Mobile Collaboration Community

The collaboration community requires a mobile friendly version of the community in order to increase the draw and retention of the consumer.  This is simply a price of entry and must be provided in order to continue to support the consumer any time and any where.  The simple fact of the matter is that retail sites; shopping, purchasing and consumer interactive, must provide the mobile friendly version because more and more people are only accessing via mobile device.  In addition, most people interact with social media accounts more often than not from their mobile device, and this holds doubly true for millennials.  This leaves the retailer with no choice but to support and encourage a mobile friendly version that allows the consumer to cross between versions easily and without losing any features.

The key to success for your mobile collaboration community is to not lose any features in the mobile version and more than that to provide additional features on the mobile friendly version.  There are many features derived from location based capabilities that will make the mobile community more fresh and exciting that are related location based capabilities.  Some of these features would include:

• Allowing you to search for contacts near your location so you can connect and shop or meet for additional activities like lunch or dinner.  
• Notification of specials when you are within range of a store.
• Notification of specials in store departments when you are in the store and shopping.
• Special offers during key seasons to provide free shipping on purchases over $100 from the store.  I am particularly passionate about this service because of the convenience when Christmas shopping for example.  This can also be particularly valuable in home improvement stores as well.

The consumer focus on mobile technology will only increase over time as more and more features are developed and the hardware and network technologies improve.  The expansions in social technology are growing faster and faster with new capabilities offered on a more frequent basis, and the location based opportunities is one of the greatest potential values on the near horizon.  The velocity of change in technology is increasing and consumers, and especially younger consumers, are to a very large extent driving the change with increasing frequency.  Small and local specialty type retailers such as locally produced artwork and clothing are somewhat immune to this drive because they have developed a customer base that frequents the store on a regular basis.  It is the large regional and nationwide retailers that must adapt or die from the technology.

As technology and the consumer demands change, the large retailer must embrace these changes in order to survive.  The collaboration community can provide a great advantage to the ability of the retailer to adapt and provide new offerings to their customers.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?