Wednesday 13 July 2016

5 Advantages of a Mobile-Optimised Website


Mobile phones and other portable devices are essential to our daily life. Most people in the World have some type of hand-held gadget they use to communicate with on a daily basis.
But what is the primary purpose of a mobile device? It was initially launched on the market to provide normal telephonic communication, but with the help of wireless technology  the scope and capabilities of hand-held devices has broadened. Now they’re used for checking mail, listening to music, capturing images, social media interaction, browsing the internet and much much more.
So how can this help your business? Mobile devices can access the Internet. This means that people using mobile devices can become a source of increased website leads and traffic counts. In fact, in comparing desktop to mobile usage of surfing the internet – mobile usage trumps desktop. Given the moving fast paced society in which we live, this makes sense.
If you have a business website, it’s critical that you consider this.  Mobile optimisation for your website is vital. Why? Since websites provide primarily a visual experience for customers, it’s important to make your site look as neat as possible. If your website is not optimised it will appear neat and tidy in a web desktop browser but not on a mobile browser. This creates a huge risk for your online business. You stand to lose valuable customers if your site isn’t mobile-optimised.
Below are some of the advantages of optimising your website for mobile devices.

User Experience
Imagine browsing on your portable device and a website’s content is disorganised and difficult to navigate because it is not optimised for mobile viewing? How annoying would that be, needing to “pinch and squeeze” the screen in order to view the content. You would quickly close the page and search for another site which is most likely already optimised for mobile viewing. Optimising your website will leave a good impression and provide a good user experience for your customers. Why? Nobody wants to browse a desktop site using a mobile device. Research from Jakob Nielen shows that mobile-optimised websites lead to positive feedback and customer satisfaction.

Portable
Mobile devices are very portable and can be used almost everywhere. You can use this to your advantage by making your website more accessible. If you have a mobile-optimised website, consumers can easily access your website anytime, anywhere using their mobile device.

Competition
Competition within internet marketing is massive so it’s important to stand out on the web and out-rank your competitors. Consumers will choose a better optimised, more user friendly and positive experience site over those which are not. The point is, you have to ensure that you are the one to catch the consumer’s attention and you need to make it as easy as possible in order to do so.

Offline Integration
Are you familiar with QR codes? These can help you integrate with offline media. It is gaining popularity by means of making offline advertising for companies and businesses. This can be scanned and translated into information such as a website url’s or email addresses for example.
Inserting these codes into your ads helps you direct traffic to your website. It enables you to have instant communication with offline users around the world.

Brand
If a customer had a bad experience on your site, it may leave a bad impression about your business. Most people will be annoyed and frustrated when visiting a site that is not mobile friendly. This could make a customer feel as though your company doesn’t care about the business, and be less likely visit your website in the future.

Your Ideas
It is important for every business to have a mobile friendly website. The more professional your website is, the more advantages you gain. Feel free to let us know your thoughts by commenting on our Facebook Page.
You might also want to check out our services page and let us help you create a mobile optimised website.

Tuesday 10 May 2016

Invest in SaaS for Business Scalability and ROI

by Chitraparna Sinha Business 2 Community 
Modern business operations are software dependent with two selection possibilities:
  1. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
  2. Desktop solutions (in-house creations)
While SaaS solutions are akin to paying rentals every month, desktop solutions are in-house properties created specifically for a certain enterprise.
Microsoft’s Office Web Apps is a great SaaS example. The Office Web Apps offer a remote space to access documents from anywhere. A practical and cost-effective solution for every enterprise, it stores files in OneDrive, allows real-time editing and has global sharing options.
Another good example is Mozy, one of the first cloud backup service providers. It offers 2 GB free storage and allows storage of various data formats. Another similar service is Dropbox.
On the other hand, desktop solutions are turnkey solutions to meet the certain specific organisational purposes. A case in point is how TCS and OEM IT team of Microsoft worked in tandem to automate and integrate Microsoft Visual Source Safe ® using Visual Studio 2005 Team System with the purpose to enhance team collaboration and productivity.
Both SaaS and Desktop solutions have its advantages and disadvantages, which is summed up in this graphic.

SaaS and Desktop Comparison

SaaS is Better:

Since 2000, it has been a mainstream business solution with Salesforce being its poster-child. Salesforce is the USA-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution powering businesses since 1999.
Let’s take Salesforce as an example SaaS solution for a SMB enterprise. The Salesforce CRM helps the SMB with optimal asset allocation and management, nurturing employees and customers, with latest technology. It’s low cost – there’s no need of upfront investments on software and hardware development. With Salesforce, the SMB can manage sales, offer stellar customer services, build a community, monitor revenue and communicate internally – all on one platform which is available to the SMB for a monthly fee. These outlined services almost cover the necessary requirements of a SMB. In contrast, if the SMB were to build a custom desktop solution for the organisation, the upfront development costs will be more than what would be paid to Salesforce for the next 2 decades!

SaaS Growth Map and Benefits

Here is a graphical representation of interest in SaaS services versus desktop solutions or desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) over the last decade 2005-2015.


The graph clearly shows a heightened and continued growth in SaaS, and the almost non-existent demand for DaaS.
The potential benefits of an enterprise adopting SaaS are enumerated below:

#1 Cost Savings

A major plus factor. SaaS eliminated the need of expensive capital investment necessary for developing, installing and maintaining a DaaS. SaaS is subscription oriented and value for money with its innumerable features and integrations. The necessity to provision internal resources is eliminated such as software installation and API tracking. With a SaaS, the time to generate a workable solution reduces from months to days and hours. The software application is pre-configured and pre-installed. It allows for prototyping and rapid demonstration since most SaaS offers free limited period trials.

#2 Automatic Upgradations –

The SaaS solution provider manages software and hardware updates without extra cost. It removes the need of an in-house IT department. The cost usually incurred in maintaining a IT department can be shifted to other business areas. The SaaS vendor is responsible for its maintenance, upgrades, and security. The 2009 report called The ROI of Software-As-A-Service says: “SaaS solutions typically offer seamless, automatic, frequent upgrades as part of the ongoing subscription charge. Because these upgrades happen more frequently and therefore incrementally than on-premises solutions, they typically have significantly reduced testing and end user acceptance and training costs.”

#3 Integration Simplicity –

Highly integrated applications with complex connections to systems may require a substantial migration investment, resulting in reduced benefits. Therefore, applications with standard and complex interfaces are easily integrated with SaaS cloud systems. There are APIs to allow connection with internal CRMs, ERPs, and other SaaS vendors. SaaS applications are scalable as it doesn’t involve investment for software licenses and service capacity.

#4 Resilience –

Acts of nature or any accident won’t ruin the enterprise as its IT infrastructure is safely stored in the SaaS cloud. The data is remotely accessible globally with internet connectivity. Even in case of natural disasters or otherwise, business will be up and running 24 x 7.

#5 Pay-as-You-Go –

SaaS solutions offer a “pay as you go” model – the pricing model depends on the provider. It could be a monthly, half-yearly or a yearly subscription. Due to this, if the SaaS users need to upgrade or scale up further, there will a clear idea of additional costs and as such, it leads of better budgeting.
The SaaS delivery chain usually follows this pattern.

Source: znet.com

A major concern with SaaS is its security measures because all the business data is practically entrusted into the hands of a third-party service provider. Therefore, it is essential to use trusted SaaS providers like Salesforce, RankWatch and ZOHO. Additional security measures like encrypted log-in, SMS password verification, security certificates and management control are implemented for heightened security measures.

SaaS enables an enterprise to achieve higher productivity through integrated implementation of applications and analysis. Given the affordable cost of SaaS as compared to simply developing a DaaS, the SaaS solutions provide better ROI and therefore, it has higher adoption rates. It is accessible via multiple web browsers and there is a lower learning curve. Entry into SaaS is low cost.
Note – Unless it’s an extremely huge organisation with specific needs for which SaaS solutions aren’t yet available or partly available whose implementation complicates business operations, it’s better to opt for custom desktop solutions or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).

SaaS for Future


Key market research from consultancies like Ovum, International Data Corporation (IDC), Forrester and others reveal the following insights:
  • 90% of mobile data traffic will generate from cloud applications by 2019. Current traffic is 81%.
  • The growth rate of global SaaS market is projected to go from $49 billion in 2015 to $67 billion in 2018, a CAGR of 8.14%.
  • Amazon Web Apps (AWS) is the preferred destination for 57% of technology professionals to run apps.
  • Spend on Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) is $16.5 billion for 2015 and is projected to increase in the subsequent years to $34 billion, a CAGR of 10.27% by 2018.
  • Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) providers like Amazon will grow to $68.3 billion in 2026 from $1.7 billion in 2014, a CAGR of 36%. The current PaaS leaders, according to Wikibon Research, are Amazon, Salesforce and Microsoft.
  • There is a 50% higher chance of enterprises adopting cloud-based applications to boost customer demand if they are experienced with cloud computing.
  • The adoption of private cloud servers decreased in UK (7%) and France (6%), according to Forrester Business Technographics data.
More key insights can be found here. These data and statistics highlight the role SaaS and associates (PaaS, IaaS and others) play in modern businesses.

Closing Thoughts


SaaS is a profitable, manageable and ROI-oriented solution for a SMB. The benefits of SaaS solutions attract businesses across all verticals.