Dive Brief:
- City Furniture in South Florida, announced Tuesday that it launched three MobileFirst for iOS apps for iPad Pro, according to IBM.
- The apps — Sales Assist, Payment, and Finance — are designed to get in-store shoppers the products they want faster, according to an IBM press release. The iOS apps work together and are integrated with City Furniture's commerce solutions.
- City Furniture is rolling out the apps to 400 store associates across 15 City Furniture showrooms, and 12 Ashley Furniture HomeStore showrooms in south Florida.
Dive Insight:
City Furniture's apps will enable salespeople to access insights that can help them deliver a more efficient, personalized shopping experience for customers. Using the apps, City Furniture associates will also be able to reduce manual work and streamline services.
It's all part of an effort to digitally transform by changing the entire customer experience to revolve around the customer rather than what's easiest for the company.
Apple has been pushing its iOS apps hard among various types of businesses. In 2015, Apple struck a partnership with IBM to jointly create apps for the workplace. Apple has a similar partnership with SAP. Such partnerships can prove advantageous on both sides, as enterprise tech companies like IBM and SAP can capitalize on Apple's market penetration. In turn, Apple can move deeper into the enterprise market.
In February, IBM and United Airlines announced they will collaborate to build a new suite of enterprise iOS apps that are market ready.
