How Small Companies Can Benefit From Mobile App Development India?

Juned Ghanchi
Product Coalition
Published in
6 min readMay 20, 2021

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Never before have we seen such an overwhelming boom of small business apps than what we are observing now. As the citadel of tech-driven small businesses and startups, India has already come to the forefront in turning mobile apps into its footprints. The Mobile app development India is now primarily engaged in shaping the mobile presence for small businesses and startups. When focusing on the Indian market, even the global tech giants prioritize the wants and preferences of small and medium enterprises across the niches.

As per the statistics published by AppAnnie, as of 2019, India stood globally in the 4th position among the countries with the highest concentration of Android users. There can hardly be any doubt that a considerable portion of these Android users and apps belong to small business apps. Other statistics confirm this. According to Cisco, 30% of the business it gets in India comes from SMEs. Big brands like Google, Microsoft and Amazon continue to focus on the Indian small enterprise market with unperturbed zeal. According to the latest data, more than 26 million small businesses in India have shaped their online presence by using various Google apps, including Gmail, Google Maps, Google Drive, etc.

What makes small enterprises in India consider mobile apps so crucial for their businesses? Well, the reasons are too many. Mobile apps, apart from allowing exceptional ease of operation, can help a business do growth hacking. From robust mobile branding to delivering customer service, mobile apps play a crucial role for small businesses in some ways.

Let us have a quick look at some of the key ways mobile apps can benefit small businesses.

Personalized Marketing

The vast majority of customers, around 70% of them, consider personalized user experience a key factor in engaging with brands. Smartphones are quintessentially personal devices, and hence mobile apps can play a significant role in personalizing customer communication to a great extent.

By utilizing a mobile app, even small enterprises across the niches enjoy the opportunity to drive customer engagement and create strong bonds. The Indian small business sector is more evident as mobile apps are helping the so-called brick-and-mortar stores compete with big brands with a personalized experience.

Small business mobile app development India focuses on certain features, and user experience attributes push this personalization drive. For example, the use of personalized push notifications helps small enterprises connect customers easily with the right message and at the right time.

The personalized user experience can be augmented by utilizing the users’ data and location data to unleash mobile promotions, roll out new features, and create a better user experience.

Lead generation and Business Conversion

Lead generation and steady business conversion happen to be the two most important benefits of mobile apps for small businesses. Many small businesses that have limited scope in interacting directly with customers find mobile apps and social media channels as an effective medium to generate business leads.

Hyperlocal and highly context-aware marketing of services and products through mobile apps can easily push lead generation and increase business conversion. In addition, thanks to the powerful location-sensing technologies used by today’s mobile apps and because of the scope of using data-driven insights, mobile apps can play a great role in engaging customers based on their location and the specific user context.

A retail business now can easily facilitate omnichannel targeting of customers with the mobile apps playing the central role in coordinating with different channels. For instance, a mobile app for a retail brand can sync the customer experience and buying process between the online store and the physical store. You scan a product while window shopping, get informed about the product through the mobile app and make the purchase order from mobile.

Helping with Operational Ease and Cost-Saving

Mobile apps can get things done in a whizz when communicating with customers, solving their issues and providing customers what they want. Operational efficiency is a key reason for many small businesses to embrace mobile apps.

Companies relying heavily on the field staff can benefit tremendously from mobile apps. From monitoring the field staff in real-time to collaborating on service-related issues, mobile apps in more than one way can ensure operational ease in companies depending on field service or field professionals.

Thanks to real-time collaboration and the capability to track employees and tasks through mobile apps, businesses can also make considerable cost savings for operational tasks. Real-time information tracking and smooth collaboration powered by cloud apps ensure saving time and resources for any company.

Taking on the Opportunities of On-demand Mobile Apps

With the overwhelming success of Uber as the on-demand cab service app, the business model has given birth to too many on-demand apps catering to different service requirements across all niches. So today, you have doorstep food delivery apps, an on-demand app for barbers and beauticians, apps for housemaid services and apps for almost everything that can cater to on-demand needs.

The best thing about on-demand apps is that you don’t need to start a completely new business catering to the demands of the customers registered through a mobile app. You can either just turn your good old website or the existing mobile app into an on-demand app to cater to more customers, or you can just register with an aggregator or marketplace app and allow customers to buy your services or products through that app.

When it comes to in-demand apps, the sky’s the limit for a small business to prosper. For example, suppose you are a local grocery shop with a limited clientele. In that case, you can just build your grocery delivery app and offer doorstep delivery services throughout the whole city and even beyond the city limits.

On-demand app development in India is on the rise, thanks to the overwhelming number of unique services and solutions these apps are providing. For example, an app offering tattoo and body graffiti artists services in every city area can just be availed by the people and artist professionals alike.

Enhancing Customer Loyalty

A mobile app, unlike a website, doesn’t get lost in the clamour and noise of the web. It stands out as a digital interface right on the mobile screen and keeps the brand visible all the time for the users. A customer accessing your brand through the website may not return again or quite often. But a customer using your app knows your brand more personal and is likely to interact with your brand quite often.

The mobile app can help retain users with more certainty than any other digital interface. The personalized push notifications, customer-centric value creation through loyalty programs and special offers can help boost customer footfall and brand loyalty. Mobile apps can be the right tool in the measures for customer loyalty enhancement.

Data-driven Decision Making

These days even small businesses understand the value of data and data-driven insights in the decision-making and strategy-building processes. This is where mobile apps play a very crucial role. Mobile apps help a business capture various customer data referring to locations, preferences, online user behavior, taste and choices and other factors. This huge pool of customer data can help a business make decisions affecting sales and business conversion positively.

From capturing the customer’s demographic data to knowing the exact location of the customers to understanding the actual context and situation of the customers, mobile apps can help a business with potential data inputs in numerous ways. For example, depending upon the time, season, urgency and other data, a customer can be approached at the right time that boosts the chances of more purchases.

Conclusion

Did we mention all the benefits that mobile apps offer to small businesses? Unfortunately, we likely missed quite a few. But these advantages at least portray how small companies and startups can take advantage of a level playing field shared by big brands of their niches.

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Juned Ahmed is an IT consultant by profession and is working with IndianAppDevelopers, a leading Android app development company.