Mobile application development has in recent times been the of the development industry. Fortunately, the growth rate in developing applications in different sectors such as business is relatively high. The trend spreads further, and in recent times, B2B businesses are already in the mix to ensure the successful development of their related mobile applications. Even though the development of such an application existed during the past, the applications majored everything on the customer. More importantly, they focused on a dedicated and targeted customer audience. In 2018, the trend took a market turn, and most businesses began to realize the need for mobile applications to simplify almost everything related to the business sector. With mobile applications, most companies can organize virtually any kind of operation, business partnerships, introducing new services in businesses, and much more.
Currently, the state of business-to-business application development is at a different level. With the introduction of business development to mobile business applications, most businesses began to gain traction, providing more productivity and profits in industries. Statistically, B2B buyers have a 75% greater preference in making purchases on their own rather than considering a salesperson and, therefore, the quickest solution that can replace the salesperson. Before we delve into the actual development of a better and successful B2B mobile application, let’s first establish the factors responsible for the rapid growth and popularity of B2B mobile applications.
Factors for rapid growth and popularity of B2B mobile applications
The general popularity of mobile devices
A good percentage of the world’s population now understands mobile phone usage since it is widespread. Therefore, almost everyone uses the mobile phone to undertake prime operations, especially those revolving around lifestyle. With the increased mobile device usage, people now desire to use mobile phones to perform most daily functions. Therefore, with the massive usage of these devices, B2B has gained more significant ground on relying on mobile applications to advance and enhanceB2B business services. With a more substantial percentage of mobile users being the younger generation, B2B mobile applications integrate with the benefits most loved by the most significant population.
Additionally, statistics depict that a more significant percentage of B2B queries made in the recent previous years rely on mobile devices. In the past, the inferiority of B2B to B2C was large scale regarding the number of users. However, with the increased mobile phone usage through applications, B2B seemed to gain ground, with most mobile phone users developing a more significant concern for B2B services. As technology grows daily, we anticipate more advanced usage of mobile devices and thus an advanced use of B2B applications.
The increased desire for process optimization
Among businesses, competition is stiffer than before, and therefore, the competitor who is fast in doing any given job wins a lot. Thus, the need for process optimizations came with it the realization of the handiness of mobile software. For instance, mobile software can always prove essential by providing consistency in communication, mobile business operations, and access to business documents at any time and place in the world. All these possible services have a more significant role in improving B2B services and managing the competitions properly. Among the many goals of optimization of services is to make most of the services easier to use. Supporting services optimization is always a key principle that will help reduce most of the costs spent in robust developments. It also boasts a set of rules crucial in making the development of any mobile application easier.
The need for the collection of real-time data
With the increased need for successful data-driven approaches, there is a high need for real-time data collection. Therefore, with the integration of mobile applications into the business sector, every business person needs to use such applications to organize business data and process it to gather essential information helpful for the entire business. It is through this that most companies incorporate mobile applications into their internal systems.
Types of B2B apps
B2B applications fall into different categories depending on their goals and duties undertaken by each application. Therefore, any software developer can consider creating the following common types of B2B applications.
Commerce B2B applications
The applications specifically serve to sell business products to customers, and the customers should only be other businesses. With the vast increase in technology and the creation of these applications, most companies have found an easier way to sell products to other companies. Therefore, there is a greater need to understand that B2B applications are permanently moving to provide the companies with the same level of services. The implementation of same-level services in these applications occurs through product listings, push notifications, checkouts and payments, category trees, and much more.
External management B2B applications
Another crucial B2B application type is the external management software. The software is vital for vendor coordination, supply chain management, and the provision of a reliable communication path between different business parties. Among the tools underlying external management software is online conferencing applications and CRMs.
Internal operations
There are also B2B mobile applications that serve the role of internal operations. Such applications are resourceful in helping businesses manage their internal activities to make communication within departmental organizations in the industry more manageable. Within internal processes, companies can use a range of tools, including financial management tools.
Having understood the types of B2B applications any developer can consider, it is now time to develop them successfully. At what instance do we call it a success upon building a B2B mobile application? Are you craving more? Let us delve into the process of building a successful mobile B2B app.
How to develop a successful B2B mobile application
Developing any application calls for a proper understanding of what the application destines to do. With B2B mobile apps, there is no significant difference. Therefore, the following are crucial in developing successful B2B mobile applications.
B2C experience
Most customers have a great desire for a great user experience in B2B applications. Therefore, to succeed in developing B2B applications, the developers have to redirect more emphasis and effort to user experience and a proper visual design. As such applications need an exemplary user interface and experience, the current statistics depict that most users have found a shortfall with the user experience in typical B2B mobile apps. Therefore, building such an application calls for standing from the rest and focusing on the user experience and user interface design of the B2B application. More importantly, you mustn’t miss out on the business analysis stage to ensure that building such apps has most of the essential features incorporated. The developer of the B2B application should provide to utilize the mobile phone’s capabilities exhaustively.
Instant support
A successful B2B application should always have the provision of instant support. A simple failure of business software or application could cost businesses customers as well as financial losses. Therefore, any developer of such applications should always work because the application under development should support failure at the soonest time possible. Achieving the same requires the user to develop a reliable admin panel with a good mastery of bringing in a dedicated support team in case of failures. A better approach to handling the same is the development of chatbots that provide instant feedback to the customers or end-users. Therefore, these business applications must revolve around the automation of support. The automation services provided are generic, while the rest of the complexities are for the live support teams.
Real-time interactions
Most business-to-business services require that provision of information is fast and in real-time. Therefore, any successful B2B application can update business information in real-time. Consequently, it means that a change occurring on a mobile application should also immediately reflect on the corresponding web when updated. It is always possible if the applications rely on a shared database. All a developer needs to develop a robust application running under this requirement is a fast and powerful database, for instance, MongoDB.
Conclusion
With the increased provision of B2B services through mobile applications, it is essential to realize the need for creating business applications that operate successfully without generating any interferences to the user. Therefore, development agencies of such applications should always focus on providing a great user experience while utilizing the mobile potentials exhaustively. A good take by developers should always be using the B2C approach of development on user experience matters.
Finding first-time users can be a significant challenge in most B2B applications. The only trick is to incorporate traction so as the users can massively use such applications. Once creating a successful business application is okay, such businesses can always expect more orders and revenue. It is also essential to set focus on how to make users stay and become frequent customers. Among the crucial things you should consider are reliability, good architecture, and security of the application. More importantly, it is essential to focus on the possible trends in advancing the user experience. Instant handling of business issues within the application should be on the spot.
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Also check: best b2b ecommerce platforms | Importance of b2b ecommerce
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Written by:
Muzammil K
Muzammil K is the Marketing Manager at Aalpha Information Systems, where he leads marketing efforts to drive business growth. With a passion for marketing strategy and a commitment to results, he's dedicated to helping the company succeed in the ever-changing digital landscape.
Muzammil K is the Marketing Manager at Aalpha Information Systems, where he leads marketing efforts to drive business growth. With a passion for marketing strategy and a commitment to results, he's dedicated to helping the company succeed in the ever-changing digital landscape.