Making Business More Efficient With Enterprise Mobile Application Development
Big enterprises follow a strict schedule and manage a lot of tasks at the same time. They always look for new ways to reduce time and money expenses. One of the ways to reach this goal is to integrate enterprise mobile app development.
Many enterprise-level businesses use mobile apps that help both employees and clients keep track of all projects and events. However, enterprise mobile apps differ from applications we used to see in everyday life. The apps for large organizations are specifically created to solve the growing problems of a particular company.
Enterprise app development services have pitfalls and particularities. In this article, we’ll discuss types of mobile apps for enterprises, reasons to create such an app from scratch, and steps to take for enterprise mobile application development.
Enterprise Mobile Apps’ Market: An Overview
In the modern world, mobile applications have become an everlasting trend. The global mobile app revenues are going to reach $365 billion by 2023. From logistics to healthcare and e-commerce, we witness mobile applications everywhere in the worldwide market.
The rising adoption of the BYOD (bring your own device) trend, utilization of cloud technology, and the need for automation drive the global mobile enterprise application market. It’s expected to reach $98.03 billion by the end of 2021.
Enterprises are increasingly embracing mobile technology for better operational and business processes management, which has provoked the demand for mobile application development platforms. According to the report, 73% of companies are expected to invest in enterprise mobility solutions in the coming years. In turn, 84% indicate the overall growth in productivity due to incorporating mobile apps into business.
Mobile enterprise applications not only allow organizations to digitize and speed up their business processes but also strengthen their brands for better interaction with employees, customers, and investors.
What is Enterprise Application Development?
Enterprise application development is the process of building and deploying scalable and trusted mobile apps to help companies facilitate their tasks. Besides optimizing the business operations, they aim to deliver user-oriented software to engage with clients, partners, and employees in the most efficient way.
It’s possible to make enterprise mobile apps for both internal and external purposes. Such mobile solutions can duplicate the main services that employees use on their PC, or they can be the original solution to current working issues.
Enterprise companies tend to make their mobile apps available on mobile devices to cut down the development time and meet market needs. So, how to adopt enterprise applications? There are three most popular enterprise mobile application development strategies:
- Packaged mobile applications. Ready-made solutions are an effective way to deploy enterprise apps in your company as fast as possible. However, they offer limited functionalities that don’t meet specific business needs. Moreover, it might be difficult to connect such apps to complex and proprietary enterprise systems.
- Integrated app development services. This approach implies that the company uses out-of-the-box solution but customize its functionality aligning with the business requirements. Engineers can utilize a variety of mobile services across many apps and platforms.
- Custom enterprise app development from scratch. The company can create a unique enterprise application to comply with business needs and goals. Custom apps development provide flexibility in features, design, app logic and give you a competitive benefit.
By deciding on enterprise mobile app development, organizations can improve their business processes. Such apps offer several serious advantages over your competitors since they can speed up the working process and increase the company’s revenue.
Types of Enterprise Application Software
There are several types of enterprise mobile app:
Employee level
Apps only for employees have the shortest feature list since they are made for internal purposes only. For example, it assists top managers with keeping up with one project without delays and problems. With the help of such apps, they can quickly check all the essential information.
Department level
As it’s name says, such enterprise mobile app development serves for the needs of specific departments like financial or marketing teams. Apart from the optimization of the internal workflows, they can be useful for customers. They can stay in touch with your employees and get feedback without delays.
Company level
These apps should connect the departments of the whole company into a single network. Employees can always be in touch with their chiefs. They also can have access to enterprise documents, databases, and so on. The access level may vary depending on the employee’s position.
Benefits of Enterprise Mobile Application Development
Growing revenue through automation and higher productivity is the main reason why integrate enterprise app development. A mobile app has a lot of vital peculiarities like high-security level, portability, and compatibility with other apps and devices.
How can your company benefit from enterprise mobile application development? Let’s consider the main advantages you can achieve using your app.
Accounting, transactions and payments
Mobile apps allow companies to make and manage transactions, control payment deadlines, send notifications, and more. Enterprise mobile app developers can develop various payment features depending on your requirements and goals.
Modified data management
Data processing and management require much effort, including information analysis, verification, and making corrections. Enterprise mobile apps can help you improve data-related operations and increase the overall efficiency of the business.
Monitor business goals
Enterprise applications can help your company focus on primary goals and tasks. They reduce the amount of paperwork and eliminate human mistakes due to the automated marketing campaigns, data processing, and transaction control.
Mobile accounting
One more reason to develop enterprise mobile apps is the ability to track and edit financial performance and at the same time employees’ progress via smartphone. In turn, managers can report on the outcomes.
Supply chain control
Mobile apps for companies dealing with supply chain may include various features for accurate planning, control over courier’s work, and transportation management. Such mobile solutions can optimize supply chain management and save money respectively.
Employee onboarding
Another way to enhance overall efficiency is to leverage an enterprise application to simplify the onboarding process. The app can manage all the information concerning staff certification, thus saving time and effort for the HR specialists.
The enterprise mobile application development can help companies achieve higher results thanks to automation and optimization of business processes.
Points to Consider Before Enterprise App Development
Before enterprise mobile app development and integration, you should consider the following essentials:
Business objectives
Firstly, it’s vital to figure out your development goals: what issues will it solve, and what gains will it bring to your company. For instance, if you’re planning to build an enterprise mobile app for your clients, you need to jot down all the crucial points that your application could solve. If you’re creating a solution for your employees, then study their expectations and requirements for an enterprise mobile app.
Easy integration
Most likely, you already have a corporate system that is used for daily business activities. However, your new enterprise mobile app needs to adjust to the company’s infrastructure to prevent significant interruptions. That’s why it’s vital to have flexible APIs that will facilitate third-parties integration with your current operational processes. For example, mobile developers can offer app integration with 1C, SAP, Oracle, and so on.
Security issues
Having decided to create an enterprise app, you need to pay attention to such vital issues as storage, transfer, and use of the company’s information. Employees install enterprise mobile apps on personal smartphones, so personal and corporate data is stored on one device. For that matter you have to predict all possible issues and make a bulletproof system. Simple passwords can’t be used since they can put the company’s security and financial stability in danger.
Administration and control
The enterprise mobile app development process requires not only the project team’s efforts, but a lot of administration and legal work to be performed within the organization. So, before cooperating with an IT company, you need to decide who will be responsible for app management and consider the training part.
Agile development strategy
This methodology stands for iterative and step-by-step software development. The Agile approach is perfect for enterprise mobile app development since it determines design, development, and testing methods system over the whole software lifecycle. This development strategy allows to return to the previous development stages, fix something and keep on the development process. So building an enterprise mobile app, it would be better to apply the Agile strategy. Moreover, due to this method, you will be able to get the first MVP version of the app to test it.
Keep your technological edge
In the pace-faced world, it’s vital to have an enterprise mobile app that won’t become irrelevant in a few years. So the proper selection of technology will guarantee that your enterprise mobile solution keeps pace with the latest global market trends. For that, it’s better to consult an experienced enterprise mobile application development company and ask about modern technology they apply for app’s creation.
MEAP
Mobile Enterprise Application Platform tends to simplify the development process of enterprise software for employees who use various mobile devices. The main peculiarity of the MEAP platform is a cross-platform feature. For example, having created the app on the basis of this platform, it’s possible to develop the application for any mobile device with various operating systems without additional costs and changes in business logic.
Core Features of an Enterprise App
Like every other business, your company has unique business needs, based on which, you have to identify what features to include in your enterprise app. To give you a hint, we’ve prepared a list of must-have features to build a rock-solid enterprise mobile platform.
Security
Strong user authentication is a basic but vital feature for mobile enterprise application development. Two-factor authentication and multi-factor authentication are the must-have components if you want to use technologies such as OpenID Connect protocol and OAuth 2.0 authorization framework.
Real-Time Analytics
Enterprises have to manage many processes, interact with hundreds of stakeholders and be responsible for lots of focused services at any time. That’s why you need a real-time analysis to sustain flawless data processing, thus improving decision-making processes.
Instant Messaging
The core purpose of creating enterprise software is to ensure everyone is associated with your organization and all the employees can interact with each other seamlessly. Hence, it’s essential to make it possible for all your staff members and partners to chat and message in real-time mode.
Data Sharing
The enterprises process an incredible amount of data daily. Real-time data sharing is another helpful feature that you can implement with your enterprise mobile app. Having all the necessary data on the go makes it easier for managers, clients, and investors to receive and send relevant information. The data can be shared in any format. For example, the information can be exchanged with slides, excel sheets, or images. Your app needs to handle it.
Cloud Storage
The primary function of all mobile apps is to provide smooth and easy access to information from anywhere. This is why storing data in the cloud is a critical aspect of enterprise mobile applications.
According to a Gartner’s report, the global cloud service market has reached $270 billion in 2020, and it’s supposed to grow to $397,496 billion in 2022. The stat highlights that businesses worldwide consider cloud storage to be an integral element for successful enterprise mobile application development.
Push Notifications
Keeping pace with the ongoing trends, we all know how push notifications can positively impact the customers’ behavior, and your workers are no exception. These notifications will remind your staff members about upcoming events, important business-related tasks, and emergencies.
Moreover, this feature will allow you to reach your potential customers with the right offer at the right time, even if they are not interacting with the app actively.
Offline Mode
To survive extreme competition, you need to be one step ahead. Having created the enterprise mobile app available in offline mode, you’ll be able to stand out from the competitors and increase customers’ loyalty. This feature ensures that users can work with the app even when they experience a poor internet connection or its absence. For instance, you can provide your employees access to the browsed data from the cookies when they’re offline.
We’ve pointed out the essential features for enterprise mobile apps. But keep in mind that such complex solutions require an individual approach. All features are created and added in response to business needs.
Enterprise Mobile App Development Stages
Enterprise mobile app development process is time-consuming and difficult. The success of the final product depends on the skills of developers and customers’ concernment. Qualified enterprise app developers confirm that it’s impossible to develop a quality app at once.
There are several stages of enterprise app development. Let’s discuss them more precisely.
Stage #1. Draft the Specification
Everything starts with an idea. After that, you’ll need to define the goals and requirements. It’s necessary to analyze your target audience to find out their expectations. All collected information should be displayed in the specification. This document spells everything out.
Stage #2. Consider the Platform
It’s a typical stage for any mobile development process because you need to select the platform for your work. Enterprise application development isn’t an exception to the rule. However, in this case, you need to choose at least two platforms at once — iOS and Android. Why? Your employees are unlikely to have only Android- or iOS-based devices. Creating a mobile app for them, you need to consider this issue beforehand.
Stage #3. Get a Wireframe Designed
The prototype is a model of the mobile app that shows how the app can function and it’s capabilities. This stage is crucial since you have an opportunity to see how enterprise mobile applications can look in the future. You can always change something on the development stage. Having tested a working model, you can save time and resources for development.
Stage #4. UI/UX Design
What do users expect from the new app? First, they want to have a user-friendly and intuitive design. Without these two components, even a high-grade functionality won’t be an option. Your design team shouldn’t overload the app for enterprise with unnecessary details. You’d better lay on simplicity. This app is not for entertainment — it is for business. Keep it in mind.
Stage #5. Product Development
It’s the most significant and challenging part of the mobile app development. If you aren’t a technical guru, you’d better hire a skilled and experienced enterprise app development company. They can build mobile applications following your requirements and expectations.
Stage #6. Testing
This stage allows to involve your employees into testing the app. Your employees are the best beta-testers they’re end-users.
Enterprise application development companies usually have a QA department. Quality assurance engineers test the mobile app to find and fix all the bugs. But beta testing makes it possible for employees to immerse themselves in their new work tool.
That’s all you need for a start. Depending on your requirements, the process may be costly and time-consuming. You need to consult with an enterprise app development company to find the details.
Cost to Build Enterprise Mobile Apps
The average cost to develop an enterprise mobile app starts from $30,000 for a simple app and may reach $500,000 for a full-featured mobile app. Unfortunately, no specialists can tell you the exact price until they know the required features and what type of enterprise app you want to create.
If you decide to build an app, there is no need to assemble an in-house development team. There are a lot of experienced enterprise mobile application development companies available.
