Building and delivering great mobile experiences will be the beating heart of your customer engagement strategy for the next 10 years. The challenge of making a simple, intuitive app that fronts a complex system of engagement will stretch the abilities and swamp the resources of most firms. For help, firms increasingly turn to vendors that possess a connected portfolio of engagement competencies and management skills.<\/p>\n
The result will be a new market for mobile engagement providers that will grow to $32.4 billion by 2018 (see Figure 1 below). No vendor can do all of this today, but suppliers from six categories \u2014 digital agencies, management consultancies, mobile specialists, product development specialists, systems integrators, and telcos \u2014 are chasing the prize. The payoff for vendors that make this investment will be to earn a seat at your table as a long-term partner in your engagement success.<\/p>\n
Mobile Services Will Soar Globally To $32.4 Billion By 2018<\/p>\n
Version one of your mobile app was just a standalone pretty face. But in versions two, three, and four, your mobile app will be the new face of systems of engagement, with a goal of helping people \u201ctake action in their immediate context and moments of need.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fulfilling this mission \u2013 and reaping the benefits of a close service connection to your customers and employees \u2013 means solving a much bigger problem than shrinking down your Web site or screen-scraping your SAP system. It means serving customers and employees whose minds have shifted to expect anything, anywhere, at any time. \u00a0If version one of the app cost $250,000, it\u2019s not unusual for version two to cost $2 million.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll spend that money deciphering what your customers really want to do on the mobile devices then building dramatically simplified mobile experiences on complex systems of engagement. You\u2019ll also re-engineer your core processes, systems, and products to help people in their \u201cmobile moments.\u201d<\/p>\n
This new $32.4 billion market is comprised of three kinds of services:<\/p>\n