What’s hot on mobile market? Report from Mobile Congress

On 15th of April, at the National Stadium in Warsaw took place Mobile Congress – an event dedicated to people responsible for mobile communication in companies and also people passionate about mobile market. Event was organized for the first time, and among 30 lectures dominant issues were ones linked with mobile strategies among companies and organizations, marketing activities for mobile tools and also new technologies, which are created to support especially mobile devices. I had a chance to participate in this event 🙂

My stay at the conference started with a speech by Piotr Biegun from Whalla Labs. The subject of lecture was “Psychology of mobile applications” where 6 rules of application creation were discussed. These 6 rules refer to the methodology by Robert Cialdini, an author of bestseller book “Influence: Science and Practice”. Speaker was convincing to how much mobile apps are using knowledge such as psychology. Piotr mentioned also, that some of the companies use certain rules intuitively, some others though use science achievements to realize own business goals.

The topic of next presentation by Marcin Zaremba from Senfino were issues, which should be known by every manager responsible for mobile products and service in the company. Author presented two main assumptions, which should be followed while creating a good mobile product: benchmarks and requirements. As Marcin mentioned, in case of benchmarks it is not only competition research but also a way of fulfilling specified need used in the past. Advantage is being built through being better in terms of so called scale. In case of requirements, they should be very precisely specified, for example: bigger shopping cart, lower support cost.

Extremely absorbing was speech by Piotr Koźniewski from 3R Studio. Presentation called “Quo vadis Augmented Reality? Few hypothesis” proved that even though augmented reality technology is known for a few years already, it is still awaiting maximum interest from the consumers side. This speech also made me realize of how important marketing team support is while designing product.

At 12 Bartłomiej Juszczyk from Adweb started his speech entitled: “20 cases which you surely missed but which made a fuss in mobile”. Bartłomiej presented applications which gained popularity thanks to great idea and also proper marketing support. There were a lot of educational elements, gamification and also topics connected with sentimental analysis. Presentation showed how important is marketing during the process of creation and implementation of mobile applications on the market.

From 12:30 I participated in presentation prepared by Katarzyna Marciniak from Leroy Merlin Polska: “Merlinus – system and mobile application for Customer Advisor”. Katarzyna presented innovational technological solution on example of DIY network in Poland. I got to know that Leroy Merlin invests pretty intensively in innovations connected with mobile technologies. Just as she said, the processes of customer service and sales are main surfaces of competition, while price competition is less essential .  In this context Leroy Merlin identified a need, so that advisors may spend all their time with a customer and not just inserting data into computer. In this case it was important that an operator could enter data concerning orders together with a client. A solution to this problem were mobile tools, in development of which the company decided to invest. Implemented tools brought not only sales effects but also affected positively perception of the company (PR) and were positively received by network employees (HR).

At 14 Łukasz Felsztukier from Linteri started his speech. In presentation “Beacons as a technology supporting omnichannel – present and future solutions”; Łukasz pointed that the biggest challenge for modern companies is the unification of user experience in all sales channels. Besides, it is important that particular channels do not compete but complement with each other. It requires organizational changes in companies. Where is the place for beacons in all this? Mentioned tools let to optimize customer service and improve Customer Experience. Main tasks for beacons are: analysis, personalization, communication, navigation, integration of data concerning offline channels with those collected online, and also unification of customer’s profile. By this information, companies are able to neutralize negative effects of showrooming (product tested in the stationary shop, and later on bought online, from competition). Interesting idea seems to be integrating beacons with wereables and augmented reality – I am waiting impatiently for first implementations.

At 14:30 Arkadiusz Urban from We like Caps! started his presentation – “World of many screens”. Arkadiusz presented interesting data about where and when we “consume” media on mobile screens. From latest research it is visible that still most popular places of Internet surfing are: home, travelling and shop. What is interesting is that mobile industry in Poland is developing really fast (2^nd biggest market in Europe, according to Intel report). The problem is that a lot of websites are not ready yet for mobile solutions, that is why Polish companies should work on responsivity of their webpages.

At 15 Maciej Swoboda from Netizens Digital Innovation House started his speech and described “How beacons revolution is going to change retail market?”. Maciej presented interesting data from Business Insider according to which: 75% people would be willing to purchase product after interacting with Beacons and 61% people after beacons implementation declare more frequent shop visits. He presented also a report, according to which in 2015 beacons market will be worth 4,4 billion dollars and in 2016 it will be as much as 44,4 billion. At the same time Samsung is working on solutions thanks to which it will be possible to avoid installing application on smartphone to start interaction with beacon.

Last presentation took place at 15:30. The author, Tomasz Woźniak  from Future Mind was speaking about how mobile solutions changed out customs and approach to things like entertainment or sport. Speaker mentioned a lot of interesting examples, which proved that mobile positively affects for example interest in sports among Americans. The need of appreciation is realized in this case through sharing sport achievements via social media.

Concluding, Mobile Congress is a noteworthy event for people operating in e-commerce and also for companies, such as Apollogic, which are willing to introduce to their product and service offer innovative solutions. It is crucial to refine availability of company tools to mobile versions, otherwise the needs of modern consumer are not going to be realized. Mobile solutions  should not be only considered in B2C context but also B2B – where present market is equally large, and companies are ready for implementing innovations.