"If the Internet were an ocean, then what you’re seeing today is just the shoreline. The Internet will even transform our villages. In the future, the village store and grinding mill will use the Internet, even to order and manage inventories. Even the village school will be changed by the Internet." Strive Masiyiwa.
The above statement by Strive reveals more about the ultra-power the internet seems to provide to the world we live in. Internet is and will continue to significantly transform the way we live, the way we communicate, and more importantly, the way we make money. If that is the case, isn't it high time to start learning more about the internet, and how to utilize this global computer network that provides a variety of information and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols called internet!
Imagine yourself receiving this interesting lecture from the comfort of your room without seeing me. All I need to do is to write, and you read instantly. That's a very basic use of the Internet. Its use has extended to making calls with just internet data, and more interestingly to making video chats with people far away from you-in another country and even continent-seeing their face and even whatever they wish to show you. How amazing! All these are some of the current facilities that internet provides. Sooner or later, you will close the window of your room in Mushin right from your office in Sango otta by just visiting a website and clicking on "close window". Very soon, you will receive your goods and orders from a drone which will be computer-driven to your door-front. Soon, banks will receive very low physical customers-as the internet shall make almost everything possible and soothingly easy. Welcome to the future!
Before the future arrives, it's important that everyone understands how to tap in and enjoy some of the benefits of the internet presently available to us. If we fail to do so, our case will be of no difference to a primary five pupil who does simple arithmetic with stones or by counting fingers in this age where vast computer applications are at our beck and call. What a sickening humility and a sheer murder of time and mental resources!
In this internet age, all you need to do is to make the Internet work for you. Let it do the major tasks in your business while you rest or have more time to concentrate on other necessary things. Let it send receipts and invoices at your predefined time to your customers while you are on holidays or asleep. Let it do the major hard-works. Yes, these are what the internet has come to do. Don't dull yourself!
So how do we make all these happen so that we can enhance our productivity and business ventures? This is by the use of web and mobile technologies
Because of the vastness of this topic and time consideration, I shall only write on web technologies today and postpone the discussion on mobile technologies to a letter date.
Web technologies are infrastructural building blocks of any effective computer network. Communication on a computer could never be as effective as they are without the plethora of web technologies in existence. Web technologies give rise to web and mobile applications. Take a look at google.com. When you get there, all you do is to ask the page to give you a piece of information about your query. Google crawler (the Google engine) crawls all accessible websites to search for your query. In milliseconds, millions of results are provided. That's a good example of a web application. If not for that, you would have had to go to the nearest library, search and search for books related to your search topic, read and read, and at the end, you definitely will not get as much as the results google brought for you. Isn't that impressing?
Now that you have a grasp of what web applications are, let’s see how it can be integrated to our different ventures.
1. Most businesses should utilize the Facebook page for posting products. It’s one of the cheapest and easiest means to reach a wide range of customers. Facebook is a web application for connecting people and chatting.
2. A business that deals in the selling of clothing materials and related stuff can set up a web application similar to Konga or Jumia. This web application makes it easy for your customers to view all your products and place order immediately. It also makes payment easier instead of asking your customers to go join the usually expected long queues in banks. With this, they can receive their receipts online, and you can view the analysis easily on a dashboard and send order immediately. Off course, it makes your business more known to a wide range of audience. Still, point one above should be used effectively. For more info on how to build your own application, contact us at ReboundMedia. http://reboundmedia.com.ng
3. A business that deals in estate management and the selling of properties should setup a website to showcase available properties, location and pricing. This makes customers to see all necessary pictures before leaving their comfort zone. Customers can also search for properties on such simple web applications. Still, point one above should be used effectively.
4. A business that deals in medicinal/herbal products should utilize point one effectively, most importantly, answering peoples’ health questions through Facebook messenger or other chat apps. We have also seen doctors open special websites to attend to peoples’ questions and challenges. More money will come if you can really give people audience and attend to them.
5. A school business should utilize a standard web application that makes managing school and payments effectively. Such applications should do major tasks like report card computations, automatic ID cards generation, automatic receipt generation and many other interesting features. Our EIAZE application can do more of this. Check it out here http://reboundmedia.com.ng/eaize or contact me for more info. With such application in a school , the teachers can have more time to read and teach instead of having to record and record.
6. An hospital business should manage the whole process with a good hospital Management system. With the use of an hospital management system, patients don’t have to look for cards before being attended to. All they need is their patient ID, and their profile can be viewed at once. Hospital workers won’ t need to keep searching for files in the “paper-bush”. Everything works effectively with the web application. Yes, at ReboundMedia, we have built this too. Contact us
7. Any business that does give out invoice and receipts to customers should reduce her workload. You can ask us to build a receipt application which will ease your task. With such apps, you wont need to write and write. All you need is to write it once, and let the application generate every other necessary info and send it to the customers email. Then, your business is really into the modern.
I cannot write all the instances for which a web application can be utilized/implemented in business. However, I hope the few I’ve written have given a clue on what next you should do. Feel free to ask questions and chat me up for more information on how we can use web application to better your business venture.
To end this lesson, lemmie leave you with these interesting points by Strive.
Are you on the Internet? Do you have it in both your business and your home?
# If not, you better sell your car, if you have one, and walk, but you must have a computer and be on the Internet
# If you have a house, it would be far smarter in today's world to have a smaller house with Internet, than a bigger house with no Internet.
# It would be far, far smarter to have a smaller car, or none at all, and be able to afford a computer and Internet for your business and family, than to have a luxury car or the like.
Watch out for part two.
Thank you for reading
Author:
Adigun Sherif
CEO ReboundMedia
08163588242
