The adoption rate of mobile apps, like WhatsApp and WeChat, for personal and business use is increasing globally. As enterprises expand into new markets, they often believe they’re facing a choice between adopting new mobile apps without visibility, or losing out on business opportunity. This is a false choice. During our recent webinar, Securing WeChat for Customer Engagement and Marketing Teams, 100% of our webinar attendees think that new social and mobile apps present additional risk to their organizations. (We’ve never seen a 100% response to any poll!)
Yes, new digital channels, like mobile apps, increase your risks, but you can enable them while mitigating risk. There are three key reasons why you should enable mobile apps for your team:
1. Email is old school
Communication in North America is still commonly conducted through email, whereas the rest of the world has adopted chat apps as the way to communicate personally and professionally. Email penetration in many emerging markets is often less than 30%. Instead, users turn to mobile apps; WeChat users dominate China and WhatsApp users dominate Brazil and India. While mobile app usage varies by country, overall app adoption has outpaced traditional email.
The total number of WeChat & WhatsApp worldwide users is greater than all active email accounts globally. Business is conducted where people spend their time; as users shift to mobile apps, business should follow.
2. Business is conducted on multiple channel
Take into account how a global sales team conducts business - it’s a multi-channel approach to reach their customers where they spend their time. That means sellers do outreach on a variety of channels, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, WeChat, etc. These multiple touch points have implications for compliance, but they also highlight how important it is to enable new digital channels.
The tools and channels businesses use change over time. It’s critical for teams to have the flexibility to adopt new channels in order to stay ahead of the competition.
Guide: Learn more on how enterprises ensure secure communication
3. There are business insights in those messages!
The conversations that take place on mobile apps contain valuable information. Businesses can drive new insights and create new opportunity when they capture those conversations alongside other communication channels. Enabling mobile apps ensures that all interactions are captured and analyzed in aggregate, rather than out of context. Your organization can evolve from a state of "data capture" to "date enablement." This is what the big data movement is all about. Don't just collect the information for its own sake, find ways to mine it and drive business forward.
It's 2019, it's high time to say ‘yes’ to mobile apps without sacrificing security or compliance. Meet your customers where they are, and start protecting the channels that matter most to your business.
Ready to get started? Contact our team to see how we can help you enable mobile apps at scale.
