The Ubiquitous Smartphone and how it has Transformed Business and Commerce

How the Ubiquitous Smartphone has Revolutionized B2B and B2C Commerce

Who doesn’t own a Smartphone? Right from teenagers to senior citizens and from businesspersons to business leaders, Smartphone ownership is Ubiquitous and all pervasive. Indeed, it is estimated that nearly 80% of the world’s population is now connected to each other through the mobile phones with Smartphones constituting the majority of such devices.

From the time the Late Legendary Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone and set off a revolution in the way we live and work, the Smartphone has been on an unstoppable journey towards transforming business and commerce.

For instance, traders and businesspersons who own Smartphones can now reach out directly to the consumers as well as to their peers and other businesspersons through the Smartphones thereby giving them more agencies over their work.

Whether it is B2B or Business to Business or B2C or Business to Consumer transactions, the Smartphone has vastly improved the way in such commercial exchange happen.

Take for example the B2B or the Business to Business exchanges. Using the Smartphones, online retailers such as Amazon connect with their vendors and suppliers and other retailers as far as listing the products and brands and goods of the latter are concerned.

This means that there is a direct exchange instead of intermediaries that creates efficiencies as well as synergies from economies of scale and automation.

Indeed, when businesses “talk to” each other using Smartphones and eCommerce and mCommerce models, they not only reap the synergies from the removal of unnecessary layers of transactional noise, but they also let them scale up since the combination of the Internet and the Smartphone means that there are only a few barriers to scaling up quickly.

Taking this example to the B2C model, Amazon can reach out directly to its vast base of consumers thereby creating a system where there are few obstacles to direct communication and hence, can offer better prices, or as some would say, discounts and prices that make goods and products so cheap that consumers are left wanting for more.

How the Smartphone Helps Developing Countries in Creating New Capitalist Models

As can be seen from the examples cited earlier, the Smartphone has well and truly changed the way we work and live and our lives as consumers and producers. Take a look at the Play Store in Android Phones or the equivalent in the iPhones and you find Apps for just about everything and anything and from anywhere and everywhere.

Indeed, right from Apps that offer Milkman services and Groceries to the Apps for Entertainment, the Smartphone has pervaded or rather, invaded our lives so much that it is now difficult to envisage what our lives would look like if not for it.

The convenience and the ease of use that Smartphone based commerce provides is especially useful in countries such as India where Last Mile Connectivity and other issues such as Low Internet Penetration makes it difficult for consumers and producers alike to enhance their businesses.

To explain, since Smartphones are pervasive in India and since, Mobile Operators are providing Bandwidth and Data at Dirt Cheap Rates, anyone and everyone who has a Smartphone can bypass the need to have a Personal Computer with Broadband access and instead, use the Smartphone as a Marker of Identity and as a Medium of Commerce.

Look around in any Indian City and you would find that just about everybody asks for the Mobile Number rather than any other information as the Ubiquity of the Device means that person to person communication has indeed been transformed by the Smartphone.

Moreover, it has empowered Millions of Small Traders and Businesspersons to ramp up their businesses by reaching out to the untapped markets for everything from Real Estate and Equity Trading to the Latest Bollywood hits.

Taken together with the Aadhar card, Smartphones can be said to have ushered in a New India that is Superfast and which transacts in Real Time.

The Dangers and Downsides of Ubiquitous Smartphones

Having said that, there are some downsides to the pervasive reach of the Smartphones. One is that malicious and nefarious individuals have found it easier to access the personal details of the users and then harass them for everything from Telemarketing to more dangerous purposes such as hacking and perpetrating Online and Mobile based frauds.

Moreover, with Smartphones being so ubiquitous, it is easy for anyone to access vast troves of user data and then use it for siphoning off money and other valuables.

Indeed, this is a global problem and not confined to specific countries or regions as the Scandals around Facebook and Cambridge Analytica have shown where unauthorized access to user data has been used for targeted political ads and other unlawful activities.

Moreover, the Addictive nature of the Smartphone means that there are now new ailments such as Game Addiction that are making the youth prone to less attention spans and a sense of being lost.

In addition, the ease with which WhatsApp and other Communication tools exchange messages means that the Smartphone can be used to spread Fake News and Downright Lethal Misinformation that has already led to Mob Violence in several parts of the world.

No wonder the Governments worldwide suspend Mobile Internet at the first sign of unrest since they believe that Smartphones are being used for the purposes that are detrimental to maintaining law and order.

To conclude, while there are dangers, the Smartphone has revolutionized and transformed our lives and hence, it would be futile to go back in time instead of putting in safeguards that would actualize a better future for all of us.