C.I.M. APP The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Australia went from lagging to leading the worldwide smartphone revolution in just one year, a major study by Google has revealed. Mobile internet usage by Australians now rivals that of PCs for activities like social networking and, soon, shopping, Google found. Behind Singapore, Australia has the highest smartphone penetration in the world at 37 per cent and were also consuming more apps, the research revealed. Australians have on average 25 apps on their phone (eight of which are paid), versus 23 for the US and Britain. Google teamed up with IPSOS Research to interview 30,000 people in 30 countries about how they use their smartphones. A total of 2000 Australians were included. "The rise of smartphones is dramatically increasing the use of the internet overall in Australia and ... were seeing mobile usage and smartphone usage starting to approach or even match PC usage," said Ryan Hayward, Googles mobile product marketing manager for the Asia-Pacific region. Hayward believes mobile internet usage could soon eclipse PC internet usage as 36 per cent of respondents said they expected to use the web more on the smartphone in the future compared to 28 per cent for the PC. In the age of the smart phone, savvy employers are now thinking outside the box on ways to engage their retail front line staff. Emails, fax memos and one on ones are now a thing of the past in our time poor culture. The app revolution is taking over, and for those companies who are embracing the new C.I.M technology they are not only reporting an increase in staff moral, but also a rise in revenue. So what is C.I.M.? C – Communicate: The app is a communication tool for front-line staff who represent your brand to your customers. Key messages will never be ‘lost in translation’ again. Communicate in real time so that your team aren’t in the dark about latest promotions, rosters and operational activity prior to commencing their shift. Engagement with you team is now made easy! I – Interact: Staff interact with the app in a gamification* platform making the hard things like sales and customer service – fun! The app is an innovative way to continue to engage and interact with staff so that prior training will be retained. M – Motivate: The app motivates staff to achieve stronger key KPI’s such as average spends, memberships, units per transactions & excellence in customer service. Set challenge that translate into further sales and creates some friendly competition between stores, regions and/or states. To view a demo, contact [email protected]