The Business Impact of Mobile Apps
This is the era where “there’s an app for that” doesn’t come as a surprise anymore. The rise of the smartphone has taken over, flip-phones are a distant memory, and phones without touch screen dwindle in numbers. Mobile apps are available for just about anything. There are apps for movie theaters, restaurants, airports, hardware stores, hair salons, if you can think of an industry chances are they have an app.
Photo by Rahul Chakraborty on Unsplash
Businesses have started to realize the potential of having an app and have began to capitalize on the app’s user-friendly nature and easy-to-organize features. Popular business apps have to do with management, travel planning, organization, and remote document access, just to name a few. So let’s talk statistics…
According to a survey by the SBE Council:
- 78% percent of small business owners believe that mobile apps save small business owners time and almost half agree that their sales and revenue has increased because of mobile app use
- They estimate that 291 owner hours are saved per year per small business by using mobile apps
- 372.8 million owner hours are saved annually for small businesses throughout the economy using mobile apps
- Based on their estimates, if all employer firms with fewer than 20 workers were to take advantage of mobile apps, an estimated 1.2 billion owner hours could be saved annually
- With small businesses reporting that on average frms saved 11.33 employee hours per week, that means that 589 employee hours are saved per year per small business
- 725.3 million employee hours are saved annually for small business throughout the economy
Photo by Roberto Cortese on Unsplas
Still not impressed?
According to this ShoutEm article:
- An app can strengthen relationships and retain your clients
- An app can make shopping easier and attract new customers
- An app can be used to push deals to shoppers and reward their loyalty
- Shopping on an app is an extra retail outlet
Based on the research and statistics I found, it appears that your business can dramatically be improved with the right uses of mobile apps tailored to your company’s specific needs. For example, apps are great for tracking data and reaching a diverse market. Whether it’s organizing your daily tasks, or providing your service to the public with your own company app, the limits to what you can do with a mobile app are still being discovered. Do you think every business should have their own mobile app?
Resources: This survey published by the SBE Council, this article about 4 ways to improve your sales through mobile apps
