Deciding When You Really Need Mobile First

Mobile technology has made many promises since about 2000. For a long time, the sales pitches were largely laughable. The technology couldn’t do what companies claimed, there weren’t implementations widespread enough to make them compelling, and the implementations were still clumsy.

Almost a quarter of a century later, things have turned upside down. It’s easy to research with a phone or table, run applications, maybe payments in a number of ways, gain access to enterprise systems over the Internet and through mobile phone systems.

Are there times that commercial real estate companies should look at mobile? Certainly. There are also times that it’s more akin to a peanut butter and mustard sandwich — something you could do but perhaps shouldn’t.

Here are three ways to think about mobile and whether you should use it for your business and, if so, the degree to which you might.

Are people in the company on the move and do they need it? One reason to use mobile is when someone is moving about. If so, what are they doing in transit or at remote site? Yes, give them access to email, messaging, and any in-house websites that they might need. But think about what devices they might have with them. Giving someone access via a laptop is different from a table or cell phone connection. Every device has its own requirements and limitations. A laptop is heavier with greater power requirements, but it also has a lot more visual space and power to run complex applications. Phones are highly convenient and can be with a person at all times with possibly more battery life, but have small screens, limitations on storage, and can have higher connectivity costs if using data over a carrier, and maybe lower connection speeds.

What are customers doing and is it okay? There’s a frequent assumption in the business world that everything has to be, or should be, mobile first. That presumes two things: one, that customers prefer to do everything on the phone and that is important to them. That leaves a lot of room for presumptions that may not be the case. Recently, Ryan Reich, chief investment officer of Mountain Shore Properties, spoke to GlobeSt.com about technology use. The firm had considered whether to provide digital and mobile access to a Philadelphia property it owned. There were some “access crime issues,” and while many tenants might find phone access to their apartments positive, maintaining access control would be harder and using a physical mechanism to open doors, like a fob, would be of “marginal inconvenience,” so they went with fobs.

Will the vendor be there tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow? Shakespeare might be rolling in his grave, but the more important issue is whether the company might be going to its sooner than you expect. Even in technology, many companies don’t last. They go out of business or get acquired. Will the app or hardware or whatever is needed for the mobile feature be there in the future? Go for longevity.