Mobile applications are a competitive requirement.

Over the last several weeks, I have offered my thinking on the current state of competition in the global marketplace today - and we are all a part of that marketplace - and the role that digital transformation plays in our competitiveness. For more background, in June, I published my take on Competing in the digital marketplace and in April I first wrote about why mobile applications matter.

This week, I am going to offer my thinking on how you can assess if competing in a digital marketplace and using mobile applications to do it makes sense for you and your business.

If you are following my blog posts or any of the contend I provide on LinkedIn, some of what I am about to say will not be a surprise to you. For others, it may be the first time you hear these facts in one place - if you are new here, welcome! All of the facts cited below are from well known research organizations - they are cited on my LinkedIn posts if you are interested you can find them on our company page 8PennyLabs.

Regarding digital transformation generally, 67% of the global population is using the internet - that’s around 5.4B people searching for help, news, products, services, and entertainment. That is a lot of people to ignore in your business plan.

Oh, and by the way, 96% of users worldwide access the internet from their phone…96% of 5.4B people seems like a lot.

If you're thinking they are just checking email and texting, 59.5% of global internet traffic is mobile - phones, not tablets - that’s too much traffic to just be messaging. Again, that seems like a lot to ignore in your business plan.

So, maybe you’re thinking, those are just global statistics - maybe you deliver your services locally.

Okay, now consider that 45.5% of internet traffic in North America is on mobile devices; 88% of the US population has a mobile device (that’s approximately 300M people); 56% of mobile phone users are researching and buying products and services on their phones - that’s over 150M people! By the way, a marketing executive at a durable manufacturing company recently told me that their web traffic is 65% on mobile.

Now, why does any of that matter to you, your customers, employees, vendors, and partners?

Simply put, we (all of us) are constantly being trained by large global companies regarding how we want to transact. This isn’t new to the digital era, McDonald’s conditioned us to expect faster service in all retail environments. Nowadays, Amazon conditions us to want to be able to buy anything/everything using our phones. In some cases, we even can accept delivery the same day or during the early morning hours of the following day! That convenience is addicting and we look for that option everywhere…it’s human nature.

Again, why does that matter?

As a species, we are looking to keep our total costs low - it’s a survival mechanism. It doesn’t mean we won’t waste time shopping, but shopping is largely an entertainment activity. In the US, malls have focused on being a destination for years - that you can actually purchase something this is almost an after thought.

In today’s digital world, our entertainment is found on-line. So, if we have shifted our attention on-line, that is what is convenient for us and where we want to transact. Our customer experience has always mattered to us - now it is largely expected to be a digital customer experience.

What happens if you aren’t a part of your customers' digital experience?

They find someone new to help them. In fact, 49% of customers that are dissatisfied with the customer experience you provide will switch to your competition. And, 64% of those dissatisfied customers won’t even tell you they are leaving - they just go.

To recap: large global companies are conditioning us to use mobile devices and the internet to find and buy the products and services we need. Almost 60% of all internet traffic is generated on mobile phones, and 21 year-olds have never lived in a world without smartphones…I just threw that one in for good measure.

Now tell me, why do you think your business shouldn’t be investing in a digital transformation that includes a mobile strategy?

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