Social and Mobile Computing

The most relevant technologies that can be used among the accessible technologies are social computing, mobile computing, and mobile commerce. In this context, mobile computing refers to a technology that enables the wireless transfer of audio, data, and video through a computer or any other wireless-enabled device without the need for a physical link. And mobile commerce is the purchasing and selling of products and services via wireless handheld devices such as cellphones and personal tabs that do not require a plug in.

The project’s goal is to improve internal and external communication, integrate online shopping, manage customer contacts and information, operate brick and mortar procedures, give reporting, and enhance decision-making processes. The project is expected to cover the following areas completely:

1. There should be a Complete active listing of all items on the portal with all specifications along with their stock levels. It has to upgrade online with the quantity getting updated with every sale and every manufacturing item added to the stock.

2. It should have the facility of capturing customers preferences and choices based on the surfing done by them on the portal. It should obtain customers feedbacks also because many times customers surf the entrance and then select an item go its visuals & videos checks the prices and then does nothing (Grifoni et al, 2017). So, the technology has to capture as to why the customer has not selected a particular item. It will give an online feedback to the company so that they can refine their customer focus based on his or her preferences.

3. It has to take care all accounting and sales related background activities such as payments and invoice generations.

4. It should provide a complete online feedback on the movement of goods to the customer and company until the products reach the customers.

From a technology point of view, technology should integrate everything which is there in the business process starting with the customer. It has to be extremely user-friendly so that ultimate convenience and user experience is provided to both external and internal customers. It should not be difficult to use and at the same time should solve everything.

Social computing is a very useful medium to enhance the growth of the company. It involves collaboration and communications via the internet services. The fundamental concepts include; information sharing, multiple interactions, and users feedback that are significant for the operation of the technology (Liu et al, 2017). The tools for communication include; blogs, wikis, user-generated content, twitter, multiplayer gaming and social networking sites. It is very significant in promoting online growth of the company due to multiple interactions among various people. Social networking provides a medium where the company can display the different products and their corresponding prices. Moreover, with numerous display of these products, the market share of the company is likely to increase over the competitors. Again, social computing is cheap and does not require a lot of resources to set. It requires access to the internet with a human resource to establish the platforms of social computing. However, despite the importance of this mode of advertisement, it may not fulfill some objectives of the firm. The platform is especially essential in enhancing the market share of the company and popularize the various products produced by the organization. The technology can integrate online shopping, manage external and internal collaboration, manage contacts with the consumers, provide reporting, and manage current brick and motor processes.

From the two tools listed above, mobile computing and mobile commerce is a reliable tool that can meet the requirements of the firm regarding the specifications of the company. They include; online shopping, managing shopping, processing payment of the products, providing the status of the orders and managing the contacts of the consumers (Upadhyaya et al, 2017). Others are reporting on the products, handling customers information and assisting in making management decisions based on the field findings of the products. The firm can significantly boost its growth by ensuring efficient use of the technology to influence the customers into purchasing its products. Since the business has permanent and contractual employees, it is possible to get all the information using the technologies such as mobile computing and social computing to facilitate decision making for the organization.

Competitors. Zappos is an online clothing and shoe shop stationed in Las Vegas, Nevada. The company is one of the existing companies that has used social media such as twitter to attract the customers and marketing their products. The company employees use the twitter to blog about their lives in the firm while the customers tweet their delight about the products of the company. Moreover, they have included themselves in the mix of the buyers to tweet on the good products of the firm hence influencing the decisions of the customers to purchase their products (Wen et al, 2017).

Another potential competitor is Macys, Inc that is an American holding company situated in Ohio. It owns the Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s that specialize in the sales of accessories, footwear, clothing, furniture, bedding, beauty products, housewares and jewelry. The company has successfully implemented the mobile computing in conducting its business. The tool is aimed at answering customers’ questions regarding the store where they are purchasing their products. The firm has used the mobile tool for self-service delivery and for summoning sales associated for help by the customers (Liu et al, 2017). The mobile computing has enabled the customers to ask relevant questions regarding the products and the employees can respond to the needs of the customers. Moreover, they can direct have one on one call with the sales agent on the products available in the stores. Moreover, mobile application will be launch to facilitate the mobile computing for the company. This will enable them to have one on one interactions with the customers concerning the various products of the firm.

References

Grifoni, P., Ferri, F., D’Andrea, A., Guzzo, T., & Passarella, A. (2017). Special Issue on Pervasive Social Computing.

Liu, D., & Guo, X. (2017). Exploring gender differences in acceptance of mobile computing devices among college students. Information Systems and e-Business Management, 15(1), 197-223.

Upadhyaya, J., & Ahuja, N. J. (2017, February). Quality of service in cloud computing in higher education: A critical survey and innovative model. In I-SMAC (IoT in Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud)(I-SMAC), 2017 International Conference on (pp. 137-140). IEEE.

Wen, Y., Chakareski, J., Frossard, P., Wu, D., & Zeng, W. (2017). Guest Editorial Special Issue on Visual Computing in the Cloud: Mobile Computing. IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, 27(1), 1-5.