Introduction
The changes in technology force companies to reevaluate business models to remain profitable and competitive in a market. Mobile technologies use has become part of daily life for most people around the world as a way of sharing information. A study conducted by Pew Research Center (2019) revealed that 96% of Americans own a cellphone of some kind whereas 81% of those are smartphones. Additionally, more than three-quarters of the United States adults own laptop computers or desktops while roughly half of the population own tablet computers and e-reader devices (Pew Research Center, 2019). The data shows that the penetration and adoption rate of mobile computing is high across all the demographics in the United States. Therefore, companies need to adapt to market changes and adopt the use of mobile technologies. This paper will take the position that mobile computing is the future of business because mobile technologies are used by most people around the world.
The paper analyzes the empirical evidence and review of literature from studies conducted within the past five years on mobile computing. The data collected will evaluate ways in which mobile technologies are applied to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of business operations. The paper is organized into an overview of mobile computing in business, the application of mobile computing in business, the benefits, and disadvantages of mobile technologies, current trends of mobile computing, and a conclusion.
Overview of Mobile Computing
Mobile computing in this study includes portable and handheld communication devices connected using wireless networks. Such technologies include smartphones, tablets, and laptops. The focus is on how mobile computing help businesses achieve their purposes. The efficient use of these mobile technologies significantly increases the probability of business success (Elephant & Maphela, 2018). Businesses can use mobile computing technology to increase productivity and competitiveness in services delivery, communication, administration, and automation.
Mobile technology influences the success of businesses in several ways. According to Elephant and Maphela (2018), technology helps in the simplification of administrative tasks within a business. The business management and stakeholders use the technology to conveniently and easily access business financial records and documents whenever required. Additionally, mobile technology has enhanced communication and marketing (Yueh, Lu, & Lin, 2016; Elephant & Maphela, 2018). The portability of computing devices means that business people can access information in remote areas using Internet services and web platforms. Moreover, the increased use of mobile devices in communication means that businesses can market their products to many people around the world easily and at a relatively cheaper cost.
Businesses need to understand that the adopted technologies complement critical processes to gain success. For instance, the adopted mobile technology should add value in sales and customer experience as well as organization (Holotiuk & Beimborn, 2017). Seamless integration of mobile technology in both online and offline channels would help in boosting customer experiences by enabling them to interact digitally with products and services. In turn, businesses benefit from analytics obtained from customer interactions with the products (Holotiuk & Beimborn, 2017). The organizations benefit from increased agility of allocating resources and reorganizing processes, scaling up or down, and ensuring employee collaboration (Holotiuk & Beimborn, 2017). The usability, security issues, and the performance of the adopted technology influence their business success. Therefore, companies should perform analysis before adopting mobile technology to ensure it has added value in business processes.
Applications of Mobile Computing in Businesses
Mobile computing technologies have wide applications in business. According to Ju, Kim, and Ahn (2016), mobile technologies are used in mobile payment, location-based services, and mobile advertising. Most people widely use their mobile devices to access social media, communication, and other services. Therefore, business people monitor social media feeds and data from customers to identify current trends and opportunities for innovation (Bolat, 2017). Companies also use mobile technologies to share knowledge by experimenting with ideas with customers (Bolat, 2017). Experimenting and learning facilitated by mobile technology enable businesses to develop adaptive measures in a market.
Mobile payment has enhanced the way businesses conduct their operations. According to Qasim and Abu-Shanab (2016), mobile financial services utilize mobile technology and payment system designed to allow consumers to pay for goods and services using mobile computing devices. The penetration of social and e-commerce websites have led to an increase in online businesses, and business can receive their funds remotely. The remote payments are secure and are conducted using the existing infrastructure, which makes it easy and flexible for companies to do business and expand their market.
Mobile computing has eased communication and collaboration within businesses. According to Ju et al. (2016), mobile technology has improved customer relationships and experience. The increased use of mobile devices by customers enables businesses to seek ways in which they can improve business processes. Pew Research Center (2019) noted that most people conduct their activities using mobile devices. Therefore, businesses perform regular updates on their systems and websites to improve customer experience. More businesses are developing websites and mobile applications intended to boost customer experiences. Additionally, colleagues within businesses learn to collaborate using computing devices. Managers and employees use mobile devices to communicate via video calls and teleconferences.
Benefits of Mobile Computing
Mobile technology has changed the way businesses deliver their services and products. Perekwa, Prinsloo, and Van Deventer (2016) categorized the benefits of mobile technology into three; incremental, transformational, and production. Incremental benefits constitute the increased efficiency, productivity, and communication as well as reduction of costs and risks of operations. In the era before mobile computing, the process of gathering information and marketing involved traveling or paying for print media services. However, the introduction of mobile technology means that businesses contact the suppliers and customers directly, which increases the efficiency and accuracy of information communicated. Direct communication between the clients and businesses is cheaper and eliminates geographical boundaries. As noted in Perekwa et al. (2016), mobile technology enables businesses to reach new markets because mobile technology goes beyond geographical barriers.
The portability features in mobile technology create certain values in business. According to Bolat (2016), these values are social, location, entertainment, information, utility, and personal. These values are only inherent in mobile computing as traditional technology or communication systems do not have these values. Mobile technology also provides functional values because of the technical competencies, which include the transmission and exchange of data in various formats (Bolat, 2016). Additionally, the ease of use, multitasking, and timely engagement help businesses interact with clients efficiently. As a result, mobile technology significantly changes the way businesses conduct their activities leading to an increased possibility of success.
Office technologies change the way managers perform administrative tasks. Managers use available technologies to design business strategies and track the performance of employees (Pfano & Beharry, 2016). The flexibility of modern technology enables users to access various programs on their smartphones used to write or edit reports and letters, manage data, and create task lists that are shared with other employees remotely. These features are particularly important in situations where there is limited time or resources. For instance, a startup company with limited space could allow some of the employees to work from home and use mobile technology to collaborate and track performance. Moreover, in cases where the managers and employees can perform various urgent duties without having to access the office, which saves time because it eliminates movements.
Disadvantages of Mobile Technology
Mobile technology involves the flow of information within the enterprise and between the customers and the business. There are significant risks associated with the flow of information, especially in an unsecured mobile environment. According to Pfano and Beharry (2016), a lack of comprehensive mobile solution strategies exposes the enterprise IT governance objectives. For instance, the cost of implementing the technology might exceed the benefits or opportunities for the solutions adopted. Moreover, there are increased chances of unaccountability when using mobile solutions. Lack of policies and strategies leads to miscommunication, inadequate management, and undetected inefficiencies (Pfano & Beharry, 2016). Lack of clear policies affects business operations.
Mobile technologies require regular updates and support from the IT department. Frequent upgrades and monitoring of the systems introduce the need to have an IT management team. Pfano and Beharry (2016) noted that some companies lack resources or skilled employees to handle such changes leaving the companies with the option of outsourcing to external service providers. These updates are recurrent and add up to the expenditure of the company.
The nature of mobile devices means that they can easily be lost or stolen compared to their desktop counterparts. Loss of mobile devices is also a security risk because malicious people can obtain critical data stored on these devices. Employees can also use their devices to store and transfer work-related information, which affects the confidentiality and integrity of data (Pfano & Beharry, 2016). Additionally, business continuity is affected during updates or when the technologies are disrupted by security risks. Security risks in the mobile environment include cyber-attacks, hacking, malware attacks, disruption of network services, and human errors that expose valuable customer information (Pfano & Beharry, 2016). These activities might lead to increased cases of identity theft as hackers might sell information to third-party users or black markets.
Current Trends
Hospitals are using mobile health (m-health) systems to offer improved services to patients. Mobile devices are used to access patient records, perform telemedicine like reminding the patients to take their medicines, and raise health awareness among people (Zahadat, Blessner, Blackburn, & Olson, 2015). The main advantage of using mobile technology in hospitals is that these devices are not a bigger target of attacks as compared to desktop applications. Another advantage of mobile devices is that they have complicated security features such as fingerprint recognition systems and have security breach reporting features that assure data safety (Zahadat et al. 2015). Hospitals are also using encryption to encode data stored in their servers. Additionally, scientists have developed security systems that are only accessed using biometric features (Li et al., 2016). The biometric systems are more secure and they can work well with mobile devices like iPad and tablets that are commonly used in hospitals to retrieve patients’ records.
The use of some traditional passwords for authentication and identification systems has been replaced with biometric systems. Biometric systems use individual biometric features such as the iris, fingerprints, and DNA, face, and voice recognition (Haghighat, Zonouz, & Abdel-Mottaleb, 2015). Biometric systems have a higher level of security compared to passwords as they use biometric features which are difficult to forge, they are user-friendly, and they are mobile. According to Haghighat et al. (2015), smartphone users prefer the use of biometric security as compared to passwords because they offer better security in financial transactions such as the use of Apple Pay. Additionally, the use of smart cards has been boosted by the invention of a device that validates the smart cardholder to use the biometric control system (Chemla & Richard, 2017). According to Chemla and Richard (2017), the technology is designed to use server-client communication for authenticating the identity of smart cardholders using biometric features that are stored in an extended memory card in the smart card and compared with biometric information stored on an external database. This invention is important as it solves the problem of unauthorized individuals and data theft in mobile technology.
Companies are also moving away from the traditional hard disk data storage systems into modern servers. These services are offered by cloud computing services and can be accessed from any device anywhere. According to Bernsteiner, Kilian, and Ebersberger (2016), mobile cloud computing services are small and powerful devices that enable mobility in wireless networks, which supports computing on the go. The advantages of this new trend are that services are offered on-demand, pooling of resources, scalability, increased performance, security, and efficiency of services. Therefore, businesses can scale up or down their operations based on the number of expected traffic. Cloud services eliminate the need to have network infrastructure because data records are hosted on servers. Therefore, there is increased collaboration and accessibility of information on cloud services compared to traditional systems.
Conclusion
The evidence reviewed in this paper shows that there is a high adoption rate of mobile technology. Mobile computing opened new possibilities for collaboration and innovation that are useful in the success of a business. The key advantages of mobile technology identified in the thesis are improved communication, enhanced business operations, collaboration, and expansion of business services. Mobile technologies are also effective in saving costs of operations, which makes them suitable for upcoming companies with limited resources.
Despite the many benefits associated with mobile technology, there were notable disadvantages pointed out in the thesis. Some of these disadvantages might occur if businesses fail to conduct preliminary investigations before the adoption of technology. For instance, the evidence opined that the costs of implementing certain technology might be higher than the potential benefits. Therefore, in such situations, the management should focus on finding compatible and suitable technology for its business model. Additionally, emerging trends such as mobile cloud computing and biometric security systems suggest that businesses can conduct their activities without the fear of data and security breaches. Continued advancements in mobile devices and Internet technologies show that mobile computing is viewed as the future of business.
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