5 April 2011 fiercemobileit.com April 2011 6 ƒô As smartphones and tablets become more ubiquitous, organizations need to constantly consider ways to reach employees, partners, customers and consumers within their mobile lifestyles. Whether it¡¦s created for business efficiency or for consumer brand building, however, mobile application development must now be approached with the same discipline as any other technology initiative. Here are a few things you should consider before you begin pursuing your own mobile app. Build a strategy, then an app, not vice-versa. All too often, businesses dive into app development because of a ¡§big¡¨ idea or simply because they feel like they need to get in the game. The fact is, like any business initiative, an app should align and integrate with your overall digital or mobile strategy. How does it work with your web site or advertising campaign? How can it support other business tools used by your mobile workforce? Consider multiple platforms from the very beginning. While the iPhone helped create the app revolution, recent statistics show that Android has become the most popular mobile platform and tablets are quickly establishing their place on the landscape. So it makes sense to create a multi-platform strategy from the very beginning. Doing so will give you better coverage of potential users and economies of scale will save you time and money in the long run, especially as they relate to interface design and content development. Off-the-shelf apps can be more expensive long-term. On the surface, plugging your brand into an off-the-shelf mobile app can seem like the quickest and cheapest path to development. While these services can provide value for smaller businesses, they cannot provide the kind of strategic alignment, brand integration and customer engagement that large companies and brands require. In many cases, a business will invest in an offthe- shelf app with the goal of saving money, but it can be the beginning of an endless cycle of costly bandages that could have been avoided if the app had been built from the ground up in the first place. Create an app to make things easier, not more complex. Listen to your end-users and embed your app¡¦s functionality into existing processes. A mobile app will only be as successful as its ability to engage the user ¡V to keep them connected and to inspire them to make the app part of their daily routine. Doing this requires focused research and the diligence to understand your audience. An app is only worth doing if it¡¦s done right. There are many moving parts involved in any robust mobile application and you need a development team that understands the complete mobile landscape and has the ability to conceive, design, engineer and deliver on your mobile vision. As a world leader in mobile device development, HTC has amassed valuable insight on emerging technologies and HTCpro was created to help businesses quickly develop custom-made mobile apps across most devices and platforms. To find out more, visit htcpro.com or email us at learnmore@htcpro.com. l Five Steps to a Successful Mobile App transforming the quality of mobile by Will Ro, Director, HTC pro apps he has seen in the enterprise. ¡§The types of apps are definitely different. On the smartphone side, we used to see little productivity apps with employees sending out expense reports for approval,¡¨ Datoo said. ¡§Now we see a whole different class of apps that are much more detailed and form-driven. It¡¦s the utility worker going out and filling out a form. These applications tend to be more involved and multi-tasked based.¡¨ As the effectiveness of mobile apps in the enterprise plays out, so does the concept of the mobile enterprise app store. According to a survey conducted by Sybase and Kelton Research of 250 IT managers, more than two-thirds of businesses plan to roll out five or more mobile apps this year, and about 21 percent plan to introduce 20 or more. TechNavio¡¦s analysts forecast that the mobile enterprise application market will reach $11.5 billion in 2014. Experts cite a multitude of benefits, among them reduced paperwork, accelerated service response times, more accurate billing and improved customer services. It¡¦s not only Fortune 500 corporations embracing mobile solutions either. Mobile operators AT&T and Sprint, for instance, have launched online application storefronts promoting mobile solutions targeted for the small business segment. Many of the early-phase mobile enterprise applications have centered on sales automation and customer relationship management, and have come from traditional desktop players such as Salesforce.com. But apps are making their way into retail and manufacturing environments along with the medical community. ¡§In 2009-2010, enterprise mobility has become big business for vendors and service providers, as it has finally become a priority for their business customers,¡¨ noted Current Analysis analyst Katherine Weldon in a recent research note. ¡§At the same time, the ubiquity and speed of 3G networks and 4G deployments in progress are making services and applications that leverage large data stores or require a lot of remote interactive sessions palatable.¡¨ Zenprise¡¦s view is that tablets will very quickly replace the PC inside the enterprise. As such, mobile apps become a critical element, Datoo said. ¡§Some of our customers are seeing a better return in deploying tablets, so the commitment to the app store becomes much more acute. Applications become the must-have,¡¨ Datoo said. Zenprise offers an enterprise app store that enables IT departments to provision and push out apps to their workers. With all of the promise that an enterprise app store holds, enterprises have some tough questions to ask themselves when it comes to development and distribution. The most important of which is how can they replicate the app-store ease of use in an enterprise environment characterized by a wide variety of platforms and technologies? ¡§Everyone needs to standardize on a certain mobility platform and mobile device management platform, ¡§ said independent enterprise mobility analyst Kevin Benedict. ¡§Then a company can plug in packaged apps, manage devices and handle security.¡¨ Despite the fact that companies may have already developed oneoff applications, Benedict said the time is now for enterprises to standardize or chaos will ensue when apps need to be updated. ¡§If you don¡¦t bring order, you get chaos,¡¨ Benedict said. ¡§That is becoming the more common scenario, unfortunately¡KUntil there are rules, people will do anything they want.¡¨ l Recently, HTCpro worked with TBWA\ Chiat\Day to develop the MusicMapper mobile application as part of a campaign for the GRAMMY AwardsR. Built for both iOS and Android using geolocation, augmented reality and QR codes, it helped to drive the highest television rating for the award show in more than a decade. Many of the early-phase mobile enterprise applications have centered on sales automation and customer relationship management, and have come from traditional desktop players such as Salesforce.com. But apps are making their way into retail and manufacturing environments along with the medical community. continued from page 3
