Best Choice for Entrepreneurs: 7 Mobile Apps to Manage Business On the Go

What tools do successful entrepreneurs use to manage business affairs wherever they go? Here are 7 Mobile Apps they recommend.

Image by Jan Vašek from Pixabay

Managing an online store or any other type of business means spending time and effort to solve marketing, financial, and logistic tasks. That’s why entrepreneurs and business owners are the most active users of tools that increase productivity, agility, and decision-making.

In this article, our team from NEKLO software engineering company has revealed why mobile apps have become critical for self and business efficiency. Additionally, we’ve created a list of top apps that entrepreneurs use to manage the business on the go.

Off we go.

Introduction

Business apps have recently gained popularity. Although games are predictably on top of mobile app downloads, Statista reports that “Business” has become the second most popular category in the iOS App Store, as of August 2020.

If you are an entrepreneur or a business owner, and you want your business activity to stay in touch with the ever-changing digital world, this article is for you.

You will learn how to manage operations on-the-go and get a list of apps selected by specialists of NEKLO to start upgrading immediately.

Read on.

How a Mobile App Can Leverage Your Business?

Statista reports that in 2020 the number of smartphone users has already exceeded 3.5 billion, and it’s expected to increase. Today smartphones are also used for business matters, which is also conditioned by the benefits of business mobile apps. 

Below are 5 perks of mobile business apps that we believe can bring the fastest positive effect to you:

1. It increases brand awareness

Strengthening your brand and bringing it closer to your customers is one of the most valuable things a mobile app can do for your business activity. Regular and smooth interaction builds stronger connections and enhances trust in your brand.

2. It boosts customer loyalty

Mobile app users today are particularly sophisticated, and the only way to retain them is through an excellent customer experience. 

To keep your customers satisfied, we suggest you include the following functionality into your mobile app development quote:

• Push notifications. Mobile notifications will inform the users about your special offers and deals, which is also the feature of making customers go back to the app.

• In-app payments. By including convenient payment options, you will increase customers’ motivation to make a purchase.

• Geolocation. This feature will help your customers to find your store by googling “near me” or the store where the necessary product is in stock.

3. It provides a source of data for analysis

A mobile app helps to collect and analyze such data as:

• customer preferences;
• overall time spent in your app;
• identify the most popular features.

A thorough analysis of this information will provide you with an understanding of who your customers are and how you can improve their interactions with your brand.

4. It helps to reach the audience fast

Using a mobile app is faster than browsing a website’s desktop app version. The convenience of website navigation depends on internet connection speed and quality, while the content of an app is stored within the app itself. It takes not more than a second to load the content. 

5. It facilitates customer feedback collection

Through customer feedback, you improve your business activity. How? Comments and reviews within a mobile app make a tool displaying what customers think about your brand. This can be used by you to boost your products and services.

Key Steps of Mobile App Development

You have an idea of an app that can help your business or the industry in general, but don’t know where to begin? 

No worries. Drawing on the experience of NEKLO as a custom software provider, the process of bringing your ideas to life includes 5 steps.  

Step 1. Project discovery and planning

At this stage, we collect all your ideas into a technical specification. This step of mobile app development is crucial as it:

• saves time on decision-making during the process of development;

• serves to define technical challenges for the developers;
• shows an alternative way to meet the requirements.

Within the first stage, we present the architecture of the future solution together with your product development roadmap that clarifies the milestones and helps to keep track of the progress. 

Step 2. MVP design

The building of a minimum viable product (MVP) helps to define what features your app needs to function the way you want it.

During the development, it’s hard not to distract attention from essential to less significant features of the future mobile app. The MVP serves for a clear understanding of the core app functionality. It’s a skeleton to your app which helps to track the project’s ideas feasibility.

Step 3. Software development

This is a technological stage. It involves:

• back and front end development;
• data encryption;
• code review;
• sanity checks;
• project analysis.

Step 4. Quality assurance

A working app needs to undergo testing before launch. Quality assurance specialists:

• provide manual and automated testing of app functionality and usability;
• ensure crash tracking;
• check the app’s compliance with the quality standards.

Step 5. Launch and support

Launching an app is the final step in the development process.

To make your app available to the public, you can choose to submit it to Google Play and Apple App Store. However, there’s a list of requirements your app should meet to be presented on these platforms.

7 Mobile Apps to Manage Online Business. NEKLO Team’s Choice

Custom mobile app development is among the most rewarding technological adoptions for businesses. However, it requires time and effort. Why not use the existing apps to upgrade your business processes?

NEKLO Team has compiled the Top Apps for Businesses chart considering the following criteria:

• Functionality;
• Compatibility;
• Usability;
• Business orientation;
• Affordability.

We have also divided the selected apps into 3 categories to clarify what they serve and how they can leverage your business: 1) calendar apps to keep you on track, 2) productivity and management apps, 3) apps for payments, accounting, and billing.

1. Calendar apps to keep you on track

A calendar is vital for business productivity. It helps to schedule meetings, appointments, events, and deadlines. 

We’ve selected 2 calendar apps that will keep your business well-planned and always on time.

2. Productivity and management apps

Business projects consist of various small tasks. Implementation of these tasks as well as meeting deadlines leads to achieving goals without major issues. Productivity and time management apps serve to monitor and handle your and/or your team’s workload and meet deadlines.

3. Apps for payments, accounting, and billing

Apps for payments, accounting, and billing help to manage finance on-the-go. Such apps help small businesses to cut the costs on the in-house accountant, while large enterprises get an opportunity to automate their billing and accounting processes.

Final Words

Using web and mobile apps make sense for businesses as apps help to stay attuned to the latest tech, be innovative and competitive, as well as respond to the challenges of the digital era. As a result, businesses succeed.

Our experts have selected 7 mobile apps that you can use right now to upgrade your business processes and satisfy core business needs. We’ve made our choice based on a thorough analysis of the functionality of the popular business apps, considering the price/quality ratio as well.

In case you haven’t found an app meeting your particular requirements, NEKLO welcomes you to consider us as a candidate to take over or reinforce your project. Reach out to our sales rep Alex directly to get more information on how mobile app development at NEKLO can benefit your business.