Investing into Mobile Application Development for your business: What’s the Gain?

Due to the proliferation of smartphones, the ways that people communicate, spend their leisure time, perform shopping, and do their work have drastically changed. As everybody was starting moving towards smartphones, both mobile applications and wireless gaming have been growing in the recent past days.

According to the statistics taken on smartphone users, around 63% of the users are playing games, and almost everybody is downloading and using mobile applications. However, around 62% of smartphone shoppers do mobile online shopping at least once in a month. In the near future, around 31% of the smartphone users are expected to do more mobile shopping.

Generally, B2C businesses are aware that mobile applications are mandatory to gain a competitive advantage, while the B2B businesses neglect some important opportunities. Let us look at a glance on the B2B marketing to find some real arguments in favor of mobile applications.

As per the research done by the “Small Business and Entrepreneur Council”, generally small businesses use mobile applications for managing their operations that conserve 725,000,000+ employee hours and around 370,000,000+ million business hours per annum. This shows that a huge amount of time saved in using mobile applications.

Now, Let us have a look at the average business owner. The use of mobile applications that can spare companies’ time spent on monotonous jobs, such as document sharing, book-keeping and travelling, can save small-sized business owners on an average of $377/month, i.e., up to $4,000/year.

As there are many mobile applications available and they can be customized based on specific requirements, businesses can use the applications and improve their business processes as well as their business efficiency globally.

So, how do you build a winning and reliable mobile application? Before investing your money, you need to make sure that you can limit the risks of failure. The very first step that you need to take is nothing but checking out which trend is up at present and coming, and finding which one will be suitable for your business model. Also, let your clients easily download your customized mobile application, and hence make the application available to them anytime and anywhere.

Also, establish a mobile application that provides great support to the users and their processes. For example, instead of making the users fill a request through email, you can provide a customer service application where it is easy for them to deal with the problems concerning your products.

You have so many mobile applications available to accelerate your business. Indeed, the applications are not only there to provide support for B2C enterprises, they do support all kinds of businesses. You need to just imagine out-of-the box and get assistance from a best mobile application development company who can understand your requirements, the needs of your potential customer, and very importantly, have a proven track record in mobile application development.

Another key to get success in your business is finding a right partner. Nowadays, companies can able to select from different mobile application development options. You have so many mobile application development companies that have a comprehensive knowledge in programming, localization, and also porting from old projects. They provide fully customized mobile solutions, and hence you can get whatever you need for your business.

As mobile applications have the capability to empower your employees, customers and partners, it greatly improves your productivity multiple times and brings profitable growth in your business.

On the other hand, ROI or Return on Investment will compensate the mobile application development costs by a significant number of times as the development is usually a one-time development with very less or no enhancement or maintenance cost.

Hence, due to the lucrative benefits of mobile applications on the market, there are many ways for mobile application developers as well as the business owners, who are in need of a mobile application for their business, to cash in during this boom of mobile application growth.

WordPress App For Android Gets Stylized! Are You Ready For It?

Hurray! At last, the WordPress App on your Android-powered device has got a facelift. The new interface is substantially more integrated and hence it enables ease of usability for the users. Also, the new interface greatly attracts the individuals who use blogs on a daily basis.

Let us have a closer look at the following upgraded new interface.

•     Menu Drawer is an interface that allows users to navigate to other parts of the application       effortlessly. The users can easily access the menu by simply tapping on the arrow on the left of the blog logo. Otherwise, the users can simply swipe the screen from the left side towards the right.
•     Suppose, if you are controlling more than one blog through the app, then the drop down menu at the Menu Drawer will show you the list of all your blogs. This menu helps you to switch from one blog to another by using a single interface.
•     The Menu Drawer interface remembers the selection you did in your last session. This helps you to start exactly from where you left when you return.
•     Another new interface is the Action Bar, which allows users to easily access general features such as creating a new post, sharing with other apps or refreshing the app.

Apart from revamping the interface, several changes have also been done in the WordPress Android app.

•     The View Site option in the Menu Drawer allows the users to view their own blog from within the application.
•     The Dashboard option in the Menu Drawer helps the users to access the Admin area of their WordPress.
•     In the updated app, the content part in the post editor can be extended. This enables users to navigate around the content area and make changes in a post easily.
•     Suppose, if your post consists of an image and it couldn’t be uploaded properly, then the post will not be published and it will be saved in the draft, so that you can make changes in the image and publish the post later.
•     The WordPress.com Reader is now using an improved cache system that helps faster loading.
•     Most of the views, such as list views and the post editor, have been updated as per the Holo Style guidelines.

If you want to use upgraded WordPress on Android, then you can download the app from the WordPress website. If you are not using Android, then you can redirect to the app straight away.

Why Foreign Companies Outsource Web Development to India Web Design Firms?

In India, the most popular outsourcing business is web designing. To get high quality services at an affordable cost, a large number of foreign companies have started outsourcing their web design and development projects  to Indian companies.

Moreover, the web designers and developers in India are highly skilled and also efficient in their work. Therefore, the popularity of India web design and development is rapidly increasing. Web design and development is an innovative work, where a mess of ability in addition to insight is needed to play with the brief given by the customer for designing and developing a website.

Nowadays, the internet users are rapidly increasing every day and every user has different requirements. So, a web designer must recognize the market demand as well as the client’s requirements before start designing a website for the client.

There are different reasons as to why foreign companies outsource web development to Indian web design firms:

•     Cost-effective
•     Quality
•     Language
•     Deliverance

Cost-effective: For any business either small, medium or big, investment is an issue. Not each organization can lose its string for something that could be carried out at a low-level cost from somewhere else. Indian web design and development company have a pool of expert web designers and developers to pay that cuts down the expense of projects. This makes the Indian Web designers and developers to provide the web development services to the offshore clients at affordable cost.

Quality: When coming to quality, there is no compromise in the quality of any web development product offered by Indian web design and development companies. Many people have the opinion that if a product is offered for a low price, then it means that the product is ineffective. Conversely, in India, the resources especially the human resources are very cheap. Therefore, the Indian web design and developers provide high quality web design and development services.

Language: There are so many Asian countries similar to India offering low-cost web design and development services. Even though the final product and its cost are very much similar to the Indian web design and development companies, there is a huge difference in the language. Generally, the web designers and developers from India are proficient in the language “English”. Hence, this helps the clients from foreign countries to feel very comfortable in conveying their issues and queries.

Deliverance: Suppose, if a web design and development project is not completed in the correct time, then the main intention of developing the website might fail. Generally, an online business needs professionalism and discipline. The internet users or online shoppers do not know you in reality, they know only the virtual information that you have given in your website. Only your website represents you to the shoppers or internet users. So, you need to project yourself as a professional and a very disciplined online business to them. Therefore, it is mandatory for you to publish your website on time to gain more number of customers as well as to gain more business.

As almost all web design and development companies in India have the above mentioned qualifications, most  foreign companies are outsourcing their web design and development projects to Indian web design firms.

Why Go For Free Email Solutions, When You Can Have Dedicated Email on Your Domain.

Suppose, if you own an online business, then selecting an appropriate email solution is exceptionally vital. So many valid reasons are there to have a dedicated email on your domain, as this option makes more differences when compared to free email solutions. Apart from making differences, it also gives you more benefits than free email solutions. On the other hand, getting services on offer for your webmail are also very important for your online business.

The following are some of the benefits of having dedicated email on your domain:

•  Suppose, if you are using business email servers, then one of the most fundamental things that you need to concentrate on is resources. At the same time, if you have a dedicated server to deal with your webmail necessitates, more regularly than not resources are what profit the most. You don't need to stress over imparting resources to various other businesses. Therefore, you get to keep a huge bandwidth also. This easily frees different resources hosted by the server for different tasks.

• However, having a dedicated business email hosting server gives you more confidence that you are having an entire control over numerous things. The force of having your own particular mail servers guarantees that you have less stress over other problems. Furthermore, they also provide you an improved stability.

• In generally cases, the expenditure of having your own particular message servers can help you save your money. This also helps you to do your work that fit within your budget. So, you bestow wind up spending more for something as vital as email services.

• In general, committed email servers pack in entire administrative rights. Business owners can rest guaranteed about the constraints of a service supplier. Each of the one ought to do is install an application for the reason. Therefore, with these servers, you can able to modify your online business requirements through your email server host, without worrying about an excessive amount of things.

• Another imperative feature of having a committed server for your email needs is a complete technical and customer support. Evidently, since you are the sole cost bearer of the host, you might be guaranteed that you get quality help. Yes, not all items free are packaged resourcefully. You get precisely what you pay for, which can truly mean a lot in times of emergency.

• Next, security is an additional important feature to remember. It is known that all free email hosts are not protected. If you pay for a specific service, the company is entirely responsible for protecting the information based on your clients and adhering to strict privacy policies.

• In a dedicated server case, generally clients are offered a substantial amount of disc space at an ostensible expense. Business owners have the capability to pick a server that helps their online storage requirements, without any restrictions. However, this doesn’t cost much for the business owners. Particularly, making changes like upgradations or modifications with bound message servers is also a breeze. Clients don't have to stress over paying additional amount for any extra services since the item is packaged to meet particular client necessities.

Thus, having a dedicated email server gives you loads of advantages. Moreover, with control and steadiness, there is additionally the comfort factor, which is equally significant. In today's exceptionally competitive age, all the above mentioned things matter a lot. If you own an online business, you should make sure that the least you do is offer reliability to your dedicated clients.

Starting Off On Web Design, Basic Suggestions That Could Move Things Upward - By K2B Solutions

So you have decided to become a web designer, but you don’t have any idea where to start off. Don’t panic! As you think, it is not so hard to design a website. You are just required to spend some effort and time - That’s it!

Generally, web designers build the visual elements of a website. You just need to have a very good grasp of design prerequisites and also learn how to use the chief design software. Also, you must have the specific field of knowledge and the technical skills.

As everyone knows, creating a good first impression is extremely vital. Therefore, it is mandatory to build best websites that help you to increase the number of visitors to your website.

Before start building a web design, you need to have a basic idea about the important things that have to be implemented in the web design.

The following suggestions are targeted at neophyte web designers that help them to create a web design:

• Use similar field websites as references: To get a general idea of what to do with your website, first you need to refer other relevant websites. You can use other websites as your references but at the same time, you need to make sure that you don’t copy the same. If you have seen any attractive web design, color, layout or scheme, then try to use it as the beginning point of your website.

• Build an inimitable web design: To gain more number of visitors to your website, you need to think something innovative and create a unique web design that attracts your visitors. You need to ensure that the web design must not contain too much of animations and graphics. 

• Create pertinent and utile content: Create a content that is relevant to your website and ensure that the content is useful for the website visitors. When creating the content, you should have the conscious that the content should not be too lengthy, which requires the visitors to do much scrolling.

• Use content supportive images: The graphic that you use in your website must not overlook the content. It should always give a great support to the content present in your website. Always avoid using too much graphics on your website because unnecessary dumping of graphics may disturb your visitors’ concentration and thus make them leave the website immediately.

• Ensure limited file size: So many factors are there affecting the website loading time but still you need to make sure that the large files are not the reason. If the file you use is less in size, then your website loads very fast in the Internet and thus results in high Google ranking.  

• Create your website that is easily acquired by visitors: Build your website that is easily reachable and acquirable by visitors across the globe. This makes the visitors to easily meander across the web pages of your website.

• Use good fonts, metaphors and backgrounds: Use very good fonts, metaphors and backgrounds in your website based on your clients’ preference and also make sure that these components fit well to your website. Also, ensure that the font you are using for your website is easily readable and easily obtainable by everyone.

• Don’t use shouting colors: Website color scheme, the tool used for building color combinations, is a very important component of web design. When creating your website, avoid using shouting colors like red, yellow, green, etc. Always try to use the most common color schemes such as Blue, orange and white – Red, yellow and white – Yellow, grey and white – Red, grey and white – Blue and white.

• Use the maximum existing space: Always try to utilize almost all the available spaces and also ensure that the website doesn’t looks congested as well. On the other hand, never leave empty spaces in your website. Instead of leaving empty spaces, you can add some relevant graphics in your website that attracts more visitors. 

• Ensure no white spots: In your website, make sure that there are no white spots left out as such. Always fill up with images and text on all the sides of your webpage. Every spot of your website must have its own things and they should not interrupt the website visitors too.

• Avoid broken links: Ensure that all the links in your website are working properly. A good website shouldn't have any broken links. The broken links give a bad impression to your website and also make your website valueless during the Search Engine Optimization process. As a result, the visitors may lose the chance of viewing your website.

• Don’t forget to add site search option: Site search option is an imperative option that has to be added in your website. Because, the clients generally use the search option when they look for something in your website.      

• Have clear and simple navigation: Ensure that you are using a clear and uncomplicated navigation menu. If you use intricate Flash-based menus or some other tiered menus, then the visitors will not know how to use those menus and ultimately leave your website.

• Avoid using excessive banner advertisements: Instead of using too many advertisements banners, give more relevant content and also its links into your website. Because, visitors don’t like to spend much time on advertisements. So, avoid using unnecessary advertisements in your website.

• Follow proper HTML standards: You should always follow the appropriate HTML standards to make your website HTML-compliant. So that your website will work properly in all browsers.

Hope, the above mentioned suggestions would definitely give you more confidence in tackling web design. 

Business Benefits of Offshoring or Nearshoring.

In these tough financial times, many organizations are expecting far-flung destinations for their business or IT processes to take advantage of lower wages, lower infrastructure costs and lower operational costs.

Outsourcing is one of the best practices proven as a great business model for increasing profit margin, reducing operating costs and maintaining high-quality customer service. The business model is generally scalable and it allows companies in any business market to adjust resource allocation especially during the business conditions change.

In order to increase profits and reduce expenses, many companies choose for out-of-country outsourcing, which consists of two major categories such as offshoring and nearshoring.

Offshoring is the process of reducing production costs by relocating business processes, operational processes or supporting processes of a company, from one country to another foreign country.

Recently, offshoring has been primarily allied with the sourcing of administrative or technical services that support both local operations and global operations from outside the home country, through internal or external delivery models.

The main reasons why companies would offshore their IT projects are as follows:

·         Increase in productivity

·         Availability of  manpower pool

·         Rapid turnaround time

·         Low staff-related costs

·         Significant cost advantage

·         Focus on essential business operations

·         Operational flexibility

·         Enter in new market areas

Even though the preliminary stage savings could be made through offshoring are conspicuous, what is less palpable are the hidden costs, problems that occur in management, variation in employment practices and laws, time lag, instability and miscommunication among clients and suppliers, that can result due to a misalignment of expectations when delivering services.

In contrast to offshoring, nearshoring is the process of transferring IP processes or business to other companies in a nearby country, habitually sharing a border with your country, where both the companies expect to benefit from different dimensions of proximity such as cultural, economic, political, linguistic, geographic, time zone, etc.

Most companies prefer the nearshore approach for their business or IT processes because of the following reasons:

·         Similar time zone: As the nearshore destinations have similar time zone, both the parties will get some key advantages such as work done at same time, get well-coordinated projects, which leads to more satisfied and steady workforces.

·     Similar language: As both the parties are in the same region, the nearshore provides experts in their client’s language. Therefore, the nearshore providers can able to easily and effectively communicate with their clients via. Telephone or E-mail.

·        Geographic proximity: The Geographical closeness of both the parties allows them meet in person whenever they require. This helps them to easily solve some difficult issues face to face.

·  Cultural affinity: The cultural affinity of the parties helps them to have better communication as well as coordination. As there is a huge gap between offshoring partners, a lot of problems arise, which will be definitely avoided in nearshoring.

·         High-standards of education: Although the education standards are not identical, they are more likely to be related in nearby countries. The well-trained nearshore providers will be having an education similar to their clients.

·         Cost-effectiveness: Nearshoring provides organizations the ability to manage a high-level of control on their production costs by enduring the cost of doing business at low-cost.

Nearshoring conquers several constraints of offshoring such as time lags, variation in local employment practices and laws and other oversights to tackle risks, which include intellectual property thievery and fraud. It offers great constancy and security along with cost-effectiveness. The benefits of nearshoring reflect both the country’s trade practices, standards, legislation and institutions.

For many companies, nearshoring represents the perfect combination between operational efficacy and cost-savings, merging the advantages of both outsourcing and on-site activities.

In the sourcing industry, nearshoring is continue to grow and also becoming a feasible and attractive alternative when compared to offshoring, by focusing on proficient service areas as well as encouraging cultural, geographical and long-term cost savings.

In recent days, nearshoring has become a great marketing differentiator for the nations and providers who want to make themselves apart from other sourcing centers in Asia, particularly the dominant, India.

Even, already established offshore providers are now setting up nearshore centers to remain competitive to the UK market. Still, India is doing great job in the offshore stakes. Indian companies are also looking forward to extend the offshore opportunity that helps them to increase nearshore strategies and also they are building up websites in several European countries.

Both offshoring and nearshoring entail export of production or functions, however both are basically different. A business may choose offshoring or nearhoring to utilize the services of outsourcing provider or to carry out the process itself.

Depends on the goal, business activities and risk management strategy, an organization will choose the type of outsourcing approach, either nearshoring or offshoring. However, the organization should also be aware that offshoring may cause more risks when compared to nearshoring.

Responsive Websites Vs Mobile Websites Vs Mobile Apps.

Mobile Technology has changed our lives in the past few years. The incessant evolution of mobile phones, regular release of latest mobile OS versions, availability of different varieties of mobile apps and high-speed internet connections have entirely transformed our lives to completely depend on mobile devices for all our online activities.

Apart from mobile devices, people have now started using smartphones, tablets and other hand-held devices for connecting to the internet, from anywhere and anytime they need. This revolution has made many companies to shift from Desktop to Mobile strategy for their online businesses.

Moreover, the shift from desktop to mobile devices also necessitates web designers and developers to refocus their web designing process, to create websites that support all hand-held devices.

Responsive Websites Vs Mobile Websites Vs Mobile Apps.

The web designers and developers follow various approaches to make mobile web presence. They build a separate mobile website or mobile application for users to view websites on their mobile phones. The latest approach followed for this purpose is the Responsive Web Design.

 To make a mobile presence, every business needs to decide on which route to go down - Mobile Website or Mobile Application? Mobile website or Responsive Website?  Mobile application or Responsive Website?

Mobile Website:

A mobile website is a website created significantly for small-screen devices. Similar to a regular website, mobile websites can also be accessed through various browsers. A mobile website generally consists of limited content and hence it is light-weighted and faster when compared to regular websites. If a browser is using mobile phone to view a website, then the website automatically detects that the website has accessed on a mobile phone and then it redirects the browser to a separate URL to view the mobile specific website.

Why do you need a separate mobile website?

Even though the invention of smartphones has changed the importance of mobile websites, certain cases still exists where mobile websites make sense. Limiting the view’s options to only what they require to perform on their mobile phone is achieved effectively through a separate mobile website.

Mobile Applications:

Mobile applications are the applications developed mainly for mobile device platforms such as iPhone, Android, Google, etc. Usually, mobile applications have been downloaded from app stores. There are a large number of mobile applications available for various platforms. As there are many mobile phones available with various operating systems, mobile applications are incredibly expensive to develop and maintain.

When do you need to develop a mobile application?

In recent days, the things what you are able to accomplish using a standalone mobile application can now be able to easily done with a website. But still the necessity of using mobile applications for businesses is there around. Mobile applications are great for storing a large amount of information such as video, audio and catalogues. Even though the applications have a huge amount of information, the users are not required to wait on loading information over a slow 3G Internet connection. This is how the mobile applications greatly enhance user’s experience.

Responsive Web Design:

Responsive Web Design is a latest approach to web design that allows you to create responsive websites. A responsive website is a website that can adapt itself on various screen-sizes regardless of the devices that you use it. Responsive websites are usually optimized for viewing on mobile phones, tablets and desktops.  Hence, the Responsive Web Design approach eliminates the need for developing separate website for every mobile device platform. This approach is currently preferred by web designers and developers as it covers a large number of users’ devices.

Mobile websites vs. Mobile applications

Suppose, your website is relating to marketing and it requires a wider customer reach, then a mobile website is apt for your business. A mobile website provides greater compatibility with different browsers and allows constant updating. However, if your website needs interaction with users such as accessing personal data or sharing user information, then a mobile application works better for your business.

If you want your website that has been easily shared and accessed, then mobile application is the right option. People can easily find out your mobile website by using any of their browsers. In case, your company involves in services like reporting and calculations or game creation and promotion, then using mobile application is the best solution.

Mobile applications have the ability to work without the internet connection. Conversely, mobile websites cannot work in such situation. Moreover, mobile applications require very high development cost when compared to mobile websites.

Mobile websites vs. Responsive Web Design

If you want to provide users a mobile experience that engrosses speedy decisions and also selling and buying, then you need to have a separate mobile website. However, if you want to constantly add something or update your website based on new trends, then having a single responsive web design is the best option.

As a responsive website is entirely composed of complicated codes and technicalities, it requires a huge development cost. However, a mobile website requires a very low development charges. When considering the optimization process and SEO, responsive website takes up the priority than the mobile websites.

Responsive Web Design vs. Mobile Applications

When thinking about the advantages of using responsive websites, first thing that comes to our mind is the download activities that are not required for responsive websites whereas the mobile applications require you to download them from app stores. Also, a responsive website doesn’t require you to update any information again and again. You just need to update the information on your main website that makes your work done.

Responsive websites provides you the compatibility across various platforms. It enables the content updates in the websites driven by Content Management Systems. The main disadvantage of using a responsive website is that the responsive website cannot be used without an internet connection while the mobile applications support this situation. Comparing the development cost, both responsive websites and mobile applications entail a strong budget.

Conclusion:

The above three comparisons clearly showed that all the three approaches, to make mobile presence, have both pros and cons. Based on the nature of your business, you need to select the best approach that fits for your situation. Before selecting any one of the three approaches, it is better to research well about your business, audience and the technologies that you need for best results.

The Role of Mobile Applications in Modern World.

 In this expanding technology boom, the wireless networks are leading us in every aspect of life. Just envisage the way mobile devices manage our lives and how they do. The convergence of the wireless industries has made the situation where people are expecting a lot out of their mobile phones. So, mobile applications have become more popular as their usage is increasing predominantly across mobile phone users.

A mobile application or mobile app is application software developed to run on handheld devices such as mobile phones, tablets, personal digital assistants and enterprise digital assistants. Mobile apps are downloaded from different application distribution platforms to target devices such as Android, Blackberry, Windows phone and iPhone. Sometimes, mobile apps can be downloaded to desktop computers or laptops. Both free apps and apps with a price are available in the app store.

Mobile apps are generally provided for information retrieval and general productivity, including email, weather information, contacts, etc. The explosion in number of mobile apps led to the creation of large number of review and content curation sources such as magazines, online app-discovery services and blogs.

The mobile apps are available for various platforms such as iPad, iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Nokia, J2ME, Palm web Os and many more.

iPhone or iPad apps: The demand for iPhone and iPad applications is rapidly increased and creates the necessities for businesses to think beyond personal computers. Around half a million iPhone applications are available in the apple app store and the estimated number of apps downloaded from apple app store was 20 billion.

Android apps: Android Market, also called as Google Play, is an international online store developed by Goggle mainly for Android devices. There were around 700,000 apps are available for Android devices and 25 billion apps downloaded from the Google Play so far.

Windows apps: Microsoft provides Windows Phone Store for users to download apps for their Windows Phone. There are 120,000 apps available in the Windows Phone Store as per the record in October 2012.

Nokia apps: An app store for Nokia phones acts as a distribution platform for its previous Windows Mobile OS. In February 2011, Nokia would start using Windows Phone 7 as its primary OS. In May 2011, Nokia announced that they are planning to rebrand Ovi products line under Nokia brand. And in October 2011, the Ovi store was renamed as Nokia Store. Nokia store provides 50,000 apps to the Nokia phone users and reports around 9million downloads are done by the users per day.

Blackberry apps: The BlackBerry App World application distribution service provides multitude of apps for the Blackberry mobile devices. When compared to Apple app store and Android market, BlackBerry App store is the only store getting more revenue per app. The BlackBerry App World is reporting that there are 3 million downloads per day and the overall downloads are around one billion.

As mobile application users want more fascinating things in their mobile phones, the demand for the innovative applications is extremely growing. The booming usage of mobile apps offers terrific opportunities for mobile application developers and it also supports businesses to grow.

In short, we could say that we are in a year of mobility and hence the necessity of mobile phones and the mobile apps that advance mobile accessibility is tremendously increased.