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How to Create a Budget for Your Mobile App Development Project

You want to build an app but wondering how much will it cost you? This article will help you in planning an app by creating a budget with steps to consider and other useful facts.

At Deforay, we have been developing mobile apps for Android and iOS platforms for over 10 years. From the first project, our goal was to build robust, functional, and feature-rich apps for our clients within an affordable budget.

In 2020, developing an app for both Android and iOS or a cross-platform has become easy and budget-friendly without compromising the quality. It has become less expensive since we are using apps for many purposes including communications, games, lifestyle, business, e-commerce, food, and health calculators.

It takes a lot of steps to develop a custom mobile app. Let’s understand the different stages it goes through to become a user-friendly app.

Mobile App Development Stages

There are five stages involved in developing a mobile app. An app developing company requires 3-6 months to develop a functional app. They follow these steps,

1. Analytics

The first step in building an app is to analyze its requirements, purpose, and objectives. This stage takes 5 days to complete the functions, technical aspects, and conceptual components of the app.

2. Design

The design stage of app development is intensive and crucial. Most clients experience frustration and confusion in agreeing to the design of the app. They need to communicate back and forth with the development team to ensure the design is user friendly and pleasing to the audience. This stage requires 15 days. We can make a lot of changes at this stage to save time and money because once the app enters the development stage it might be difficult to make the changes.

3. Front-End

This is the foremost stage of the app development process. We will work on the front-end development processes after the design approval. The front-end process takes about 40 days. Project managers and developers will monitor the coding and technical aspects of the app to deliver the app on time to the customer.

4. Back-End

The back-end development process of the app will start after a few weeks of the front-end process. It requires 40 days. The back-end developers will develop the app based on the server to interface the database.

5. Quality Check

Once the app development reaches the completion stage, we start quality assurance to check its functionalities. A bug-free app needs accurate quality assurance. QA takes about 20 days. It helps detect the defects and rectify them before launching the app.

Every mobile app development company follows these steps based on the app requirements of the clients. If you are planning to build an app for your business, then you must know this checklist first.

Things to Consider in a Budget for a Mobile App

Before building an app for your business, have a detailed knowledge of the app you need along with its features. There are several factors you need to consider such as,

• Type: What type of app you need for your business? Do you need a gaming business, e-commerce, social networking, health, or lifestyle app? Decide the app you want to build for your business first.

• Platforms: Mobile app for Android, iOS, or Windows platform? Or you need a cross-platform app?

• Design: Simple, moderate, or complex design? Simple has no API and back-end components, moderate has custom UI, API integration, and back-end server while the complex has multi-language support, real-time features, and complex back-end support.

• Device: Smartphones, tablets, Tv’s, and smartwatches. Do you want your app to be compatible with all these devices or a specific one?

• Pages: The more the pages, the complex the app.

• Type and Versions: Native or hybrid app? We develop native apps for a specific operating system while hybrid apps can work on different platforms.

• Database: Popular app databases are mongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc.
• Mobile API: Application Program Interface (API) for apps includes JavaScript, HTML5, and XML-RPC.

• CRM and ERP Integrations: Do you want to integrate Customer Relations management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) tools with your app?

• Analytics: You can install Google Analytics in your app to check the performance of your app.

• Payments: E-commerce apps must integrate payment platforms such as PayPal, Stripe, Bitcoin, and others.

• E-commerce Integration: Grocery and shopping apps need e-commerce integration based on their services. It can be a basic, advanced, or enterprise model.

• Users: We create apps for users which makes it important to have features such as User login, Email Login, Social Login, Accounts, and Privacy settings.

• Additional Features: Some apps may require additional features such as camera, 3rd party API, Chatbot, social sharing, geolocation, multilingual support, and backup.

After a thorough analysis and conceptualization of the app, you can know the exact budget for building your app. You can hire freelancers or an app agency to build the app for you. But the budget will vary because of their work ethics and pricing. When you compare the hourly pricing of freelancers, you can go with a mobile app development company to get the entire budget package. Here are the advantages,

Advantages of Hiring a Mobile App Development Company

• All-in-One Place: A mobile app agency has a full staff to complete the app development process. You don’t have to look for analysts, testers, and developers.

• Know What You Pay for: The company will give you a transparent invoice at every stage of the app development process. It will get the client’s inputs and feedback before adding additional features and integrations. This will help estimate your budget easily.

• On-Time Delivery: When you work with freelancers, your app might get delayed at different stages. But a company will assure delivering high-quality apps within the given time frame.

• Consistent Support: Apps require post-development maintenance support for updates and bug fixes. The company staff will provide these services.

The cost of developing an app depends on various factors and if you spend $1000 on building the app, then 20% goes into app maintenance per year.

We hope this detailed analysis of creating a budget will help estimate your app idea. If not, our team of experts is available any time to help plan your mobile app budget.

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Patient-Centric Approach in Custom Healthcare Software Development

The lack of proper healthcare systems for patients raises the need to adapt to the latest and fastest-growing virtual health trends. It becomes important to empower hospital workers, doctors, nurses, and caregivers to optimize resources and reduce the cost of health care. The mind-blowing growth of the software development industry can help achieve this by invoking a partnership between physicians and patients.

custom software development for hospitals

Custom healthcare software development enables healthcare providers to deliver services to their patients with the aid of smartphones, web, internet, video, sensors, and social media. A patient-centric approach through virtual healthcare technology provides an opportunity for physicians to customize medications and treatment options for patients.

What is Patient-Centric Healthcare?

Patient-centric healthcare refers to the development of innovative technologies based on specific patient health requirements and desired outcomes. These services help treat patients from a clinical, physical, emotional, and financial perspective.

Benefits of Patient-Centric Healthcare Software Solutions

Hassle-Free Clinic Visits: With the help of websites and mobile apps, patients can book appointments remotely and reach the clinic as per the schedule for saving time and money. They can register online for medical documents from home, which eliminates queues at the hospital.

Informed Doctor-Patient Decisions: We empower patients with transparent medical analysis and reports through apps. This becomes easier for doctors and patients to take combined decisions. They can compare previous results and learn about several medical issues through virtual information systems.

Unlimited Communication: People had to wait for long hours on the phone to talk to their specialist or doctor. But with the development of health apps with text messaging, video chats, phone call facilities, it has become easier for patients to ask doubts and get clarification from healthcare providers. These apps are cost-free and unlimited, which makes remote communication tools an excellent option for patients to stay in touch with their caretakers.

Medical Data Accessibility: Digital healthcare software helps doctors to keep track of their patient’s medical history, treatment plan, and lab reports. This information is available to the patients to keep track of their current treatment procedures. They can look at automated reports and lab results to make alterations in the treatment plan.

Open Feedback: Millennial generation believes in reviews and testimonials on social media, websites, and apps than recommendations. Digital apps give patients the power to share their positive or negative experiences in a specific hospital or physician to their network or community. This can increase the reputation and publicity of hospitals, clinics, and doctors. Constructive feedback on appointments, treatment, hospital staff behaviors, and infrastructure from patients can boost your business.

Power of Social Media: Patients want to establish a trustworthy and emotional bond with their caregivers to believe the treatments they are offering. When they see an Instagram post or YouTube video mentioning the experience, educational qualification, and other credentials of doctors, they gain trust in their treatment and medication system. Sharing a little personal data on social media can bring in potential patients.

Virtual Patient Services: Most people dread to visit critically ill and contagious patient centers on the hospital premises. They are afraid of contracting air-borne diseases during their regular check-up. By installing a chatbot on your website, you can speak to patients and provide accurate prescriptions.

Remote Drug Delivery Services: Patients on long-term medication often visit hospital premises for a refill. A custom healthcare software can help patients and the hospital staffs to know the expiration date of medications. The hospital can send a notification to the patients after sending their refill package through delivery services.

Bottom Line

The patient-centric healthcare software puts the needs of the patients first and helps them get instant solutions remotely without wasting their time, money, and energy. If you are running a clinic, hospital, or healthcare center, make informed decisions to build custom patient-centric healthcare software such as health apps, websites, chatbots, and social media pages to expand your business by gaining the trust of patients.

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How Custom Software Development is Transforming the Healthcare Sector?

Doctors are using a laptop or tablet to access the medical information of patients in recent years. They analyze the patient’s history, medical procedures, medications, and health complications through a centralized database. The practice of filing medical papers is disappearing through efficient, modern, and dynamic information technologies in the healthcare industry.

Custom software solutions for healthcare has gained popularity because of its enriched data security, ease of use, and multi-platform synchronicity. Most clinics, hospitals, and pharmacies have health information systems (HIS) to monitor and record patient info, drug prescriptions, and medical personnel relationships.

5 Common Custom Software Solutions for Healthcare Industry

Many hospitals need good quality healthcare information systems (HIS) to reduce their burden of growing illnesses. The global market for custom software development is $140 billion; thanks to its growing demand. If you are looking to develop a custom solution for your pharmacy, clinic or hospital, you can choose any of these listed below,

1. Healthcare Data Management Solutions

Healthcare Data Management Solutions involves recording, storing, and analyzing available patient data to create personalized treatments, communication systems, and healthcare facilities. This can be a brilliant tool for hospitals specialized in a particular form of treatment such as eye, ENT, dental.

A custom healthcare CRM (customer relationship management) system,

· Helps record and store patient information in a centralized database and secure its access from various departments.
· Input real-time updates to derive real-time reports, insights, analytics, and forecasts through automated tools.
· Assists doctors and medical personnel to communicate with patients, identify and resolve issues, and improve their medical practices.

2. Healthcare ERP

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) technology in the healthcare industry helps monitor data and improve communication among different departments within a hospital, pharmacy, or clinic. It speeds up the delivery of improved results by consulting different physicians based on the medical records of the patients available both internally and externally. ERP for healthcare can work best for a large hospital managing several specializations within its premises.

A custom healthcare ERP system,

· Makes patient data transferrable and accessible among different departments inside a hospital.
· Can update and monitor data, reports, and medical records without the risk of losing critical information of the patient.
· Helps to assess the performance of the hospital to make informed decisions in improving patient visitation, health check-ups, and emergency services.
· Integrates human resources, billing, finance, and inventory departments and makes the hospital operations streamlined.

3. Healthcare IoT (Internet of Things)

Implementation of the internet of things in the healthcare industry can create remote monitoring facilities that help access medical records, schedule doctor appointments, and track the status of patients without physical contact. The estimated market for IoT in the healthcare industry can reach $410 billion by 2022.

With smartphones and Wi-Fi, we can develop several software healthcare solutions for,

· Automated health check-ups for elderly patients at home.
· Glucose level monitoring of diabetic patients.
· Dispensing pills with a scheduled alarming system for patients suffering from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
· Improving diagnosis and treatment of patients by accessing virtual real-time reports.

4. Healthcare Mobile Apps

Mobile app development for healthcare is increasing in recent years with over 500,000 apps customized for various health services including telemedicine, fitness, diet & nutrition. These apps help doctors and patients to communicate, share, and track the status of their health in real-time, making it easy to diagnose and prescribe medications.

Some popular mobile apps for healthcare industry include,

· Electronic Medical Record app for sharing heart rate, blood glucose levels, blood pressure levels in real-time with in-built cloud storage.
· Doctor app for helping physicians to schedule their appointments and keep track of their visiting patient’s data.
· Medication app gives patients on-time notifications of their dosage with alarms or vibration facilities.
· E-pharmacy and e-prescription apps for buying drugs with prescription anytime.
· Health, diet, and fitness apps help people to take care of their health with personalized plans and health charts.

5. Healthcare Research & Diagnostics Software

Research and Development (R&D) plays a key role in discoveries made in pharmacology, neurology, oncology, and genetics. Cloud-based software solutions can simplify recording, analyzing, and detecting medical issues that a human doctor cannot do.

Custom medical software can help in,

· Diagnostic and therapeutic purposes.
· Analysing images of cancerous lesions, X-rays, MRI scans
· Graphic data of EEG, heart rate monitor, spirometer, and glucometer.
· Conducting virtual clinical trials by recruiting online patients and reviewing the results through data management software.

Benefits of Custom Healthcare Software

Though the requirements of a specific healthcare sector and the privacy laws of health departments in different countries may vary in creating a custom healthcare software, its benefits remain the same. These include,

· Improved customer experience
· Personal round-the-clock software support team
· Tailor-made solutions
· Cloud storage
· Multi-platform integration
· Data security

In need of a custom healthcare software? Send us a message.

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How to Conduct a Successful Social Media Audit

Social media sites have become popular platforms for showcasing brands, products, services, and marketing strategies in recent times. Many startups are building their companies on the internet depending on the sales and revenue through these online entities. If you have adopted social media marketing strategies to publicize and grow your business, then conducting a social media audit can do wonders for your business.

What is a Social Media Audit?

Social Media Audit is a simple process of monitoring and analyzing your brand’s performance through social media posts, videos, photos, and other digital data across all social media channels. It includes; noting page aesthetics, content quality, web traffic, audience demographics, channel-specific metrics, and publishing strategies.

5 Steps to Perform a Social Media Audit

Many brands are enthusiastic about creating several social media channels across several popular platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram. But, after a period, they wonder why their channel is not performing to their expectations. They fail to monitor and track their social media channel performances to improve their brand recognition traffic and visibility.

Here we list the steps to perform a social media audit for your brand channels to rate their performances and find which platforms to focus more.

Step 1: Find Your Social Media Platforms, Profiles, and Pages

The first step to conduct a social media audit is to find all your social media platforms, pages, and profiles. Make a note of your brand’s profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. 

  • Check whether the business profile is complete with brand info, contact number, and website links.
  • Make a note of brand name and URL for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter Profiles
  • Check for Profile completion including Brand Info, Contact Info and Website Links
  • Double check on aesthetics including Profile Picture, Cover Photo and Theme, High Resolution Images, Verification Check, Company Logo
  • Improve quality of content with creative Taglines, crisp descriptions, grammar and punctuation check

Step 2: Analyse Each Social Media Profile

The next step is to analyze each of your social media profiles separately. Check for Facebook Insights to find who your audience is, the growth of your page and newer strategies to create. For Twitter, you can assess analytics data of your page to the performance. Hashtag engagement and visual content matter the most for your Instagram account. Check for regular maintenance, consistency, and frequency of posts.

Check these factors in respective social media accounts,

  • Analyze Facebook Insights
  • Monitor your posts, visual content, comments generated
  • Hashtag engagement
  • Access to Analytics data
  • Check Frequency of posts

Step 3: Check for Most Shared and Viewed Content

It is important to identify your top social media posts across all platforms to check the recognition, visibility, and reach of your brand. Check for the most shared and viewed content to know which posts are getting the most shares and views. You can adopt similar strategies to develop the quality of your content. This data can help create unique content for each social media platform.

Check for most shared and viewed content like,

  • Most Facebook Engagements
  • Most Instagram Shares
  • Most Retweets
  • Most YouTube Views
  • Most Pinterest Shares
  • Most Page Views

Step 4: Know Your Audience Engagement

Followers are the key to the success and growth of your business. Online Branding and marketing strategies must be developed based on the rate of web traffic and audience engagement. When there is a disconnect between your Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn followers drastically, then you should know that something is not working properly. Consistency is crucial. Audit your followers and know your web traffic rate. The more people connect with your posts, the higher will be your engagements.

Check these factors to know your audience engagement,

  • Facebook Fans, Instagram Followers, Twitter Followers, LinkedIn Followers
  • Web and App Users
  • Visiting Countries
  • Age and Gender
  • Comments Generated
  • Per Individual Follower

Step 5: Determine the Social Media Platforms to Use

It is not necessary to have brand accounts on all social media platforms. Know which suits you the most and concentrate only on that. Choose the most popular and working platforms based on business and web traffic to achieve greater success in the future. Initially, it might take some time to determine which ones are useful and performing in the best manner but with time, you can understand it. Your brand should focus only on the target market and audience.

Statistics show that most companies prefer these social media platforms in this ratio,

  • 70% of businesses prefer having a Facebook Page
  • 40% of brands are active on Instagram
  • 20% of brands use Twitter
  • 85% of companies have LinkedIn accounts

Apart from these, many brands use YouTube, Pinterest, WhatsApp, and Snapchat to deliver their messages to the target audience.

Once you start the process of social media audit by using these steps, it becomes easier for you to create a stronger social media presence with greater content and audience.

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Top 10 Things to Keep in Mind Before Custom Enterprise Software Development

Many organizations opt for a custom Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to expand their business ahead of their competitors. Implementation of ERP software comes with its own advantages and disadvantages as it is based on the aspects related to several business verticals. But, most of the companies understand that customized ERP software can streamline their processes, systems, and procedures with robust functionality and productivity. 

Deciding to move to an integrated ERP system can be an enormous step for both small businesses and established ones. Therefore, it’s important to look for certain factors when developing custom ERP software for your business. 

1. Know your Core Business Requirements 

Developing custom ERP software requires robust research in understanding the core requirements of the business. Before implementing an ERP system, check for the total solutions offered by it. Single end-to-end software works better than buying additional point solutions. Build a list of the company’s key objectives and goals before buying an ERP system. Key Performance Indicators (KPI) will help develop a cost-efficient and functional customized ERP system for your company. 

2. Better Scalability 

Scalability acts as the most important factor in creating custom software for any enterprise. The key objective of any business is growth, which necessitates the option of developing software with greater adaptability. Custom software can give businesses the exact functionality as their software can be reconfigured to the company’s needs. 

3. Built-in Analytics and Reporting System 

A custom ERP software with built-in business intelligence, analytics, and reporting is crucial for boosting business trends and performance. It is a waste of money to buy a separate reporting system when you can customize the ERP system with the same built-in functionality. 

4. Affordable Budget 

Businesses must know that the total cost of an ERP system comes the custom software along with its implementation services. Companies can choose on-premise ERP solutions which may include additional costs for servers, IT maintenance, perpetual license fees. While the latest technology of cloud-based ERP solutions will include the option of paying in installments based on the company-specific features and functions. 

5. Integration with Social Media 

Social media marketing has become a key aspect of next-generation ERP systems. Ensure to choose ERP software with the ability to share information on social media sites. This will help members of the industry to stay connected through their social media accounts. 

6. Flexibility and Functionality 

A custom ERP solution needs to be a flexible and comprehensive solution that delivers greater productivity and functionality. The greater the functionality; the greater the productivity gains for your enterprise. Custom ERP solutions with modules for inventory management, planning, forecasting, data warehousing, security, finance, sales, and risk management promote better functionality.

7. Industry-Specific Features and Functions 

An ERP system must be customized with industry-specific features to make it modern and user-friendly to the employees. A consistent User Interface (UI) will help access each module easily and reduce time to learn unfamiliar parts of the software. With integrated software, you can communicate better with other members of the team while company-specific features will improve productivity. 

8. Choose the Right Implementation Partner 

One of the crucial decisions to make when building custom ERP software for your business is choosing the perfect implementation partner. Go for companies that create their own cloud-based custom ERP software as they help in configuring the system as per your business requirements. These companies will be better trusted options as their team will be available for repairs and bug fixes at all times. 

9. Proper Testing 

It is best for businesses to schedule thorough testing after developing their ERP system. This will help understand whether the software is tailored-made to suit your business needs and functions. Proper testing will help fix errors and reduce unnecessary surprises after years of implementation. Even during the implementation process, it is very important to monitor the developments and key performance of the ERP system. 

10. Build a Stable Team 

A powerful team can help in achieving the stable success of the ERP system as they will be responsible for help desks, testing, training, documentation, and other operational issues and details. Implementing a custom ERP software is a team project involving the software partner, executives, and representatives from the varied business departments. Make sure that roles and responsibilities are made clear within the executive body and to the employees.

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4 Tips to Work from Home During Coronavirus Pandemic

The world has come to a standstill and humans are adapting to newer ways of working during this unprecedented crisis; Coronavirus Pandemic. With offices, stores, malls, and industries shut, people have moved to technological innovations to be productive and monetize their accomplishments. The IT industry has become non-functional as gatherings of masses in skyscrapers, hi-rise buildings and air-conditioned malls have been banned. As a precautionary measure, the employees are being asked to work from home to stay safe and be productive at the same time.

If you are working from home and finding it difficult to adapt to this alternative work lifestyle, here are a few tried and tested tips to make remote working a breeze. Having a positive approach to this unfamiliar work environment can make adapting to it much simpler and effective. Let’s dig into the ways to handle this extraordinary situation and stay on top of our professional life.

1. Create a Workspace

A dedicated workspace will help change your mind about the remote working environment. If you keep carrying your laptop to different corners of the house, it may reduce your concentration and interest to complete tasks on time. And never use your bed as a workspace. It’s a strict no!

Here’s how a home workspace should be,

• Ventilated Rooms Work Better than Unlit Spaces: Choose an ideal workspace that is comfy and well-ventilated. Gloomy rooms can lead to tiredness, lethargy, and sleepiness because of the lesser circulation of oxygen. A window with ample sunlight can boost your mind, energy, and focus.

• Use an Ergonomic Chair and Desk: Choose an ergonomic chair and desk as your home office furniture to keep your spine well-supported throughout the day. Uncomfortable furniture can cause back, shoulder, and neck pain. The right chair and desk can make all the difference when working long hours at home.

• Clean Space is a Productive Space: Once you have set up a dedicated workspace at home, make sure you take care of it. Plenty of sticky notes, stationery, papers, and trash all over your desk can make you anxious, irritated, and unproductive. Clean your desk as the first thing in the morning and throw away unnecessary notes in the trash every day.

2. Stick to a Schedule

The home environment can make everybody lazy and procrastinate time. But when you must work from home, then creating a routine can help in managing time better and completing your tasks as per schedule. Make sure you create a simple schedule that fits all your daily activities and to-do-lists.

Here’s how to stick to a schedule while working from home,

• Know Your Work Plan: Communicate with your team every day to know your work plan. Write your tasks along with the submission date to keep track of your schedule. Have a notebook with a pen on your desk at all times to check the completed tasks.

• Work at Dedicated Hours: Having a dedicated working time will be good for your mind and body. If you want to be productive, then follow the same office hours. i.e. 9-5 or 10-7 am or pm according to your lifestyle. In this way, your body will adjust better to the new working environment and be productive. Wear nice clothes and makeup to be fresh and energetic throughout the day.

• Put To-Do-Lists at Eye Level: It’s a waste of time to write notes on bits and pieces of paper and search for it the next day. Use sticky notes to create to-do-lists and put it on a visible space. Therefore, whenever you look into the notes, you will know your tasks on hand. You can even break your tasks into categories and do color-codes to save time.

3. Take Effective Breaks

Working at home can be strenuous for newbies as they need time to adjust to the unfamiliar environment and schedule. Especially, moms with kids find it difficult to concentrate on their work because of confined spaces. There’s nothing wrong with taking breaks while working from home because it can keep your mind and body at ease.

Here’s how to take effective breaks while working from home,

• Use Pomodoro Timer: Pomodoro method can be a boon for people constantly looking at their laptops for hours. Taking a break after 25 mins of work can reduce stress on your eyes, brain, and body. Roll your eyes and do simple yoga every 25 mins to relax.

• Walk for 20 minutes: It is important to be active even if you are just working from home. Make sure you spend at least 20 mins every day strolling in the garden, terrace or outside your house. This will loosen your muscles and improve blood circulation in your body.

• Schedule Downtime: Many people forget to take breaks while sitting in front of their laptops immersed in work for hours. It is better to take a quick coffee break in the morning and evening to relax your mind. Scheduling downtime at a particular time of the day can help you work better.

4. Have a Work-Life Balance

When you are working in an office, you understand that home is where you can relax and be away from work pressure. But when your home itself becomes your office; you may find it difficult to maintain a work-life balance. The blending of work and home obligations can cause stress, anxiety, depression, and poor cognitive performance. Our body and brain must have routines of sleeping, eating, working, and relaxing to function properly.

Here’s how to have a work-life balance while working from home,

• Stay Away from Distractions: Keep your work and life activities separate at all times. Do not work when you are playing with your kids or feeding them. Stay away from phones, games, radio, and television when you are working at home.

• Have Dedicated Family Time: Make sure you spend quality time in the evenings or at bedtime with kids and family members. Play games, watch movies, cook, and dine together. Interact with family members and plan your day to ensure the needs of family and work are met at the same time.

• Call Friends and Loved Ones to Socialize: Maintaining good socializing time during work from home can improve your energy levels. Make video calls to co-workers, friends and loved ones to distract your mind from work stress.

In these testing times, be thankful for your employment. When you are grateful for your work, you can establish coping strategies to adapt and respond to newer circumstances better. Have a great work from home experience!

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Why Your Business Needs a Mobile CRM Strategy?

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a great tool for businesses to develop excellent relationships with customers. In recent years, many startups and established businesses have implemented CRM software to expand their sales and growth in the global market.

But, with the increase in smartphone use, companies are looking to shift their strategies focusing on the mobile platform. In this blog post, let us know how creating CRM software for a mobile device will increase sales, productivity, and revenue of a business.

What is Mobile CRM?

Mobile Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a cloud-based software designed for mobile devices or smartphones. The tool is created as a Mobile CRM App which helps sales personals and employees to keep track of their customer’s data and purchases. It is a real-time software helping business owners to engage with their customers 24/7 and understand the rise in demand for their products and services.

How Mobile Usage Has Revolutionized Mobile CRM Strategies?

The e-commerce business is making a huge revolution through smartphones as millions of people are making purchases only through mobile apps. Companies are doing 40% of their business through mobile websites and earning revenues through online transactions. Most business executives own a smartphone and keep track of their sales through text messages and calls.

According to the recent statistics,

• Mobile internet usage is skyrocketing while desktop usage is diminishing
• Users spend at least 5 hours a day on smartphones
• 70% of web traffic is through a mobile device
• 80% of customers expect a reply online from the brand’s customer service
• 50% of customers use mobile phones to search for brands and raise a complaint
• 45% of people won’t prefer a brand if they don’t offer a mobile experience
• 85% of customers buy from companies with mobile websites or apps

4 Unique Advantages of Mobile CRM for Businesses

Mobile CRM software can deliver improved benefits of cloud-based CRM solutions compared to standard system-hosted software. These include,

1. Mobile CRM Improves Relationships with Customers

The key advantage of implementing a mobile CRM software is that it can help keep a record of customer’s data, purchases, and queries in a single secured system. With this function, it becomes easier for sales representatives and customer service personnel to generate real-time responses and solutions. It helps businesses to develop greater trust and reliability with the customers.

Benefits of Mobile CRM for Customers are,

• Access to critical information of customers
• Send and receive real-time updates
• 24/7 record of customers and leads
• Provide instant solutions to queries

2. Mobile CRM Increases Productivity of Employees

The success of an organization lies in the collaboration and combined productivity of its employees. It is difficult to keep track of your company’s sales representatives, managers, and executives daily and can only know about their whereabouts; when they report back. But, with a mobile CRM app, you can talk and know the status of each of your employees in real-time.

Benefits of Mobile CRM for Workforce are,

• Keep track of the meetings and tasks regularly
• Centralized database to interact, share and maintain information
• Notifications of to-do lists
• Addition and deletion of tasks

3. Mobile CRM Boosts Sales and Revenue

It is important for a business to develop a good rapport with salespersons and clients to boost sales volume and revenue. By having a mobile CRM app, it is easy for businessmen to engage with clients and share information at the fingertips. The lesser the time to search for leads, client information, and customer data, the greater the time spent on nurturing existing relationships.

Benefits of Mobile CRM for Salesforce are,

• Gain new customers and clients
• Improved sales cycle
• Click-to-call function for meetings at any location
•  Greater revenues

4. Mobile CRM Enhances Data Quality

In-house employees and sales representatives often require information about customers, clients, and companies outside of workplace. A mobile CRM tool allows centralized storage of data, making it easy for them to access relevant information from anywhere. This also holds the record of previous meetings, pitches, sales reports, and additional information. It enhances the quality of data through real-time updates.

Benefits of Mobile CRM for Data are,

• Instant Data Accessibility
• Store and update data in real-time
• Scheduling appointments, meetings with data inventories
• Fix errors, generate automated reports and validate new data

Because of all these benefits, many SMB’s and enterprises are shifting to mobile CRM strategies to yield better sales, revenue, and prospects. If you are planning a mobile CRM strategy for your business, then get in touch with us.

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5 Benefits of ERP Software for Manufacturing Industries

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is gaining massive recognition in the manufacturing industry because of the need for greater speed, accuracy, and productivity. Many companies are looking for ways to improve their production, sales, and revenue in the ever-changing marketplace and to stay ahead of their competitors. Both small-scale and enterprise manufacturing companies have several workflows, sales, and employees which increase the need for automation and optimization.

ERP software is a cloud-based software solution that helps in integrating and automating several work processes inside a manufacturing company to free up time, errors, and money. This software works best for manufacturing industries because keeping up with massive product production, sales, and distribution is a tremendous challenge. Our clients have seen many benefits from implementing our cloud ERP software, such as,

1. Integration of Supply Chain Management

A cloud ERP software enables manufacturing companies to track all supply chain activities from start to finish within a single coordinated system. It becomes important for firms to manage both inflow and outflow processes of the organization. ERP software helps in the accurate tracking of supply and integrating production and planning processes, reducing manual errors and labor costs.

2. Automation of Production Processes

ERP helps in automating certain workflows including ordering of raw materials, monitoring status of orders and products, analyzing product costs, and management of inventory. With an automated supply chain, it is easier to identify errors and address them immediately and make quicker informed decisions. It gives real-time updates and system-generated reports that help in reducing operational errors, repairs, and paperwork. By streamlining the production process, the companies can improve their production of completed goods for sale.

3. Collaboration Among Employees and Other Workforce

A cloud ERP Software is a centralized system housing all the processes of the manufacturing industry. This provides greater visibility to the team of workers by storing only the important data and eliminating irrelevant information from the system. It enables collaboration between internal and external workforce by sharing information with all teams within an organization. By improving coordination between employees, it also helps them communicate effectively with other key business partners.

4. Reduction of Operational Errors and Financial Costs

The manufacturing industry applies for producers and suppliers, which increases the need for implementing the ERP software to manage several modules in both these sides of the business. An ERP system will monitor the production, sales, and marketing costs and generate periodic reports to keep track of the buying and spending of goods. Through sales and inventory forecasting, it will help identify potential areas for savings and generating revenue.

5. Optimization of Customer Experience

Customers are important for manufacturing industries as they play a vital role in expanding your business to the global audience. Customers like to have a record of your available products and know the expedition to make purchases. By implementing a cloud ERP system, you can take orders, respond to queries, and provide instant solutions to your customers. Each ERP system is enhanced with customer relationship management tools to develop a good rapport with customers.

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What are Progressive Web Apps?

If you have wondered whether web apps will ever behave like modern mobile apps with enhanced features, then you are in for a treat. Technology giants like Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Mozilla have come with a newer technology involving web applications known as Progressive Web Apps (PWA’s). These apps behave similarly to native apps with offline support, syncing and push notifications which can run on all browsers and platforms.

‘Progressive’ term represents the enhanced features that are added to the normal web applications such as web camera, location services, and other trackers frequently found in mobile applications. These apps can be installed directly on to the web browser and a shortcut icon will appear on the home taskbar. When you launch this app on your screen, it will start performing its tasks quickly and send you instant notifications even if you’re offline.

How do Progressive Web Apps Work?

Progressive web apps are websites that behave like a mobile application with many features technically present in a native app. These apps are enhanced with modern APIs to make them reliable, capable and installable on any device anywhere. PWA’s are generally written using a single code base like JAVA, HTML 5 and other similar web languages.

Progressive Web Apps have six important features,

1. Web Manifest: Web manifest is a JSON file that will add metadata of the website such as icon, font size, background colour, and name of the application. This helps the user to see the PWA display on the home screen.

2. Service Worker: A service worker is a JavaScript file that runs in the background of the user’s browser. A service worker is responsible for delivering offline requests including push notifications, background syncing and cache data.

3. HTTPS connection: Having a secure HTTPS connection is necessary to download and use a PWA safely. This will prevent harmful hackers from leaching data from the browser and website.

4. APP Shell: A progressive web app is made to look like a native app by creating an icon and its local resources stored inside an app shell. When you click on the app, it loads on the web browser by using the local cache available inside the app shell.

5. Background Synchronization: This feature enables the user to receive information that was sent during poor or zero connectivity issues. It holds the information until the user connects to the network again.

6. Push Notifications: Push notifications are frequent updates sent to the user to keep them engaged in the app. These notifications are commonly available on a mobile app and in PWA’s these are made to work with a notification API.

Applications of Progressive Web Apps

It is unnecessary for all businesses to own a progressive web app. If your company has less information to display on a website, then a traditional website will be sufficient for it. In case of excess web traffic and display of many products, you might need a progressive web app as it can occupy a large memory space if created as a mobile application.

Many popular companies like Flipkart, Twitter, Hulu, Pinterest have recently converted their website into a Progressive Web App because of its wonderful advantages. Statistics show that these companies saw a 60% increase in web traffic, 40% improved revenues and a 70% conversion rate from launching the site from the home screen icon.

Advantages of Progressive Web Apps

Progressive Web Apps have several advantages over regular websites such as,

• Faster Page Speeds: PWA’s deliver 2-4 times greater page speeds than conventional websites. These apps work faster and deliver improved results.

• App-like experience: PWA’s create a genuine app-like experience to the user as it can be downloaded, launched on their home screen just like a native app. These apps can be installed even without visiting a web store and in a poor network connection.

• Instant Updates: The best part of PWA is that the developer can make instant updates to the app without sending information back and forth to a web store. Content can be updated directly, providing a seamless experience to the user.

• Improved Features: PWA’s can be installed with the latest app features such as location accessibility, user data tracking, local video chat, media controls, and clipboard support.

• Monetizing capabilities: Many are unaware of the fact that PWA’s have the capabilities to increase revenues faster than other app technologies. They let companies display ads in various formats and integrate with popular ad networks like Google AdSense, thus opening the channel for greater profits.

If you have to create a Progressive Web App for your business, then approach a company like us with expertise in it to provide good PWA development services.

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10 Advantages of Custom Software for Businesses

Custom software plays a crucial role in the efficiency and growth of a business. A custom-made software suits the needs and requirements of the organization by being flexible in its design and features. This software promotes greater output by saving time, reducing costs and improving profits.

Custom software has various benefits which make it popular among small and large-scale businesses in recent years. Many organizations focus on building custom-made products rather than off-the-shelf software because of its versatility and flexibility. Here are the 10 advantages of Custom Software,

Custom software development
Advantages of using Custom software development

1. Custom Software is Personalized

When you are buying an on-the-shelf software, you may never understand how to merge its functionalities with your workflow because it’s pre-made. However, developing a personalized software based on your company’s workflow and processess will make the job easy for you in the long haul. Custom software personally caters to the needs of an organization.

2. Custom Software is Cost-Effective

Buying or building software for your business is a cumbersome task as it involves huge amounts of money. Off-the-shelf software is priced based on its features and extensions, making it costly for business to create software for several operations. However, when you build custom software, you can include only the essential processes and eliminate the rest, saving a lot of money in designing personalized software.

3. Custom Software is Secure

Every business focusses on building secure software for proper functioning of their management. Since the custom software is designed by technical experts, the chances of hacks and virus threats become minimal. Since custom software is used only by your team, it improves its security greatly.

4. Custom Software is Compatible

It is a waste of time to design several software applications for an organization, as it is time-consuming and costly. By designing one custom software for sales, marketing and workflow, you can change it according to the needs of the company as it highly flexible.  It is also compatible with many company tools and devices. On-the shelf software cannot be altered whereas custom software is changeable.

5. Custom Software is Easy-to-Integrate

General software has plenty of integration issues, which makes it unsuitable for many company operations. Whereas, custom-made software can be integrated with multiple processes since it is designed based on the organization’s needs and workflow. This reduces stress and unnecessary inputs from other teams in the company.

6. Custom Software is Easy-to-Automate

Automation plays a vital role in improving the performance and efficiency of any organization. It is not possible to automate functions on an on-the-shelf software. But, in custom software, the workflows can be automated by implementing the information got by interacting with the teammates and understanding their process. In this way, both individual and group activities of the company can be automated efficiently.

7. Custom Software is Maintenance-Friendly

Businesses depend on the off-shelf software developer for repairs and technical errors which creates additional maintenance costs for the software. But, with custom software, the programs remain in good condition as long as they use the software within the organization. Also, the support staffs are available online for instant rectification of errors.

8. Custom Software is Durable

Many companies buy off-the-shelf software for its price, features or brand and face constant problems while using it at their premises. These may work only for a limited period of time and cause unrepairable issues forcing you to buy other software. Custom software is durable and works without any issues for a long period as it is designed specifically for your organization.

9. Custom Software is Versatile

The best part of choosing a custom software is that it can be designed for startups, small and large-scale business and enterprises. Size doesn’t matter with custom software as it is made specifically to meet the business requirements. The entire organization can use this software as it is scalable to fit different purposes of the team members.

10. Custom software is Risk-Free

When an organization is running on off-the-shelf software, the chances of going bankrupt is higher as the software can fail at any time. This may lead to several losses for the employees as well as distributors and investors. The risk factor is more for a business running on standardized software since it does not suit the needs of the organization accurately. However, the risk is nil with custom software as it ensures the business is in safe hands.