While mobile apps can be great for your use case, a web app is essential for just about any industry or use case as long as it can be accessed from any kind of device.
Custom web apps streamline their features based on the industry's specific needs. This means that you need custom web app development to make a product that will focus solely on the needs of your target users.
In this article, we explore how the following industries can benefit from using custom web application development:
Make Healthcare More Accessible With Custom Web Apps
Most people have mobile smartphones, which is one of the reasons custom health apps are becoming so popular. However, accessing healthcare should not be confined to mobile apps only. In fact, web-based healthcare applications have some benefits that can hardly be realized through a mobile app.
1. Quick Access to Medical Care
Through web apps, patients can quickly send a message and schedule an appointment from any type of device with browser support. This saves patients from having to purchase and download yet another mobile app, as they can do it using a browser on their own computer or phone.
2. Remote Patient Care Becomes Easy
Web apps offer patients significantly more control over their personal data and allows them to share necessary information with their healthcare providers. Patients can quickly connect with their doctors through virtual appointments using video conferencing thanks to WebRTC technology. Although mobile apps can also do this, using desktop-based web apps are easier to use for video conferencing with bigger screens. Furthermore, doctors can use such apps to track patients' data between visits and notify them if there is some risk to their health.
3. Medication Use
Sometimes patients don't remember the exact names or doses of medications they are taking. This situation can be dangerous with high-risk, elderly, or patients taking more than a few different meds. However, using web applications like Amwell, healthcare providers can easily check all prescriptions, make any changes to dosage, and patient medical data. Patients can use them to update or refill their prescriptions.
Finally, web apps are usually faster and less costly to develop and update than mobile apps.
Enjoy the Benefits of Custom Web Development in Your Business
If you use a CRM or are involved in business process management, you likely use web apps to help run everyday tasks quickly and easily. But these apps come in all kinds of forms. Some web apps are better than others. Some are off-the-shelf or custom built.
One web app may work well for certain functions, but not for others. Generally, custom web apps result in the following benefits for business services:
1. Gives you a Competitive Advantage
Using the same web apps as your competitors may be limiting for two reasons. First, one-size-fits-all apps that come off the shelf are usually either too narrow in functionality that limits what you can do with it, or have too many bells and whistles that you may not need. To get the precise functionality that meets all your needs as an individual organization, having a custom web app developed specifically to your requirements would be the most logical choice.
2. More Security
Many off-the-shelf web apps may lack the required security that a business specifically needs. Custom web app development allows you to integrate only the necessary functionalities and eliminate any unnecessary features that would be more vulnerable to cyberattacks. If your company has special security needs, it's best to go with customized web app development that meets your specific requirements. Furthermore, a custom web app can be updated whenever necessary without having to wait for new releases or upgrades over time. In this case, updates should still be planned and executed responsibly.
3. Accessible and Scalable
Scalability and extensibility are major priorities for multi-user web apps used by enterprise businesses because scalable apps allow them to expand usage as they grow. Typically, these types of apps include dashboards with live data feeds, collaborative work spaces, and user accounts. A custom web app can be designed for any device, including desktop computers, laptops, smartphones and tablets. In addition, custom web apps can be accessible from anywhere and anytime, regardless of any on-premise server issues or outages.
Industrial Workflows Made Easier With Custom Web Apps
Managing supply chains, warehouses, and inventory are complex tasks. In these functions, there are often a lot of moving parts and a lot of data to keep track of. For this reason, logistics and shipping functions of industrial businesses often need custom web app development for industrial purposes.
1. Staying on Top of Consumer Demand
Custom web apps can be used to help manage supply chains and deliver products more efficiently. For example, having a web-based app that allows multiple departments to securely access the same inventory and order data gives them a competitive advantage over companies that use outdated manual logging systems such as spreadsheets, or worse, paper-based systems.
2. Stay on Top of Mission-critical Operations
Since custom web apps are need-based, industrial companies use them to save data, time, and resources, enabling them to focus on strategic initiatives and to maintain mission-critical operations without interruption. For example, in supply chain management, companies can develop and deploy custom web apps to gain greater visibility into their supply chains while synchronizing data between all parties to respond faster to demand.
3. Streamline Workflows While Reducing Errors
Another way custom web apps improve business performance is by streamlining workflows and reducing (or eliminating) errors common with spreadsheets and paper-based systems. To keep with the manufacturing and warehousing examples, custom web apps help companies collect data regarding order and delivery statuses between suppliers, manufacturers and distributors. These apps also enable them to keep track of inventory levels so they can be sure their shelves are stocked with enough merchandise.
Increase Brand Awareness With Consumer App Development
2020 saw a major shift toward digital life. According to Forbes, in April 2020, an average person spent a quarter of their waking hours, or 4.3 hours, on mobile apps. Furthermore, we can safely assume that number has only increased in the second half of the same year.
But does this mean that mobile apps are the only way to go in B2C and eCommerce? Actually, on the contrary, there is a special type of custom web app that can serve consumers using both desktop and mobile devices. This type of app is known as a progressive web app.
Another type of web app that looks and feels like a mobile app can be built using React Native, which is a popular cross-platform development framework. In this section, we discuss the benefits of developing both progressive web apps and React Native cross-platform web apps for consumers.
1. Increased Engagement and Conversion Rates
Being lightweight and flexible, progressive web apps are ideal for consumers and eCommerce businesses. They load quickly, perform better than traditional native apps, and can work on any device regardless of type or size. Since consumers can access these apps, as well as web apps built with React Native, using a web browser on any device without any downloads, installation or manual updates are not even required. It is for those reasons that such apps see a 52% increase in conversions and 137% increase in user engagement.
2. Improved Brand Recognition
By putting your custom web app out there, you will bring your brand as well as your services to the doorstep of potential clients. Moreover, app stores will make your brand more visible, and you will reach a broader audience. Features such as push notifications and alerts aren’t necessarily limited to mobile apps, as they can be integrated into web-based apps.
3. Similar Look and Feel at a Lower Development Cost
While many consumers prefer mobile apps over web-based apps nowadays, it’s possible to build advanced custom web applications with a mobile-like UI. Because progressive web apps and cross-platform web apps do not need different codebases for each device type or OS, it tends to be less costly to develop these apps.
Reach and Engage People In Your Communities
Custom web applications can help governments and nonprofits reach more people in their communities. They can also help collect data on their citizens to deliver better services to them both online and offline.
As an example, one government agency built a custom web application to streamline registration of low-income children for free school meals. Their families no longer had to submit paper applications, which was inconvenient because they were juggling multiple jobs while transporting their kids to and from the school.
1. Keep People Informed About What You Do
Many government web apps let people sign up to receive emergency alerts, health info, weather updates, etc. This way, people stay informed about what’s going on in their communities. In a similar fashion, non-profit organizations can connect with their users and garner support for their causes through apps and web-based push notifications.
2. Speed Up Fundraising
Supporters can link their credit cards through your custom web app and donate for those in need. By making this process straightforward, it can help your organization raise funds on the go and in real time, and distribute those funds to beneficiaries in a clear and transparent manner.
3. Build and Nurture Local Communities
With a custom web app, the user can gather around one idea, and it will provide them with a space where they can share their opinions, pictures, videos and stories. A more engaged user is much more likely to sign petitions or support donations if you provide them with an easy-to-use web app with browser support on mobile devices.
Education App Development For Interactive Learning
In a tech-savvy world, students will always choose apps over the traditional school system. But if you combine trendy and engaging apps with education, you will get a powerful learning tool. To create the best of both worlds and ensure students still learn, you can benefit from web app development specifically geared towards education.
1. Interactive Learning Boosts Student Learning
Custom web applications built for interactive learning allow instructors to post lecture slides, homework assignments, and grades through online interfaces that students can access from anywhere, at any time, and using any device. These apps can be used for group work or individual study as well as submissions of school work. As with Kahoot!, you can even gamify quizzes to test students’ knowledge in a fun and engaging way.
The main benefit here is that online web and mobile apps have an interactive element that helps keep students engaged so that learning becomes more enjoyable.
2. Broader Access to Education
Having web-based educational apps provides more learning opportunities for students who have limited access to the traditional classroom. Some students can learn from home. Some students with special needs can be provided with equal education opportunities. On the teachers’ side, they no longer need to rely on a single textbook for class content and can instead make their classroom more interactive.
3. Lower Costs
By bringing e-learning to custom web applications, it lowers the need for a textbook or two for every classroom. Replacing textbooks with e-learning web applications lowers the cost of procuring textbooks for schools, and also reduces back strain for the students as they’d no longer need to lug heavy textbooks around from class to class.
Key Takeaways
As we can see, various industries have a lot to gain by developing custom web applications as part of their business strategy.
Although the benefits may differ for each industry, using scalable and secure custom web apps tailored to your specific needs helps automate repetitive tasks, streamlines your workflows, boosts data security, and allows your organization to focus on strategic initiatives.
If you are in one of the industries above, and want to explore developing a custom web application for your organization, contact our experts at AppIt to get a free consultation.
