Thanks to the massive and accelerated internet adoption worldwide during the last two decades, web and mobile apps have become the most significant part of human activity. We buy, sell, make payments, work, move, request services, communicate, express ourselves, entertain ourselves and even find friends and romantic partners through these applications, either from a computer or a cell phone.

It, of course, has completely transformed the societies of the planet and has had a profound impact on the way we do business.

The companies that did not adapt to this new paradigm lost their competitive advantage in their market sector, some of them even disappearing.

Some clear examples are visible in applications such as Netflix and Spotify, which represented an innovation in the audiovisual content industry and the music industry. However, in those markets like Blockbuster and Universal Music, dominant companies saw their business model become obsolete and eventually had to change or went bankrupt.

But the scope of these applications is not restricted to cases where their use is massive, such as social networks. Still, there are also uses related to the internal operation of organizations and companies. In this sense, the essential thing for any organization, regardless of its size, is to have a good website.

The pages of small and medium-sized companies will initially be informative and usually built with a CMS (Content Management System) so that anyone can modify their content without the need for a programmer.

From then on, and according to business needs, it may be necessary to have web and mobile applications to manage the organization’s operations such as accounting, financial management, manufacturing, maintenance, inventory management, and client management, among others. Every organization must find the best way to optimize its processes and meet the growing demands of its customers, and many times the best way to do this is with custom-developed software.

Thanks to cloud infrastructure service providers such as Amazon and Google, any application developed has the potential to scale rapidly according to demand. For example, you can go from serving 1,000 to 1,000,000 concurrent users in a matter of minutes. In this way, introducing a product or service in a new market is not complex from a technological point of view.

Other Significant Advantages of Having Web or Mobile Applications are the Following:

• Advertising and branding:Web applications, from an information page to an information system, allow establishing a direct communication channel between the organization and its potential and current customers. It will enable the latter to know first-hand the products and services offered and be aware of any news quickly and easily. In addition, a website graphic design aligned with the brand’s branding has a significant impact on capturing the interest of the target audience. In this sense, applications also play a role in brand marketing.
• Scope and accessibility:Today, anyone can access web applications through the latest browser, present on practically any computer. In addition, a growing number of people in the world have an Android or iOS mobile device at their disposal, which makes them potential consumers for mobile applications. Thus, the possibilities of massification of the product or service are enormous. It is also complemented with new and better accessibility features, allowing people with disabilities to use these systems.
• Process optimization:Many manual processes can be optimized or even fully automated using currently available technology. For example, many organizations have chosen to have chatbots (an application of artificial intelligence techniques) on their websites to respond to most of their customers’ concerns and thus save hundreds of hours of human work.
• Acquisition of competitive advantage:The business world is increasingly competitive, and users and customers increasingly demand new services that make their lives easier. Nowadays, going directly to a bank to carry out a money transfer operation is unthinkable; for that, an application provided by the bank allows it to do so quickly and safely. Companies that manage to make friends, efficient, and secure technological tools available to their clients have a competitive advantage in their market sector.
• Data collection:Applications allow you to collect massive amounts of data about the way your users use them. Applying Big Data techniques, it is possible to obtain precious information from this data, which reveals consumption patterns, trends of approval or disapproval of products, correlations between characteristics such as age or gender, and the use of specific services, among many others. It, of course, becomes an invaluable input for the decision-making of the top management of any organization.

Not all organizations have the financial capacity to have their own IT department since highly trained professionals in software engineering, and other specialties are required, or simply the specific technological needs do not justify the said investment. There is the possibility of having a strategic supplier like Builder.ai capable of satisfying these needs for these cases.