AFFORDABLE APPS FOR SMALL BUSINESSES
AN INNOVATIVE Johannesburg entrepreneur wants to revolutionise how small businesses communicate with their customers by introducing business-tailored cellphone applications.
Currently, only well-established businesses with deep pockets, such as banks, big retailers and cellphone service providers, can afford to pay more than R1-million to have mobile applications popularly known as apps.
Apps are user-friendly programmes or software that are downloaded on mobile devices through Google Play for Android gadgets and the App Store for Apple devices.
However, Elisha Ramharakh, a budding entrepreneur from Roodepoort, west of Johannesburg, says her apps development business could bridge the gap between big corporations and emerging business owners because her apps are sold at a fraction of global prices.
“Globally everyone is moving towards digital technology and big corporates have taken advantage of this and are able to build empires using technology. However, a simple guy on the street who is running a small business does not have access to the financial muscle to enable him to compete with big companies,” Ramharakh said.
She started her own information technology company, Eray Technologies, about three months ago with the aim of providing quick solutions to small enterprises.
“It’s a unique type of business. All the apps that we create are tailored according to the needs of the customer or client,” she explained.
“For an example, if you run a restaurant I would come to your business and assess the type of service you offer and what you want to communicate to your clients.”
She said it could take two days to design an app according to the client’s specifications, send it to developers overseas and then load it on the App Store and Google Play where customers can download it.
Ramharakh said other helpful perks with having apps was that users could use them to buy items online. Apps also come with a push notification feature (similar to an SMS) to advertise specials and other useful information directly to customers.
“In cases where the business owner has multiple branches they can use their app to directly market specific high-selling products to users living close to those shops.”