Mobile Apps are a Waste of Time for Small and Midsize Companies

Well, before you lose your cool with me, let me say that I've heard this statement from numerous small and midsize business owners in the last 12 months. They are successful businesses, not startups or tiny shops, and in one-on-one conversations these owners have told me they don't see any value in playing around with mobile apps.

Let me qualify that most of these people own retail establishments of some sort, don't have a sophisticated website or ecommerce store and I'm not sure if they have a smartphone. During my walk down main street last year, I talked with dozens of owners and when I published the anecdotal results, I had many more write in telling me they agree that mobile is unproven and not a profitable effort. 

Let me add that I am still stunned by these perspectives.  I am purposely not going to reveal names or websites and if you've read my other work, you know I'm not making it up. Perhaps you've heard it yourself. Statistically, I've come to realize, this perspective has to be true -- there are always early adopters, late adopters (revisit Geoffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasm) and we're just heading out of the hype about mobile.  Each year, it gets touted as the year of mobile. Was it last year or this year or the year before?  Alas, mobile is more powerful in other countries as I've lamented here before.  I was in Japan 6 or so years ago and could beam my payment to a cash register via my simple mobile phone. A dumb phone, not a smartphone. We lag in mobile in the US. Plain and simple.

But I think that is changing. With Google's QR code campaign, iOS barcode and QR code readers, many consumers are seen scanning items in stores. You may recall that I was asked to leave a store not long ago because I was scanning items... Plus I was taking pictures, but it was a tourist town so I didn't see it as odd. It was a chocolate store, too, with beautiful creations. When I said I was a blogger writing some travel sites, they told me to stop that I didn't have permission to take photos. Okay, I said and left.

Point of all this -- your customer is mobile and carrying a powerful computer in his or her hands. It comes complete with more apps than you might think and they are sharing their lives in ways

This study by AT&T is exciting to me, but I also find it hard to believe given the conversations I've had. I live in Seattle area and we're not tech laggards here.

AT&T recently conducted an online survey of over 2,000 small

business owners nationwide to gain a better understanding of the

importance of technology to their daily operations. This year, more than

70% of small businesses use mobile apps for their operations, with

nearly four in 10 surveyed saying they could not survive – or it would

be a major challenge to survive – without mobile apps.

Four in ten (40%) small businesses report that all their employees use

wireless devices or technologies to work away from the office. This is

up from an estimated 24% in 2008 and is expected to grow to 50% by 2012.