The Mobile Phone App as a Vehicle for Reaching Underserved Communities - Essay Example

The Mobile Phone App as a Vehicle for Reaching Underserved Communities Lecturer: Less than a decade ago, mobile phones were bulky devices used solely for incoming and outgoing voice based calls. Fast forward to this date and they have had a radical transformation to be able to access the internet, download transmit and store videos and serve as a recreational device. Texting, blogging and tweeting are common vocabularies in this modern age. About 75 percent of the world’s populace has access to mobile phone technology. The number of pre-paid and post-paid subscriptions used worldwide has exploded from less than one billion in 2000 to more than 6 billion to date. A survey suggests that subscription ownership figures will soon surpass that of the global population. This mobile revolution is spurring the emergence of an “app economy” which is turning around the approaches to financial services, employment and entrepreneurship. Google CEO Eric Schmidt asserts that in this generation, the new rule is mobile first in terms of applications and in terms of how people use things. Countries all over the globe are taking advantage of this remarkable potential. This essay focuses on the emerging trends of these mobile applications in the underserved populations to appreciate the opportunities and implication on economic and social development. Entrepreneurs have been coming up with applications to suit both the private and the traditional sectors. Social entrepreneurs confer their doings reinvest the surpluses they accrue to realize social objectives for their members or a diverse interest. Successful social entrepreneurs have gone wireless as these devices transform economic development, most of whom are positioned at the pedestal of the international economic pyramid. The discussion below shows how mobile developments have been tuned to offer solutions to developing countries. The story of this technology is dynamic, moving to new levels where it is not so much about the phone but the capabilities it has. Mobile applications extend these capabilities. Mobile communications provide opportunities to improve human, economic and political development from giving access to health information to propelling job creation. Phones have now become navigational aids, tools for price comparisons or mobile wallets. The ubiquity of these devices has made entrepreneurs to consistently use these “apps” to create new business opportunities and subsequently create new strategies to improve their service delivery and positive customer feedback. Enterprises centered on the on the mobile app technology hold massive economic and employment potential. These new technologies support the development and the networking of entrepreneurs that ensure the tapping of this potential. Regardless of these statistics, the patterns of mobile use in developed nations fifers greatly from what you see in the streets of Kenya or India. This market has been underserved by technologists and this where the future of mobile technology growth lies. Case studies of mobile apps Mobile innovation incorporated in social networking such as facebook, twitter, my space brings together grassroots entrepreneurs. The interaction enhances the delivery of critical data, the aggregation of enterprise data to improve market efficiency and facilitate financial services. The developing world provides the most favorable climate for mobile applications installations. However, challenges like the lack of infrastructure required to benefit from the applications capabilities like internet connections. The increasing mobile subscriptions numbers have not been matched by the development of infrastructure. As a result, entrepreneurs wishing to venture in these markets and extend their application use must incorporate the software’s in mass-market model Reuters Market Light Agriculture is challenged by the lack of access to up-to-date information to farmers. The service provides accurate and affordable crop pricing data. With lack of information of the prices of the farmer’s produce, the possibility of incurring more costs relative to revenues is high leading to farmers getting low incomes. In India, the RML service was introduced in 2007. Subscribers get information via sms on the pricing data in their local markets, weather information and any other relevant agricultural news. The service also identifies major trends in the sector have a possible eventuality in translating into lower or higher prices of products. The timely acquisition to the data enhances pricing and effective resource distribution .thousands of subscribers today receives this service for the price of $1.50 per month. Depending on the success of this service in India, Reuters seeks to expand to Africa. In Uganda there is a similar service referred to as the farmer’s friend. When a farmer has questions relating to certain agricultural issues he sends the text message directed to the service. For instance, sending a text message like “tomato blight” will follow a return text message containing relevant information on the topic from a database put together by the service providers. Voxiva Voxiva is a service that addresses the challenge of high costs and limited reach of internet based technologies. The service accomplishes this via its pyramid platform where it allows the collecting of information by organizations from people and communicates with them in a systematic and timely manner. The subscribers submit information to the system through text messaging, PDA or phone web. The data is then collected following an analysis in real time for decision-making. The data is then sent out to the field in support of the two-way flow of information. The application is used extensively in developing countries where mobile phone usage is increasing. In Peru for instance, the application is used to counter criminal activities where citizens are able to report crime more easily. In addition, voxiva systems have been positioned around the globe to monitor patients, track diseases, administer HIV/AIDS programs and respond to disasters. These services are very effective as they improve the assessment of a situation and reduce the time of response. Another similar initiative is the UNICEF’s rapidSMS initiative, which incorporates the same principalities of data collection, communication and logistics coordination. UNICEF supports over 200,000 subscribers in the underserved communities. The majority users are Health workers attending to the women and children. The application has also been used in local entrepreneurial ventures. For instance, a local businessperson in Ghana uses rapidSMS to scrutinize the sales of cook stoves in other parts of the country. Mobile banking Mobile banking is a technology that has been deployed in countries like Kenya and Malawi to serve the populace that has not the access to bank branches. It is a potent reflection of how mobile technology has affected social and economic dynamics in the developing countries. Their mobile phone networks serve the subscribers where they are able to deposit, withdraw and transfer funds using simple short message services. These technologies have greatly benefited the communities lacking access to the infrastructure or know how to access the banking services. A recent study has reflected the prevalence in the use of this application. In Kenya, 40% of households have this subscription but only a contrasting 22% have bank accounts. The groups utilizing the service were as wide as farmers and persons sending money to their parents. Still in Kenya, the same mobile banking service is used in the payment of bills. The subscribers can settle their water and electricity bills. Other mobile solutions to these underserved communities include the training of the local students to acquire mobile application developing knowledge. There are Research programs that are mobile phone related initiated to support entrepreneurship in these countries. The programs equip the students with the tools of developing applications so that they can create relevant applications to their cultures and needs. Medic mobile Developing countries have few health facilities and at times people suffer due to wrong information. Medic mobile is a mobile application with the aim of delivering health care information to these communities. This technology has opened gates to enabling home based care, adherence reminders, dispatching announcements on clinical data and identifying close medical facilities. In India, the healthcare realized that the childhood vaccination rates were very low. To counter this, they designed a mobile-based reminder for parents. The system would be updated with the information on the child’s birth date and it would automatically program a schedule reminding the parents to take the children for vaccination. In Kenya, there is the ‘M4G’s my question’ service that gives a platform of anonymous enquiries on HIV/AIDS, breast cancer and cholera related questions. The subscribers get the information via sms. In South Africa, the Ocue service is a mobile application that seeks to control the rate of spread of tuberculosis by the use of push messages. It sends text messages to affected patients reminding them to take their medication at set times. Efforts in Kenya by the blood bank are underway to deploy a sms application that helps them identify donors, create a system that will monitor the blood supply in the hospitals and send alerts when the supplies start decreasing. Implications. These simple text applications have spurred revolutions in access to health, financial agricultural and business information and created business opportunities. Farmers are able to improve their bargaining position when they take their goods to the market with the information they receive. These technological advances have had a sustainable impact in these communities. Mobile application technologies have empowered people in the underserved communities to have a better standing of living. Social development, Agriculture, health and education have been bolstered by these mobile phone technologies. A substantial figure of GDP is accrued from mobile phone revenues suggesting that the usage is set for a constant increase. Other benefits cultivated from mobile phone use are income growth an increase in productivity as time has been saved. It has saved the Time used to perform transaction, time to get information on a particular disease or other data and reduction in travelling. New roles have been created as the protocols have been improved and middlemen eradicated. In essence, these communities even though they are underserved, they are gradually conforming to the global technology trends in the mobile market. Recommendations. The question of whether consumers have been reached or not is asked and has been answered; now data and services demanded must be provided efficiently. Entrepreneurs must continue to encourage developments in technology around mobile applications as they seek to progress the financial side of serving their customers. At the same time, the technologies should be cost-effective, easy to use and intuitive. The main challenge now is the enabling of people in their different countries to customize the mobile applications to their needs. To permeate mobile development, people and businesses must create their own mobile paraphernalia that is pertinent to their local needs to exploit all opportunities. They can curve out niches to respond to specific demands taking into account product differentiation where the entry barriers to this market are low and will subsequently get lower. Utilizing an application to deliver products requires full understanding of that market. For instance, for an application to be of use it must communicate in a language that users can understand and feel comfortable using. Linguistic variety in many of the third world countries can be a challenge in permeating the use of an application desiring to have a wide appeal and broad usability. In addition to language considerations, the providers should take into account the illiteracy among the users, a factor that is widespread in the poor nations. Computer literacy is also not as diverse as most people do not understand computer metaphors and interfaces like folders or drop down menus. As a result, the applications deployed should be easy. Social enterprises seeking to infiltrate markets must also identify consumer preferences to respond to their needs effectively. For instance by assessing the incomes of the markets the providers can determine if subscriptions will be prepaid or postpaid and hence respond to anticipated level of interests to either. Social and cultural differences should also be taken into account in the establishment of the applications. In business, the value of the application will arise from its actionable information that is how effectively it will deliver data in sales reports, confirmation of orders, inventory level changes etc. it is therefore essential that there are proper metrics to ensure the application has the desired effect before it is adopted. Enterprises can utilize prototyping to identify problems. In the case of considering the efficiency and cost reduction the application will bring, it is essential to identify the costs that will be reduced. Technology is considered cheap and labor intensive in the developed countries but the contrary applies to the developing markets. Thus, With relation to the costs of human resources and technology, an application solution that limits the need for labor involvement in one country may not be as effective as retaining human labor on the job in another country. Social entrepreneurs should not underestimate the relative costs for market education when introducing the application. It is wrong to have an assumption that the market is completely familiar with the service. New applications such as mobile banking applications may be time consuming and expensive. A market education campaign coupled by patience is needed to convince the customers of the value of the prospect. In addition to the market education costs, the providers should consider the hardware and implementation costs of the application. Finding costs to deploy an application and discharge upfront costs can prove challenging. The entrepreneurs can however lower their costs by using a provider that offers the tools to develop such applications and requires a per usage or a monthly fee rather than upfront sums. An example is android. However, this will still necessitate that smart phones become more affordable in developing countries. The ideal smart phone should be affordable, simple, have a long battery life and have optimized applications. Application provider’s objective is profitability in the venture. The entrepreneurs should have the mentality of a large network. Ignoring the latent value of networks brought forth by the large consumer base using it is a mistake. An innovative application should include features that will take advantage of large volume of subscribers just the way applications like face book increase in value as the number of subscribers increase. Conclusion The widespread usage of mobile telephony enables the development of new applications and its distribution at a lower cost for each additional subscriber. Entrepreneurs must consistently assess how their ventures can be optimized by mobile driven solutions, utilizing mobile applications to pull down costs, improve service delivery and data collection in their markets. Often, in the developing countries the smallest technological progress creates a big impact due to the way it contrasts with the developed world. The developing world is said to be more “mobile” than the developed world. With the new wave of apps in the market people are able to make better and effective decisions. Several opportunities exist for entrepreneurs dwelling in hardware and software technologies in the emerging markets. As the mobile becomes an indispensable tool with each passing day, the developing countries are better placed to take advantage f the opportunities of mobile technologies. Bold entrepreneurs who produce exciting and productive applications today as well as leverage developed telecommunication infrastructure to access the underserved populace characterize the future of the mobile industry. Bibliography. Watkins, R. (2004). Impact Of Mobile Technologies In The Developing Countries. Harborough: Nuffield Technology Scholarships Trust. Read More