The advancements in mobile technology and the availability of numerous functional apps has resulted in its rapid user adoption, not only for the purpose of communication or entertainment, but also for productivity and convenience. In fact, even the corporate world has witnessed the adoption of enterprise mobile apps to mobilize, integrate and effectively automate business functions, processes and operations.
Enterprise mobile apps are business applications used by the businesses to integrate every aspect of an organization's operations and processes such as accounting, financial management, resource planning, sales and distribution, human resource management, marketing, inventory control and other functions for achieving enhanced operational efficiency and enabling better collaboration.
The article focuses on understanding the characteristics of enterprise mobile apps that differentiates it from consumer apps, types of enterprise apps, key advantages of using enterprise mobile apps and recommendations to ensure speedy adoption of enterprise mobile apps.
Characteristics of Enterprise Mobile Apps
The three most common features of enterprise mobile apps are the following.
Large and Complex
Enterprise apps are complex business applications that can manage and integrate massive amounts of data. They can also be deployed on various platforms across corporate networks, devices, operating systems, intranets and the Internet.
Business-oriented
These apps are designed to cater to the specific business needs of an organization. Business processes, rules and management policies are encoded and deployed in a manner that would effectively satisfy the needs of the company.
Robust
Enterprise mobile apps are expected to be highly flexible to meet varying deployment scenarios and scalability needs. In addition, they need to be robust enough to support continuity of operations. Since mobile devices, running different operating systems get OS updates every few months, enterprise apps must also be updated and tested for these new versions. Since this will require continuous software development and testing, organizations must plan resources accordingly.
Types of Enterprise Mobile Apps
There are various types of enterprise mobile apps used by organizations. To name a few, these apps include Customer Relationship Management (CRM), email marketing, business intelligence, payment processing, automated billing, content management and customer support applications.
Advantages of Adopting Enterprise Mobile Apps
Increased work efficiency
Adopting enterprise mobile apps can help boost work productivity since employees are given the privilege to gain access to organizational data anytime, anywhere. This results in better team collaboration, instant and constant communication with internal teams, partners and clients and effective response to urgent requests.
Collaboration and Teamwork
The adoption of enterprise mobile apps also helps encourage enhanced collaboration teamwork among employees spread across various offices or geographical locations. It also allows anytime, anywhere data access to remote teams such as sales or for field service operations.
Improved Sales and Customer Service
Adoption of enterprise apps can help increase sales and improve customer service. For example, one of the functions of a CRM enterprise application is sales opportunity management. Using this function, the organization gains more knowledge about its customer's needs and buying behavior that results in improved marketing plans and strategies and thus helps to increase sales. Another example is the enterprise resource-planning app. This app supports sales activities that include the pre-sales activities, sales orders, deliveries, billing and customer payments and more.
Tips to speed adoption of enterprise mobile apps
Although there are many benefits of using enterprise mobile apps, their adoption may be quite challenging, since these applications are functionally different compared to consumer apps. Here are some important tips to speed adoption of enterprise mobile apps.
Planning
Before developing enterprise mobile apps, an organization must carefully consider important aspects, such as business goals, budget, the number of employees that will test and maintain the enterprise apps, the number of users that it will support, scalability needs and more.
End-user experience
Organizations must not only focus on business goal and IT management, but also consider end-user experience because even the most functional enterprise app will fail if the employees do not adopt it easily. Thus, it is recommended that enterprise mobile apps be user-friendly since employees will use these apps repeatedly. They need to be as simple and enjoyable to use as consumer apps, along with enabling the users to do their task quickly and effectively.
Design considerations
Enterprise mobile apps should be visually appealing and elegant. The UX must vary depending on the device type and platform. This means that enterprise apps should work seamlessly and provide a uniform user experience across devices and platforms.
User feedback
It is important to analyse how users navigate through the apps as well as monitor their feedback along with taking note of specific app features that are not being utilized and those that are being frequently engaged in by users. In doing so, the app development team will gain knowledge on the likes and dislikes of the users and can do the necessary app enhancements to address it.
App Security
Enterprise apps must be built with optimum security features. Whether the data is stored in the device or in the back-end, they need to maintain data security using high-grade encryption, authentication capabilities and context-aware security controls. The IT department and the management must determine the type of information or data that should be available to employees, either online or offline to avoid possible data security breaches.
Optimum Performance
To prevent unpleasant end-user experiences, the apps must be designed to be robust to avoid an unexpected crash during peak demand. They must be reliable and functional 24/7 despite fluctuations in network connectivity.
The responsibility of ensuring easy adoption of enterprise mobile apps lies not only with the IT team, but also with the managers and department heads. This can be done through user training and clear communication of app benefits to the app users. The best way to increase user adoption of enterprise mobile apps is to make them simple, user-friendly and easy to use just like the consumer apps.
Author Bio: This article has been contributed by Silicus Technologies, a leading provider of Software Development and Technology consulting services.