With over two decades of experience with some of the largest software and hardware multi-nationals and a successful operation of a management consulting company (I still run it), my friends and peers often question me about this new foray of mine – iPhone apps and everything to do with apps on mobile devices.

There is a rush of adrenaline in the iPhone app space. It is exciting because you build and ship fast and because you get feedback in a matter of days. You can tweak pricing to incorporate all that Philip Kotler has talked about. You get to build and manage a host of brands. Being in the iPhone apps is very high up in the pecking order of exhilaration in corporate life. But all this is about business internals as an entrepreneur. What about the business reasons ?

Why Does it Make Sense to Have an iPhone App?

1. Tap the mobile channel

Marketers have been sending alerts through SMSs and have been asking you to enter promo codes and send SMSs. That had been the face of marketing through mobile phone till the iPhone came along. Now, just like other channels such as your website, partner websites, on the ground sales force (own and business partners) and network marketing, marketers and sales folks have a very potent channel – the iPhone. With 50 million plus users (see this: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/09/28appstore.html) and growing you cannot afford to ignore this channel.

2. The Road to Instant Feedback

Sales and marketing folks crave for first hand user feedback. With the iPhone, coupled with website analytics tools, they can get this in a jiffy. The number of times their apps are downloaded, the recently introduced In App purchase feature and hits to their websites from the iPhone and / or their apps are just some ways of getting this feedback and analyzing usage patterns for focused marketing efforts.

3. Finding New Users

Fast moving consumer goods, white goods, restaurants and a host of other retail-side user focused businesses can identify newer market segments and needs based on the iPhone users using their apps. Yet another angle that marketers are waking up to is creating a whole new market segment from scratch – people who grow up seeing iPhone apps as an everyday phenomenon – pretty much like Generation Y looks at the Internet.

4. Image Transformation

The iPhone and the new collaborative Web have changed the communication space completely. Corporations that change their image and redraft their positioning in crisp terms that are readily transmitted over the mobile and the Web, shall rule in the times to come. The iPhone helps bring about that transformation. It enforces that change. It tells companies that end-users and prospective buyers have a short attention span. Images that get mirrored in popular apps shall be enduring ones.

5. Smoother Operations

One cannot forget this angle. With global operations, operational bottlenecks can arise anywhere and at any time. Managers cannot be at their desks at all times. However they can be on their iPhones. The iPhone’s built-in support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, security features such as remote wipe and passcode, ability to link multiple mobile devices with central servers running applications and more help make business operations smoother.

These reasons are compelling for companies to seriously consider building and supporting iPhone apps. It makes sound business sense. Now that is what really gives me the kick as an entrepreneur serving such needs of corporations!

 
Rajeev