Enterprise Mobile Apps

Organizations in all industries can benefit from introducing mobile apps into daily operations. Some of the most popular types of enterprise mobile apps are:

• • Communication – secure tools to chat, talk, and hold videoconferences
  • Collaboration – digital asset repositories that let people collaborate seamlessly
  • Security – digital signatures, two-step sign-in verification, alert notifications
  • Relationship management – mobile CRM apps
  • Training – apps for managing in-house training initiatives
  • Productivity – work assistant apps that provide ways to be more productive
  • Resource management – apps for keeping track of assets and resources
  • Customer-facing – ecommerce apps, catalogues, discount alerts, mobile experiences

The software architecture, technology stack and development methodology are crucial. But the idea behind the app is no less important. Refining the idea, and honing in on the most important features, can actually save time later during development. 

One way to refine your app idea is to involve end-users in the design process. Collecting information about user preferences can help developers and other project stakeholders make better decisions. 

It’s all in the details. An app for field workers in the Transportation industry should be optimized for long battery life, because a device that loses charge quickly can disrupt operations. Whereas a customer-facing app in the Education industry should be optimized for performance, because they’ll likely spend short amounts of time using it, and delete it if the app feels clunky and slow. 

The worst thing to do is to make a mobile app just for the sake of having a mobile app, with no clear purpose and no interesting features. 

Being too innovative in enterprise projects can create unnecessary problems over time. New, hyped up technologies are definitely exciting, but they can crash in unexpected ways. 

For enterprise mobile apps, meant to withhold long periods of time and high numbers of users without breakdowns, it might be better to go with mature, tried & tested technology. Especially when it comes to the core features of an app. Mature technology has the benefit that if something goes wrong, developers can find and fix issues faster. This means less risk of downtime for your workers or customers. 

When it comes to the newest technologies, problems take longer to locate and solve. For this reason, it’s good to be careful about using the latest tech for mission-critical components. When it comes to mobile apps, it’s especially tempting to make it faster, prettier, and more useful than the competition. Be careful not to overdo it. 

Enterprise software is unparalleled when it comes to requirements. It needs to handle a multitude of edge cases, and provide a lot of functionalities that may seem unnecessary for the uninitiated. Whether it’s for consumers or your teams, the application has to meet the highest standards in usability, design, performance and security.  

Robust enterprise software has to be built by experts who know how to translate complex requirements into cleanly coded business logic.

If you’re involved in an enterprise app development project, you’ll be faced with multiple considerations: 

• What are the key outcomes for end-users? 
• Which are the most important features? 
• Open-source technology, or proprietary?
• Who can get access to the app, and how?
• How does it need to integrate with existing tools? 

...and this is just the tip of the iceberg. 

In the enterprise environment, decisions are never made based on a hunch. A lot of analysis goes into choosing what an application should do, and how. 

It’s important to analyze and validate decisions quickly, because it means developers will be able to finish the project sooner. Depending on your financial agreements with the software provider, this can translate into real savings. 

When prolonged too much, decisions become a bottleneck in the app development process. In case you don’t have the expertise to make technological decisions, make sure to work with an advisor, or with a software provider that has experience building enterprise mobile apps.