The Big Picture

Mobile is a transformational technology that has shifted communication across the globe.

Texting not only enables chat-crazy teens to stay connected, but also supports paradigm-shifting information exchange in developing worlds.  The lives of rural villagers have been transformed through text-based agricultural advice, commodity pricing information,  health care provisioning and even allowing political/journalistic transparency in their sometimes unstable economies.

Jeffrey Sachs, a development guru at Columbia University called mobile phones “the single most transformative tool for development.”

Mobile functionality has supported innovators to dramatically shift business landscapes in the developing world.  A macro-economic study by the World Bank found that an increase of 10 percentage points in mobile phone adoption in developing countries increased growth in GDP per person by 0.8 points. This is because telecom services help make markets more efficient, reduce transaction costs and increase productivity. Mobile phones are literally transforming the lives in these countries.

While the developed world is much farther along in the areas of efficiency and productivity, consumers are adopting mobile technology faster than advertisers and companies are finding ways to exploit it.

Our time-starved and attention-poor culture has experienced “the death of patience” and mobile technology is starting to deliver both helpful and entertaining functionality to pay off our demands for immediate utility and gratification. Creativity has been unleashed thanks to the iPhone and competitive economic forces.

Companies now have the opportunity to look creatively at how mobile innovation can become a more efficient facilitator for the sales of their products (e.g., location-based marketing that is a service rather than an intrusion), deliver valuable content for their “on the go” customers, and cut through the clutter of other media to deliver relevant messages.

The mobile universe is poised to explode over the next five years…

-          Location Based Service revenue expected to grow from $1.7B in 2009 to $14B in 2014

-          Mobile social networking users expected to grow from 54M in 2009 to 700M in 2014

-          Global mobile ad spending expected to grow to $13 billion in 2013

The possibilities are tremendous. Business practices and customer relationships can be transformed when bringing mobile into the mix.

• How can a company do things differently to serve their customer better or cut costs?
• How can mobile innovation be applied to unmet needs?
• How do customers prefer to “save time and waste time” when on the go?
• How can the connection ignited by the “primed emotional state” that consumers are in when interacting with their mobile devices help deliver on business, brand, and consumer goals?

Companies are beginning to master the new social media paradigm – transparency, engaging with customers not shouting at them, providing content that adds value and doesn’t just chest-thump brand priorities – and engaging via mobile is the next frontier.

Do you have a strategy to better serve, delight and transform your customer relationships?