses have planned a budget specifically for mobile devices, and also that the percentage in employers who provides their employees with a mobile phones have dropped with 14% since the last year (Angeles, 2014).

Mobile technology is enriching our lives. It is helping us to work on what is both good for business and good for the world.  It is making communication between people possible, anywhere in the world, for everyone with access to Internet. Mobile technology have great power and strong impact on businesses that are using mobile enabled tools and devices to collect information and use it to make informed decisions.

The fast progress of mobile technology does not seem to slow down, and if a business is striving for success, it should apply the mobile advancements in order to use them as an advantage.