Today, a lot is happening in the arena of mobile technologies which is accelerating the process of mobile app development.
When it comes to the perspective of the people, smart gadgets prove to be a dependable source of communication, reliable source of information as well as a problem-solving tool. The best thing is that all these services are available 24*7.
Mobile technologies are now having an increasing role in businesses along with people’s personal lives. eCommerce, going mobile is considered as one of the top priorities. If the business wants to grow, it has to take a note of it.
One of the effective steps that can be taken in this area is to upgrade the business to the mobile by building an enterprise mobile application.
Many of the corporate analysts believe that enterprises will be able to increase their productivity by building enterprise apps. With the passing year, this trend has only intensified.
The main aim of building enterprise apps is to simplify business processes and build an environment which will boost interaction between the employees and well as increase involvement.
Why is it important to build a mobile enterprise application for a business?
It was during the beginning of 2016 that enterprise mobile apps started to gain its popularity in the market. They quickly became popular in the app market in terms of revenue and popularity.
Just a year back from there, a large number of enterprises invested in this area and a bunch of them even started to make money out of it.
If we look at things from the perspective of app developers, the number of developers moving to this arena and gaining skills and expertise to develop enterprise mobile apps is on the rise now.
For sure, it will turn out to be one of the leading trends in mobile app development in the years to come.
Building enterprise mobile app development involves a number of challenges. Those challenges have been explained here, along with the solutions that can help to resolve it.
Here is a list of Challenges and its Solutions
Hiring a Development Team
Building an enterprise app is a complicated thing and it involves multi-stage processes. This means there is a need to have a number of experts who are specialized to handle such projects.
The development team of building enterprise mobile app should consist of:
- Project manager
- Designers
- Developers
- Software and hardware engineers
- Testers
Most of the companies don’t have such an in-house team of specialists on board. This makes it important for companies to go for external help.
When developing such a mobile app for enterprises, businesses cannot simply outsource the service and wait for the end result.
It is very important for them to get involved in the development process and work together to have clarity on what kind of app you want to be developed.
It is inevitable to have clear communication between the developers in the outsource team and the your business representatives. The involvement of dedicated corporate representatives will greatly influence the final result of the project.
Such a representative must be:
- Knowing the functions and tasks which the application is said to perform.
- Having a clear idea about the company’s structure and its internal processes.
- Having control over each stage in the app development and involved in the process.
- Knowing well about the existing IT ecosystem, which is present within the organization.
It is not possible for the developers to evaluate the situation of the company from outside. Whatever the experience and expertise of the developer is, it will not be possible for them to have a clear idea about the internal processes of the company as well as the specific functions that the application will have in the future.
Still, you had take time to explain it to them. In short, if there is a dedicated representative from the company who is always in touch with the development team will ensure all the doubts are cleared before it gets build up which will result in a positive and predictable outcome of the project.
Now this follows by some specifics which the enterprise mobile app should possess and the same has been explained below –
High Usability Demands
When you are limited within the enterprise mobile app development, one of the significant issues that will pop up is usability. Usability of the app will play a crucial role in deciding the efficiency of the entire organization, level of user satisfaction and the goals that are expected to achieve.
The best thing about building an application which is specially developed for the employees within the enterprise is that you have a clear idea about who your target audience is.
So this also means you will have a better chance to know the employees well, as well as help with human resources and team building. Conducting an internal study before carrying out development always makes some sense. Conducting a poll can be said as the best way to know about the expectations and desired of future customers.
By conducting a small base level analysis will help you understand more through user data like:
- Employees’ communication needs and processes in information exchange
- The issues with the business workflow where this application will work as a solution
- Each working role, needs of each department and the interactions in horizontal and vertical planes.
It is important for the businesses as well as the developers to understand that only if the mobile app manages to fulfill the needs of the employee it’s, then it will prove to be efficient for the organization.
The way the application will be used is different when you compare an ordinary employee with the company CEO. Still, the app needs to work equally well for everyone on board.
Always keep in mind that the main purpose of an enterprise mobile app is to simplify the work for everyone within the organization.
Existing IT Environments
The enterprise mobile app, which is newly created, should not be well versed with the IT system of the company. Here the business is moving around an application and chances are more that it has been developing and evolving over many years.
The right mobile app development company will consider the existing technical expertise of the company and will ensure to develop a future application which easily fits in it. This way, the new application will complement the existing one and will also take the technology of the organization to a new level.
Calculate sometime in the development process for the developers to interact with the IT department of the organization so that they can understand the existing system in the business so as to know the available APIs and the ones which need to be built from scratch.
Coming up with a good development strategy means you are developing a mechanism which will be enough to meet the needs of the employees. You need to make sure that in the technological environment of the company, the application proves its worth.
Security Challenges
The quick spread of the BYOD concept has increased the issue of security in particular. Even by knowing that the BYOD concept can bring down the cost of equipment at the business level, still, not all companies are ready to implement it due to the fear of security compromise. This means the chance of implementing the next level i.e., BYOA is out of the question now.
However, it is not in the hands of the company to completely control the role of personal mobile devices within the organization. Some of the facts are:
- As per the research of Cisco, 95% of the employees are making use of their personal device at the workplace for work-related activities.
- It also says that 53% of employees in the US have a belief that they become more productive by using their own devices.
- Based on Poppulo, around 41% of employees are not satisfied by the company provided tools.
The integration of mobile tools in different business process is going to be inevitable and so it becomes the responsibility of the company to take control of it.
Controlling the process so as to boost mobility within the organization; increases with the implementation of an enterprise mobile app.
In order to ensure there are fewer security risks when it comes to the introduction of a mobile approach, mobile device management system and mobile application management system are used. Mobile device management software helps IT and security departments at the corporate level so that it manages all the mobile devices in a single way and this includes the employees’ personal devices too.
Mobile Access to Operational Data
In the current business scenario, there is a large amount of data involved in any kind of job. One of the main uses of the mobile application is to offer easy and quick access to important data to the employees.
This kind of information needs to be made available to the employees at the office as well as when he or she is on a business trip or on vacation.
The ability to access data without the need of an internet connection can be called as a great advantage of using this application. Therefore it would be worthy of thinking about its offline-first approach during the development stage.
The issues of data security and access provision go hand in hand. So better take care of reliable access rights systems and credentials so that based on the job role and position within the organization, each employee will get a hand on a different set of data.
Regular Application Maintenance and Support
Building an enterprise mobile application and launching it is one part of the lifecycle. Once the app is launched, it is important to update it and maintain it regularly so that it keeps up with the latest technologies, newer issues, and vulnerabilities and new areas of activity.
Moreover, it is important for you to ensure that the employees in the organization make use of the tools provided by the organization in their daily routine. Implementing such a mobility solution within the organization builds up a new culture and it is equally important for the organization and its employees to be flexible at it.
The success of an enterprise mobile application does not depend on its completion and release, but it is projected through factors like improvements within the company environment, increased employee productivity, and the development in terms of business.
Conclusion
So based on this, it can be said for sure that building an enterprise mobile application is not an easy thing. Here in this post, an effort has been made to let the businesses and other people on management levels as well as employees to get a basic understanding of the challenges faced with enterprise app development and the solutions for it.
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