As our world becomes more reliant on digital services, companies looking to stay competitive must combine forces to succeed.

Mobile applications have transformed business and industry by helping to increase sales, reduce costs and disrupt markets. Traditionally, these applications have looked the same and worked in the same way, but the next generation of mobile applications and services will be contextual.

[source: The Telegraph] This means that the latest digital offerings will use artificial intelligence to be contextually aware of the user’s needs and interests at any given time. The applications will therefore need to adapt and change in real time as the user’s circumstances change. Buildings, vehicles and workplaces are becoming more connected via the Internet of Things (IofT), and it is the information stored by our devices that will provide the context for the next generation of such applications and services.

Smartphones are currently being trialed to allow you to pay for your shopping without queuing at the till, and you can even buy sports tickets and gain entry to stadiums using only a fingerprint. Banks already use contactless payments systems, Amazon have introduced the ‘One-click’ checkout, and smartphones now support services like Apple Pay and Android Pay.

Contextual applications will soon take this a step further by using date, location and other environmental factors to personalize user experiences. Hilton Corporation have launched a smart-key as well as digitizing, and thus automating, the hotel checkout process.

The more data becomes available, the more effective the experience becomes for service providers and consumers

Customers who often despair with technology, especially when encountering faults with their Internet Service Providers (ISPs), may soon be able to receive a personalized support service. Their account details and call history can be analyzed to produce an individual troubleshooting list that can either be used by the customer direct or by an agent talking them through the steps required to resolve the problem. Service providers will be able to proactively diagnose and fix problems remotely without the customer even having to make a call.

This combination of existing services with new data sources and analysis of consumer behavior patterns is already proving successful in the real world. For example, Facebook users can now book Uber cabs through the Messenger app rather than switching to Uber. Facebook also promotes products and services that relate to the user’s browsing history and posts on the social network.

As our world becomes more reliant on digital services and start-ups disrupt existing industries, companies looking to stay competitive will have to combine forces if they are to succeed. Such partnerships will allow them to invest collectively in complementary or supporting services, to deliver new products to market in less time, and to become leaders in the mobile services markets of the future.

Contextualized mobile services can give businesses an advantage in many ways. Personalizing an application’s functionality and content, for example, gives the user a more relevant service or experience. The more a customer engages with and uses a service, the more loyal they become. This helps promote brand awareness and allows a business to grow.

Operational efficiencies can arise too, as contextual services can be developed using a single codebase, but personalized and tailored to individual customers by utilizing complex algorithms and Decisioning techniques. They can support organizations by developing a single view of a customer across digital channels and by rapidly connecting silos of information to deliver joined up, seamless experiences.

Where once a business interacted with its customers face to face, now the Internet of Things allows us to connect our homes, vehicles and workplaces.

By collecting the mass of data that such services produce, a user’s behavior can be analyzed, and patterns uncovered. Businesses can learn from this data and develop personalized goods and services that appeal to a wider range of consumers, more frequently. If they are more likely to purchase those goods and services, both brand awareness and sales increase.

The key factor that underpins the entire contextual services model is that they can’t succeed without access to accurate data. The more data that becomes available, the more streamlined and effective the experience becomes for service providers and consumers.

This data must be gathered with the consent of the individual to avoid breaching privacy agreements. It can be collected and analyzed in real-time to provide a specific experience to a user or can be combined with other data sets to provide valuable insights that may not have otherwise been unearthed.

In a fast-moving digital environment, products and services are constantly evolving. If an organization is to succeed in this digital and technological age, it must plan for – and adapt to – the pace of development. Where once a business interacted with its customers face to face, now the Internet of Things allows us to connect our homes, vehicles, workplaces and technologies under one umbrella where our devices are our portals to limitless goods and services.

This increased connectivity allows us to shop online, book holidays, access news, and control our heating at the touch of a button on an app, plus stream live sport, play interactive games, download movies, increase efficiency and productivity at work, and even use artificial intelligence to help drive our cars and operate machinery. All of these interactions produce data that can be analyzed by the organizations providing the services.

Only the organizations that use this data effectively will survive in an increasingly digital world.