A new report from Strategy Analytics argues that the enterprise mobile app market hit £59.4bn ($74bn) billion this year, and grow to £60 billion ($63bn) by 2020. The external and internal pressures that are triggering the latest enterprise mobile application development trends make defining a mobile application strategy more important than ever.
The demand placed on enterprises to build mobile applications will only intensify over time, as we become more reliant on technology and the applications required to integrate them. Like many none core activities app design and development is something that needs an expert partner, and not something to just bolt on to an over stretched IT function. So how can apps assist your enterprise.
1. Increasing productivity
At the most basic level, enterprise apps can help companies increase productivity dramatically. Although this doesn’t always directly result in additional revenue generation, it does mean that apps generate extra time for employees to do additional work, leading to efficiency gains and potentially leading to higher revenue. Apps increase productivity by making business processes smoother, reducing downtime from travelling to a desktop as well as improving data accuracy / understanding. From improving employee communications to making access to resources and training more efficient apps can transform business process improvement.
2. Reducing costs
Another way in which enterprise apps indirectly lead to additional revenue generation is by reducing costs. There are several ways in which apps can do this; a good example is training apps. The training apps offer much more effective forms of learning for most employees. By including a variety of media such as videos, images and interactive graphs, training apps are proving to be much more effective forms of training than traditional methods.
3. Building stronger brands
Companies can differentiate themselves from competitors and become true industry leaders by strengthen their reputation by having the app displayed in app stores. At the same time, providing an app shows that your company is technologically savvy, a position which can place you much more in tune with the current times. Offering users apps is a great way to provide better customer services and to present your products and services in visually engaging ways.
4. The Internet of Things
IoT continue collecting large amounts of data from a variety of apps and sensors and combining it in exciting new ways and networks in order to deliver services and products in new, faster and more convenient ways. This is likely to lead many companies to innovate and generate new revenue streams and business opportunities afforded by the potential of different forms of data combinations.
5. Direct marketing
Launching a mobile app is like setting up a direct marketing channel with least cost involved. You won’t have to pay a league of executives and there’s no contingency cost involved. You just need to find a good app partner to develop a functional app for you.
6. Customer retention
When someone buys from the online store or your brick-and-mortar set up you can never know whether he will come back to you or not but with a mobile app, you can definitely increase the chances of customer retention.
The enterprise mobile app market has seen steady growth for several years, but recently, demand for quality enterprise mobile apps has simply exploded. And as the business benefits of well designed mobile apps become more and more apparent, more organisations will join the enterprise mobile app revolution. Enterprise mobile apps will satisfy employees’ desires to bring their own devices into the work environment, while helping businesses to meet their objectives in a more efficient manner. And now that developers are beginning to see the value of the enterprise market, enterprise mobile apps will become more and more usable as time goes on – enticing more users to adopt the apps.
