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Overseas trends a key influence in the development of Mobile Apps in Australia

Q&A with Shane Williamson, Co-Founder of Mobile Monday Sydney, M. App Con 2011

Mobile applications for smartphones and mobile handsets such as iphones, BlackBerry, Nokia, Google Android, ipad or Windows Mobile devices are the fastest growing marketing channel for businesses across all industries in Australia at the moment. Marketing IQ interviews Shane Williams about the challenges associated with the development of mobile apps, and how the Australian market compares in contrast with other countries in the way that mobile devices and applications are being used. Marketing IQ: What are some challenges you are facing when it comes to the issue of identifying the best resources of internal or external development of mobile app? Shane: Well, I guess, for organisations this can be something that can be a bit of a barrier and I guess it’s something that’s very important for organisations to understand that a lot of this thinking is already internal within their organisation, within their IT department, especially with what they’re looking at doing online. So the first thing I’d say is – that organisations should evaluate what their current online strategies are and then try to bring mobile in alignment with that. That is going to help them to understand whether or not that they need to bring in third-party resources for developing mobile applications or mobile sites where they’re not utilising the existing expertise they have internally to build that. So really it’s going to come down to the strategy they have around IT and how they’re looking forward with that and how they’re going to implement mobile. Marketing IQ: How can a company successfully identify providers to develop a mobile app that meets specific requirements? Shane: Well, again, I guess this is something that they hopefully would already have a strategy around how they’re working with customers online and that is a

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great place to start. They can then start to verify the level of functionality that they want to work with customers. Mobile is an extension of online, whilst it does have some various components that can be used where we can’t use that online, it’s important to sort of start off a main core level of where we already have that interaction with customers and start with it. So when we’re looking at identifying potential partners or provided that we can use it there, I guess, one of the important things to see is - is there a track record with that organisation? One of the things we’ve noticed with working with mobile applications with what’s going to pass with online is that we’ve been here before so it’s important to work with partners who understand the online environment quite well and then to look at their track record in what they’ve done. Now this should again come back down to the strategy you have with online of how you see that you are going to test working with customers or working with your staff inside the organisation with mobile applications and services, and then how you can sort of then take that to the next level. Therefore you might actually look at working with multiple providers. Marketing IQ: How does the Australian market compare in contrast with other countries in the way that mobile device and applications are being used right now? Shane: Well, good news here is that there are other countries that are actually leading a little bit with how they’re actually using mobile and that’s a great thing for Australia. That means that we can actually see some of these trends and how a mobile is being used both with applications and online components and then specific countries we can then use that to develop our own mobile strategies within organisations in Australia. So in particular, when we look at the market around mobile, a lot of the advanced countries that use mobile have been specifically around parts of Asia, in particular Japan and Korea, and when we look at Europe mainly northern European countries like Sweden and Norway. So we can take advantage of looking of where they’ve already been in development and used in applications and we can bring some of those learnings into Australia. Now, America for a long time was actually lagging behind in what was happening in mobile but they have started to take advantage of the new technologies around mobile, specifically 3G and the new 4G that’s just been announced recently. So we’re actually starting to see some very strong headway in America in how they’re using mobile. So in the end, it comes down to how we look at specific country, see the likenesses within our own countries and then we can then target specific strategies from the things we’ve seen already taking place overseas.

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Marketing IQ: Will mobile applications be a long term marketing channel or are they a current trend phenomenon?

Shane: Well, I guess I wouldn’t be in a job if I said it was just a trend, but no, this is definitely a long-term marketing channel. So, one of the things that I consult with companies about is bringing mobile into the mainstream IT strategy that they currently have within the organisation. Again I use the example of when the internet first started to come out and companies started to look at that, they were relying very heavily on third-parties to develop that for them but they realised that it became a crucial partner in their intellectual property, and they brought both the hosting of the infrastructure as well as the processes around what they did online internally within that company; and mobile really should be seeing that.

Mobile within a company has two different areas. One is how the organisation is using it to better their business processes; and then secondly, how you’re using that with how you’re working and communicating with your customers. So, it’s important that it’s seen as a strategic component of what they’re currently doing now and how they’re going to benefit from both the technology and the trends that are coming out from it.

Marketing IQ: What security issues do you currently face with your mobile app and how can these be resolved? Shane: Well, we’re not seeing a lot of issues around security. But we can see as it becomes more popular that this would be something that will become an issue. So, there are a lot of different ways in which we can ensure the security and also from how we are using them internally within organisation to how we’re working with our customers. I guess the key thing her is that it’s not new, it’s something that has been around for quite a long time of how we ensure both the data as well the connectivity, and once again we’ve seen a lot of this already in the online realm and this is something that we can take advantage of and bring towards in to the mobile. So, we are seeing a lot of great progress around how we can ensure that people who are using the mobile will be safe both in their accessing applications or storing their information on websites, back into ensuring that organisations that their data is safe and how they’re exposing that through a mobile interface as well. So, we take advantage of a lot of the existing security business processes and technologies that we take for granted online today.

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Shane Williamson has worked in both the information technology and mobile industries in various technical, marketing, strategy and management roles. Shane’s extensive experience has included roles within the South Pacific and South East Asian regions, working for companies such as Microsoft, 3 Australia and Optus. Shane is the co-founder of the Sydney chapter of Mobile Monday (http://www.mobilemondaysydney.com). Mobile

Monday Sydney is a monthly mobile industry networking event that has been in operation since 2006. Convergence and innovation of mobile technologies are Shane’s passions and he has established a Blog called Universal Convergence to publish his findings and articles written on these subjects and discuss them with the global community.