2013 is truly the year of the mobile. Being mobile should not be an option for businesses considering that the average Londoner is checking their phone 150 times a day. Organizations need to look at their business strategy and decide how much time and budget mobile is going to get. Organizations should be thinking ‘mobile first’ across their whole organization.
The user journey of your website has changed and unless your organization has a strategy in place you will risk being left behind. Facebook themselves were guilty of this and nearly missed the boat. They now have all their code being written first for mobile. And even though they managed to pivot, albeit lately, the effects are still not being seen on Wall Street as yet.
We needn’t Facebook’s resources or money to accomplish our own pivot. Regardless of how mobile savvy you are, how mobile centric you are or where your point of conversion sits for your customers, the fact is that consumers are now mobile first and so you must be also.
It should no longer be a case of whether your website will also work on mobile, but whether your mobile strategy also applies to desktop.
The implications of being ‘mobile-first’ as a company extend way beyond having a mobile optimized site or a snazzy app that’s available across multiple devices. The way in which we use mobile means a change in the way we access and store information, communicate, work, socialize and research, and necessitates a change in the technology your business relies on.
This involves understanding the way in which your customers are using their phones and altering your service to reflect this. So it’s not about taking on your entire inventory from your store and making it available within an app, but rather how an app – based solution or mobile website is able to reach those customers and get them what they want more efficiently.