Discuss About The Development Proposal For Coles Supermarket?
From past a decade we have witnessed various technological trends that have made a major impact on our day – to – day activities as well as on the business operations and processes. Smart phones, high – speed internet and cloud computing technologies have made a drastic change in the business execution. With these technologies, businesses are now capable of dealing with global clients and also have improved their productivity – levels and also have helped global businesses to reduce their cost investments. The advent of smart phones and high – speed internet has given rise to mobile business solutions that help businesses to stay connected anywhere in the world (Godwin-Jones, 2008). Thus, there is significant increase in production which helps businesses to provide high value to their customers. Severe competition in global markets has made it compulsory for most of the businesses to adopt mobile business solution and keep their employees and clients connected in a network and be highly productive (Holzer and Ondrus, n.d.).
The aim of this report is to effectively design and develop a new technology for one of the leading supermarkets in Australia, which is Coles Supermarket. The report focuses to develop a mobile application for Coles Supermarket as a part of mobile business solution for the company. For the purpose of the project report, it has been assumed that Coles Supermarket own a fully – functional official website and is now planning to implement a mobile business solution (a mobile application), that will integrate all the existing website features such as browsing grocery products, filter products, add to cart, and also checkout. Some additional features such as promo codes and discounts on a minimum amount purchases will be included to gather attention of Coles customers to use the mobile application.
The project report is structured as follows: the important technologies and platforms required for the application development, identifying the success factors and the technology enablers, different cost factors involved in the mobile application development and the key components etc are discussed in this report.
Following is the detailed description of the range of technologies that are used by programmers for developing a mobile business solution (mobile application):
HTML 5 is considered to be ideal or primary programming language and is mainly used to develop a web – fronted application for various mobile devices. HTML 5 has many unique and easy features such as – simple insertion of various data types, accountability for different size of device screens, and rationalizing the input parameters. But, the HTML 5 programming language has a limitation that it is still considered to be a proposed standard. Also, the HTML 5 is cost – efficient in comparison with other programming language or technologies as it is supported by various browsers (Austins, 2017).
The next technology is Objective – C, which was chosen by Apple Inc as a primary language for programming their iOS applications. Apple Inc built various iOS applications using Objective – C and made them scalable and robust. Objective – C is a superset of C – language and consists of wide range of functionalities which deal with display functions, Input / Output and graphics. As a part of development framework of Apple, integration of Objective – C is made fully on all MACOS and iOS frameworks. But now, Objective – C has been slowly replaced by yet another latest technology called as Swift. This programming language mainly takes into consideration of few important elements such as – Cocoa Touch and Cocoa which are the latest APIs in Apple. Currently, Swift programming language is being used simultaneously with Objective – C, but in some time, Swift language will tend to replace the Objective – C completely as many businesses prefer cutting – edge features in their mobile applications (SCAND (EN), 2017).
The next technology used in mobile application development is C++. C++ is definitely the most robust and appropriate programming language to build mobile applications for Windows and Android devices. C++ is a very powerful and also widely used programming language and allows development of various mobile business solutions for wide range of business applications and can be implemented on almost all the platforms.
Lastly, Java programming language is yet another important technology that is used in development of mobile business solutions. Java is the most widely used and preferred programming language for application development for Android devices. Java programming language can be run in two approaches. They are – in a browser window and also in a virtual machine that can work without a browser. This kind of flexibility helps the programmers for updating software as well as to re – code. Also, cross – platform applications are developed using Java programming language (Feigen, 2009).
There are several factors that must be taken into consideration when developing mobile application for a specific business. Following are the range of key success factors and enablers that add more value to the mobile business solution for Coles Supermarket:
On a global – business level, the customers are segmented in a broader range and thus, the overall interface of the mobile business solution has to be very appealing. This interface, in specific is known as Graphic User Interface, abbreviated as GUI. In addition to the GUI, the User Experience (UX) also has to be very efficient. The fonts, colours and the quality of product images or illustration videos used in the mobile application for Coles Supermarket must be of very high- quality. Also, the images used for each grocery product must be totally relevant to the product description. The overall user experience of using mobile application has to be user – friendly from customers perspective. Navigating through the mobile application, adding products to cart and checkout features, and also logging into account etc must be done quickly in a few steps and should not be very time – consuming (Saucier and Hylton, 2011).
Yet another key success factor and an enabler considered for the development of mobile business solution is the Security. It is quite evident that customers need to log in to their account on their mobile application and input their personal details such as name, email ID, address, contact number and also many applications have the feature of saving credit and / debit card details. Managing these critical information is very important and thus, at the back – end of mobile development, security aspects must be given a very high priority in order to avoid major attacks from hackers.
We already know that technology is developing at a very fast pace and each technology comes up with updates or upgrades very frequently. It is important to consider the use of latest technological trends in developing a mobile business solution for Coles Supermarket. Also, easy upgrading process to the next update must also be considered in the development of mobile application. Using latest technology makes the mobile application faster, and adds value to the business (Cuadrado and C. Dueñas, 2012).
Adaptability is yet another important key factor that determines success to the developed mobile business solution for Coles Supermarket. Every business has to undergo certain changes internally as well as externally and these changes can make a major impact on the mobile application. The changes can be including an add – on security feature for more levels of security or adding an entire new vertical to the business line. The mobile application must be capable of easily getting adapted to the changes that affect the business line. In other words, flexibility in the design and implementation must be considered in the initial stages of development of mobile business solution (Cuadrado and C. Dueñas, 2012).
Below is the list of few cost factors that can impact on the overall mobile application development and its maintenance at the back – end:
Application purpose and the functionality is one of the key cost factors that drive the overall application development budget and also determine the cost of mobile application development. Yet another cost factor that must be considered here is the devices supported and mobile platforms. Since the mobile business solution for Coles Supermarket will be developed to support devices on Android, windows and iOS, it is obvious that the development time is more and also this increases the overall cost of the mobile business solution. It is important to note that each application platform is different, for instance, Android fragmentation can be slightly difficult for developers to understand if the application functions appropriately for every hardware. Making application functionalities universal also determines the overall cost of the mobile application development. Application requires continuous maintenance at the back – end including the database management system. There are specific maintenance plans available for application development and this include the functionalities and features that must be implemented within the mobile app. (Kissman, 2017)
Following are the key components of a mobile business solution developed for Coles Supermarket:
Conclusion
From the research report conducted on understanding the important aspects of mobile business solution for global businesses, it can be concluded that mobile business solutions have entirely changed the global businesses. There is lot of competition in global marketplace and thus, business organizations are trying to put their maximum efforts to improve their efficiency and also increase their productivity to a greater extent. With an effective and efficient mobile business solution, it is possible for the businesses to connect with their employees easily and also keep in touch with their global clients. There are several technologies and platforms that are used and implemented in various mobile business solutions and depending on these elements, the cost of design and implementation of a mobile business solution varies significantly. Considering the development of a mobile business solution for Coles Supermarket, as discussed in the report, it is important to consider the security aspect as a higher priority as customers link their personal details to the mobile application to shop on the mobile app and also make payments on the mobile application. Mobile business solutions or mobile applications are to be made user – friendly and attractive as various researches have shown that customers prefer mobile applications when compared to websites. Also, there is increased performance and mobility due to development of mobile applications for business solutions. Various other factors such as high performance, scalability, reliability and GUI (Graphic User Interface) etc are to be considered when designing and developing a mobile business solution for Coles Supermarket.
References
Austins, C. (2017). Top 6 Programming Languages for Mobile App Development. [online] dzone.com. Available at: https://dzone.com/articles/top-6-programming-languages-for-mobile-app-develop [Accessed 18 Sep. 2017].
Cuadrado, F. and C. Dueñas, J. (2012). Mobile Application Stores: Success Factors, Existing Approaches, and Future Developments.
Feigen, B. (2009). Mobile application development.
Godwin-Jones, R. (2008). Emerging technologies mobile-computing trends: lighter, faster, smarter. Language Learning & Technology, 12(3).
Holzer, A. and Ondrus, J. (n.d.). Trends in Mobile Application Development. [online] Available at: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.177.1082&rep=rep1&type=pdf [Accessed 18 Sep. 2017].
Joch, A. (2013). The Key Components of a Mobile POS Solution. [Blog] Biz Tech. Available at: https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2013/12/key-components-mobile-pos-solution [Accessed 18 Sep. 2017].
Kissman, J. (2017). Mobile App Development Cost: The Top 6 Budget Factors. [online] celerity.com. Available at: https://blog.celerity.com/mobile-app-development-costs-the-top-6-factors [Accessed 18 Sep. 2017].
McWherter, J. and Gowell, S. (2012). Professional mobile application development. Indianapolis, Ind.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Saucier, M. and Hylton, R. (2011). Top 10 Mobile App Success Factors. [online] Transpara.com. Available at: https://transpara.com/blog/2011/10/17/top-10-mobile-app-success-factors.html [Accessed 18 Sep. 2017].
SCAND (EN). (2017). Mobile Application Development Technologies | SCAND Technology. [online] Available at: https://scand.com/technologies/mobile-development/ [Accessed 18 Sep. 2017].
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