Mobile App Implementation In The Food Industry - A Case Study Of Zomato (essay).

Zomato - A Case Study

Question:

How does the Mobile Applications have led to a Revolution in the Field of Technology.

Mobile applications have led to a revolution in the field of technology. People in the present times use Internet for almost all the tasks and food ordering applications are on an all time rise. These applications allow the users to browse through the restaurants in a specific area as entered by the user on the basis of selected categories and also order food from the selected restaurant. The document covers the details of mobile application implementation by Zomato and also covers the features of the application and the benefits associated with it.

The case study to understand the details of mobile application implementation in the food industry has been chosen from the organization as Zomato. Zomato was initially launched as a website to allow the users to discover the places to eat on the basis of area that is selected. The team collects data on the restaurants and food joints in the cities across the world and the information is made accessible to the users. The organization later implemented their services on the mobile application (Zomato, 2017).

The use of mobile devices has spread rapidly in the recent years. The primary mode of accessing web and web applications were personal computers earlier. However, the trend is the use of mobile devices to access web and web services. Smartphones and tablets are the mobile devices that are mostly used by the users. In case of Zomato, the organization only had its website in place and did not have a mobile app earlier. It led to the emergence of issues such as usability issues, visual appeal and performance issues and likewise. Also, the use of mobile app was considered to be more applicable in terms of accessing restaurants on the basis of current location (Kang, 2014). 

Due to the usability and performance issues in the accessing of the web site on the mobile devices, it was decided to implement the mobile application for Zomato. 

The application was developed for the Android and iOS users all across the globe and comprised of all the features that were present in the web site

Ability to allow the users to log in to the Zomato application

Ability to allow the users to browse the nearby places to eat on the basis of the location of the user. The application retrieves the current location of the mobile device and presents the nearby restaurants and the places to eat to the user

Ability to allow the user to browse the places to eat on the basis of the location that is entered by the user

Ability to search the restaurants in a particular location on the basis of categories such as café, dining, ice-cream parlor and likewise

Ability to allow the user to view and add reviews to a particular restaurant in the form of images and comments (Boakye, 2015)

Ability to order food from a particular restaurant by allowing the user to look through the menu and retrieving the respective contact information. Ability to order food and select the preferred mode of payment as cash on delivery or online payments (Kim, Mirusmonov and Lee, 2010)

The Emergence of Mobile Devices

Ability to allow the user to view the restaurant details such as images, menu, average cost and review

Ability to allow the user to manage the account by editing the account, viewing order history, editing connected accounts and viewing saved offers and drafts

Ability to bookmark a particular restaurant to make it appear in the fee

Ability to connect with other users by integrating the account with social media platforms such as Facebook and Google+ (Bing, 2015)

There were a number of system qualities that were offered with the mobile application and were incorporated in the form of non-functional requirementsThe application was made available to the users on a non-stop basis. It had the ability to allow the users to access any of the application features at any point of time.

Ability of the application to have an enhanced system quality in the form of application performance. The application did not suffer from the issues such as delay in the response time and increased throughput time in spite of the increased number of users on the application at the same time.

Ability of the application to have an enhanced system quality in the form of application scalability and supportability. The application was designed and implemented in such a manner that it had the ability to be scaled up or scaled down as and when required.

Ability of the application to have an enhanced system quality in the form of application reliability. The information that was provided by the application was valid at all points of time

Ability of the application to have an enhanced system quality in the form of application usability. The application was designed in such a manner that it was easy to be used by the users and had simple layouts and easy navigations (Nathan, Hashim and Hussain, 2016)

The mobile application was implemented for the major mobile operating systems such as Android and iOS. The system was accessible to the users in the form of a mobile app that had the User Interface with all the requirements and features implemented in the same. Also, there were many of the non-functional requirements such as availability, security, supportability and portability (Afonso and Silva, 2004).

The front end of the system that is the application user interface that was visible and accessible by the users was kept simple such that the users could easily understand the features of the application. The back end of the application comprised of a database engine to store the application data such as patient information, resource information and likewise.

The mobile application had positive impacts on the users as well as the company as it led to the engagement of increased number of users with the company. Mobile devices especially smartphones and tablets are now being used by the users all across the world. Also, the preferred mode of accessing internet and associated applications are also these mobile devices only. Due to this reason, the users could get the ability to easily access the mobile application of Zomato and find the restaurant or order food from restaurants easily. It led to the enhancement of user satisfaction and user engagement with the company.

Implementation of Mobile Application at Zomato

It proved to be beneficial for the company as well as the profits and the number of users increased and the quality and availability of the services also improved with the aid of the mobile application implementation (Lee and Chang, 2013).

There were a number of business processes that were modified or redeveloped at Zomato with the implementation of the mobile application.

Earlier, Zomato was simply a restaurant finder and browsing service that was being offered to the users with the help of the web site. The business process associated with order of food through the aid of Zomato was not present on Zomato. With the implementation of the mobile application, food ordering was offered to the users through the mobile app as well as the web site.

Also, the designing of a web site is very different from that of the mobile application in terms of usability, layout, navigation and other UI aspects. It was therefore required to design the mobile app from scratch and implement the same in the business architecture of Zomato which was accomplished with success (Pourasadi and Dastanian, 2014).

The mobile application implementation at Zomato led to a number of different benefits for the associated parties such as the organization itself, its stakeholders and the users.

It allowed the organization that is Zomato to attract increased number of users by providing its services in the form of mobile application.

It provided the organization with the competitive edge in the market. Food ordering apps are being developed by different organizations and are also being demanded by the users. However, Zomato is the first in the list to offer restaurant finding along with food ordering services to the users. Providing all of these services on a mobile platform led to the increase in sales in terms of accessing the services and also led to ordering of food through Zomato.

Users find it easy to make use of their Smartphones to search information on the basis of their location. Zomato offered the same with their mobile application as it allowed the users to look for the restaurants on the basis of the location of the mobile device. The user experience along with the usability of the application improved with the implementation of the mobile application of Zomato.

There are numerous restaurant and food joints that have been set up in various areas and localities all across the world. They did not have a platform earlier to get recognized and the only medium of marketing was print media for these entities. Zomato, however, allowed the enhanced form of marketing to these restaurants and eating joints as it provided them with the ability to get features on the application. Every time there was a new joint or a new restaurant set up in a locality, Zomato featured the same in the list of the restaurants of that particular area.

There are issues with accessing the web site on a mobile application even if it is designed as per the responsive web design. The user experience that is achieved with a mobile application is better than a responsive web site. The same was the case with Zomato as it allowed the users to have an enhanced user experience without any compromise on the performance of the application (Tsiaousis and Giaglis, 2014).

Social media integration and the benefits that are associated with the same were also experienced with the implementation of mobile application at Zomato. Users currently demand the applications and web services to offer social media integration and the mobile application of Zomato allowed the users to connect with the popular social media accounts. It led to the increased marketing of the organization itself along with the food chains and restaurants that were connected with it.

References

Afonso, A. and Silva, M. (2004). Dynamic Information Dissemination to Mobile Users. Mobile Networks and Applications, 9(5), pp.529-536.

Bing, Y. (2015). A Usability Evaluation of Mobile Healthcare Application GUI Design - Focused on the Exercise Application -. Journal of Digital Design, 15(1), pp.223-233.

Boakye, K. (2015). Factors influencing mobile data service (MDS) continuance intention: An empirical study. Computers in Human Behavior, 50, pp.125-131.

Kang, S. (2014). Factors influencing intention of mobile application use. International Journal of Mobile Communications, 12(4), p.360.

Kim, C., Mirusmonov, M. and Lee, I. (2010). An empirical examination of factors influencing the intention to use mobile payment. Computers in Human Behavior, 26(3), pp.310-322.

Lee, S. and Chang, B. (2013). Factors influencing the use of portals on mobile internet devices. International Journal of Mobile Communications, 11(3), p.279.

Nathan, S., Hashim, N. and Hussain, A. (2016). A Usability Evaluation of Mobile Application: A Review on Usability Model for the Deaf. Jurnal Teknologi, 78(4-3).

Pourasadi, M. and Dastanian, L. (2014). An empirical investigation on factors influencing intention of use of internet banking. Management Science Letters, 4(1), pp.175-180.

Tsiaousis, A. and Giaglis, G. (2014). Mobile websites: usability evaluation and design. International Journal of Mobile Communications, 12(1), p.29.

Zomato, (2017). Zomato. [online] Available at: https://www.zomato.com/about [Accessed 29 Mar. 2017].