Thanks to unprecedented adoption by both consumers and business users worldwide, mobile and tablet devices have become the new frontier of business marketing, sales, and service. By one estimate, beginning in 2014 more people will access the Internet via mobile devices than desktops. If your company doesn’t already have a mobile presence, chances are you’re thinking about establishing one.

But with manufacturers constantly bringing new devices to market, this frontier is a tricky one to navigate. The variety of operating systems, screen sizes, and interaction models create design and development challenges. And because your target customers use different technologies for different purposes, it isn’t always clear what types of mobile solutions you should develop—and for which devices.

Where do you turn for help? While many developers have the skills to create a one-off app for a particular smartphone or tablet, few are qualified to deliver what serious businesses truly need: a comprehensive, multichannel strategy for mobile digital solutions.

This means that, in order to effectively use mobile devices and tablets to meet your customers’ needs and your bottom-line goals, you need to create a meaningful, elegant, and consistent customer experience that spans multiple devices and touch points. And to ensure that you and your customers make the most of each interaction, your applications must be fully integrated into the backend systems that support your operations.

At Universal Mind, we kick off your mobile and tablet application initiatives by devising a sound multichannel strategy. We examine and prioritize your business goals so that all of our subsequent work serves a clear objective. Then we research your target customers so we can make informed decisions about the platforms, technologies, and content they’ll find most relevant and valuable.

As we move into designing the user experience and planning development, we consider all aspects of current devices and technologies and how they impact your goals. How will different form factors and interaction paradigms enhance or limit customers’ experiences of your content? Will your customers prefer the kind of familiar, device-specific experiences native development provides, or would it be wiser to create a browser-based application so you can reach your many thousands of customers who use older devices? How can we best architect data delivery, API management, security, scalability, and other factors to ensure optimal application performance? With answers to these types of questions, we can create a clear roadmap for success.

Finally, we determine how best to measure that success, whether by application downloads, revenue numbers, or brand awareness survey results.

By taking a holistic view of business opportunities and challenges across all digital channels, we help ensure that your mobile and tablet applications inspire the deep customer engagement that gives your business a competitive edge.