Blog May 11, 2015

How smartphones are driving business in 2015

Kazang mobile payment systems Twenty years ago it would have been incomprehensible to operate your business away from a fixed office, never mind on a very small screen, with multiple capabilities. Today, smartphone technology is a hallmark of modern business activity. Here’s how this is influencing the way we work today:

You can do anything business-related on your smartphone, while on the move.

Not only can you make a business call while sitting in a coffee shop, , you can send and receive email. If you commute to work on the Gautrain, for example, you have the opportunity to complete business-related tasks. Being aware of the world’s events, financial news and stock market data, has never been simpler. In between scheduling your business diary and making a call to your PA, you can flip between news sites and pages of interest. Need to file your income tax return? Simply log on to SARS on your smartphone and complete the return.

Organising your life just got simpler.

Ancient filing systems are, for the most part, defunct in today’s business world. Smartphone technology has evolved to assist you with almost everything in your life. When looking for those important minutes from last week’s EXCO meeting, you can easily browse your smartphone’s emails or documents. Office applications, like Evernote, have changed business.. Evernote is like a container that stores everything: its cross-platform capabilities (desktop apps, web apps and mobile apps) allow you to offload all of your reference materials, work documents, ideas, to-do tasks and other digital items, quickly.

Smartphones are designed for more than just making calls.

Business communication is no longer limited to voice-calls from an office line. With smartphones, documents and other media can be sent via text message, emails and cloud services (like Google Drive and Dropbox). If face-to-face time is required, Skype and Facetime enable this. Conference calling is easy and video communication is becoming standard and will only improve with faster internet speeds.

Smartphones just as important as ‘wallets’.

In addition to the use of cash and credit cards in paying for goods and services, eWallets and virtual money are becoming more popular payment methods. These alternative ways of making payments provide businesses with opportunities to increase their target market and as a result, revenue. Mobile apps such as the ZipZap app, can be used in conjunction with a secure card reader to accept credit or debit card payments for goods or services.

Smartphones have spurred on small business.

Importantly, smartphones offer cheaper payments solutions. Traditional credit and debit card point-of-sale machines are useful but a lot less mobile and sometimes more expensive especially for businesses on- the -go. There are many smartphone apps aimed at small business owners for the top 25 small business apps). On-the-go entrepreneurs can now pay bills, update websites, market their companies, reach out to customers and keep in touch with employees, from anywhere using their smartphone – so why not take payments too?

Smartphones can now be transformed into credit card machines.

Previously, businesses accepted credit card and debit card payments via a traditional point-of-sale machine. Even though portable credit card machines are very useful and can be used anywhere within the place of business, they lack the mobility that can now be provided by a fully mobile card machine such as ZipZap. The ZipZap card reader can connect to any smartphone via Bluetooth. This means that payment can take place anywhere, at any time. Data captured on the reader is encrypted using modern payments technology and is sent securely via point-to-point encryption to a certified gateway.