Technology is progressing, there’s no doubt about it. More companies are moving towards simplicity by adopting Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies. It’s the thinking behind BYOD, cutting out middlemen, streamlining companies for increased efficiency. And with the ubiquity of mobility, comes the inevitable movement towards the convergence of social, mobile, big data, and the cloud. Mobile is now the preferred platform for social media and can also be used to store data. Cloud solutions come in mobile forms as well. With this convergence, many new benefits are realized:
1. New Ways of Customer Interaction
Customers prefer to be reached through communication channels that they use most often and are most comfortable with. For today’s customer, their preferred communication channel is through their mobile device. Companies are beginning to interact with customers through text messaging and social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Buying products, making payments, and receiving receipts can all be done digitally through a smartphone or tablet, making it easier for for both the customer and the business. Everything can be stored in the cloud, allowing for easy access to data.
2. More Customer Insight
With social media interactions, companies can gain clear insight into their customers’ preferences. There’s more customer communication - we’ve moved past the age of mere FAQs on websites. Now customers can ask questions on social media and vice versa, and with mobile devices, these questions can be responded to instantaneously. Not only that, but companies can also gather information on various other consumer behavior factors, like buying patterns. The cloud stores all this data and makes analysis easy, helping companies tailor their marketing campaigns, products, and promotions to best fit their target customers’ preferences.
3. New Innovations
Technology is constantly changing - the constant upgrades in smartphones are a testament to this. The convergence of social, big data, and cloud platforms with mobile means that the innovations being made in the mobile field are also relevant to the other fields and can help fuel new innovations across the board.
4. Better Collaboration
Communication is fundamental to company success, especially among field-based organizations or organizations with remote workers. With convergence, it’s easy to facilitate employee to employee communication and manager to employee communication. Mobile devices make communication more accessible. Office-based social media platforms on mobile apps are an easy form of communication. The convergence of social, mobile, data, and cloud increases company collaboration by making it simple and quick to use.
With the use of mobile devices becoming widespread, it makes sense that social, big data, and cloud solutions would follow. Companies who unite all these fields early will realize the benefits above, finding that they are able to better serve their customers through increased levels of customer and company engagement. Convergence heralds the merging of business and technology, a merge that has already happened and is continuing to happen. By staying on trend with this convergence, you can ensure that your company is always up to date and able to provide its customers and employees with the best solutions possible.
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