How to Spot Profitable Mobile App Opportunities For Your Business

Spotting new growth opportunities is what makes businesses, no matter the shape and size, flourish. However, this doesn’t guarantee that financial backing will be given to everyone with an ambitious idea. In fact, one of the most challenging hurdles for most business innovators is convincing the main powerhouses (directors, board members and investors), to provide the budget required to put these opportunities into practice; especially if it involves mobile technology (i.e. mobile app development).

The reliance on mobile apps has surged in the business world. Whether it’s offering an improved customer experience or streamlining internal processes, mobile apps have never been more essential for satisfying the mobile-first customer and workforce. There’s no turning back now, either.

Despite this, several businesses are still unwilling to move into the mobile app world. So, although you might have great idea for a mobile app solution, failing to position it successfully to those in charge makes getting sign-off virtually impossible, stopping your idea in its tracks.

Yes, change is certainly a daunting aspect for any business, but when combined with experience from credible partners and suppliers, you can start to unlock the full potential mobile apps have to offer. After all, turning a mobile app concept into a genuine product is just as achievable as building a new website.

We’ll talk you through exactly how to qualify a profitable mobile app opportunity and make it irresistible to your company’s decision makers.

What Benefits Will Your Mobile App Opportunity Bring?

Business opportunities can arrive by many avenues, such as identifying new marketing verticals, streamlining in-house processes, fixing admin pain points or resolving communication challenges. These all share one main purpose - to maximise revenue. Mobile apps, among other modern technologies, can help you improve communication channels, obtain insightful metrics or process data more reliably; the list of possibilities is endless.  

For example, are your board members aware that 86% of buyers will pay more for a service if they get a first-class customer experience? Introducing a mobile-first experience could increase your chances of upselling to existing clients, ensuring you’re getting the most value from your existing customer base.

Explore these different ideas to see how many hidden benefits your solution could have. Failing to outline how your mobile app opportunity will bring value to the business is one of, if not the biggest killer, for mobile app innovation. Yes, you should be emotionally invested in your opportunity, but your benefits need to remain business focused. For additional help on spotting these ROI opportunities, you could also use external resources and industry experts such as mobile app developers.

Justifying Your Mobile App Opportunity

To guarantee your mobile app idea resonates with your company’s decision makers, how do you ensure your pitch is objective and professional? This is where your research comes in.

A good starting point is to gather feedback from those who will be most likely to use the mobile app, e.g. customers or internal end users. The feedback can be collated through reviewing live chats, analysing in-house support emails or carrying out short interviews. You might be surprised by the challenges and obstacles your end users face, and a mobile app could be the very solution to these problems. Going into your pitch with as much first-hand research as possible puts you in a great position to have an objective conversion.

Focus on Rewards Instead of Cost

If you have thoroughly researched your mobile app opportunity, and you can express the true benefits it could bring for the business, cost shouldn’t be a determining factor for board members. It should only come into the equation when calculating ROI. For example, if your mobile app opportunity will cost £2million, but the return is £20million, it’s simply a cash flow matter.

And remember, ROI (return on investment), comes in many forms, not just monetary value. Perhaps your mobile app opportunity could provide ROI in one of these ways:

Automation Cost Savings

Less resources needed to complete tasks, e.g. removing repetitive and tedious administrative responsibilities for employees so they can focus on what they’re employed to do, instead of what could easily be automated.

Gathering Valuable Data & Insight

Your mobile app could be implemented simply to obtain more robust user feedback than a website could track. Or, staff behavioural trends from back-end processes can be observed to ensure everyone is performing at their best. These metrics can make a vital difference to future proofing and scaling the business overall, as new opportunities could be identified from data trends that were previously unknown.

Employee Retention

95% of employees believe a mobile-first workplace is essential for icreasing employee retention rates. A mobile could not only reduce overheads through allowing employees to work remotely, but also ensure the mobile workforce is equally as efficient and productive as if they were in the office.

Subscription Savings

According to research conducted by Adobe on the rise in enterprise mobile apps, 69% of company departments are using between two and five enterprise mobile apps, while 27% are even using six or more. Check how much your company is spending on third party subscriptions and compare it to the up-front cost of implementing a mobile app. With its long-term rewards that can meet your business’ needs as it grows, creating a mobile app should come out on top.

Convincing your company’s main powerhouses to invest in your mobile app opportunity isn’t an easy challenge to overcome. However, by focusing on how your opportunity can provide solutions to existing business problems as well as subvert future growing pains, your listeners will find it difficult to object. You might find it particularly useful to focus on three core elements:

1. The scale of a problem/opportunity, and providing empirical evidence of it

2. The repercussions of not implementing a change

3. The positive results that could be earned if the opportunity is seized, now and in the future