Apple has sold more than 3 million of its new iPad Air during one weekend. Apple’s latest iPhones have really a ready sale as well. Google is boasting of more than 1,4 million Android activations a day! They claim that till the end of 2013 there will be more than 1 milliard active Android devices in the world.
Many mobile users have replaced their PСs and laptops with mobile gadgets – tablets and smartphones.
As Gartner analyst Ranjit Atwal explains it is happening ’cause “consumers will now look at a task that they have to perform, and they will determine which device will allow them to perform such a task in the most effective, fun and convenient way. The device has to meet the user needs not the other way round”.
Business has been a bit skeptical about adapting mobile technologies, but it cannot ignore these mobile tendencies any more as mobile computing will go on revolutionizing the way companies stay in touch and interact with their employees and customers.
However, many organizations just aren’t sure about the way they should enter into this mobile world, and most of them can’t (or don’t want to) afford expensive failures in that field. That’s why the enterprise mobility strategy should go first. Most the companies turn to 3rd party mobility services providers to design, develop, and support their enterprise mobile apps.
An enterprise app is a mobile solution that assists the business in solving various enterprise problems. Such applications are usually developed to interact or integrate with other enterprise software solutions via various networks, including the Internet, Intranet or any other corporate networks. Enterprise mobile solutions have to meet very strict security and administration management requirements.
All enterprise applications can be divided into several categories depending on the functions performed.
1) Automated billing and payment processing systems helping your customers and employees make online payments and get invoices using mobile gadgets.
2) Content management applications provide secure access to the documents your employees need. Such apps can also provide such services as instant document creation, editing, sharing, and synchronization.
3) Call center and customer support apps. Today your customers expect to reach your company anytime, anywhere. That’s why it is essential to have such an app, especially for B2C companies.
4) Customer Relationship Management (CRM) – Customer relationship management solutions showed nearly 7% year-over-year growth last year. And following the enterprise mobility trend, CRM software is turning to become mobile. Gartner predicts that the number of mobile CRM apps available in the app stores will increase by 1,200 percent by next year.
5) Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a cross-functional enterprise system driven by an integrated suite of software modules that supports the basic internal business processes of a company (Wikipedia). And these systems are becoming mobile as well. As Prentice of Gartner says: “Enterprises can’t play a waiting game, in the hopes that a future upgrade of their ERP system will provide a central, single-vendor solution… Enterprises that hope to exploit the opportunities offered by mobile, or to respond to the growing demands to support it, have not choice but to adapt to a post-PC ERP world.”
6) Mobile Business Intelligence (Mobile BI or Mobile Intelligence) is defined as“The capability that enables the mobile workforce to gain business insights through information analysis using applications optimized for mobile devices”.
7) Business Continuity Apps. In current mobile work environment it is very important for the staff and managers to stay connected in case of an incident. People should know how to react to it. And today there are special tools – mobile apps – for business continuity managers who want to be sure their staff get instant access to current BC plan in any place or situation.
8) HR Management Apps, besides the search and management of work applicants, allow submitting time worked from distant field locations and employee expense reports from the road, time off approve. 75% percent of HR managers in big and 71% in midsized companies admitted that workforce productivity has improved after allowing their employees to get an access to mobile HR solutions.
9) Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) in mobile context means all the plans, methods, and tools applied for modernizing, consolidating, and coordinating the mobile applications used in an enterprise.
10) Enterprise search mobile solutions. In one survey, 93% of executives said their companies lose revenue because they cannot rationally use the data they gather. Mobile apps developed for enterprise search help people to look for necessary information stored in various formats in various places (in databases, document management systems, etc) from anywhere inside and outside the company.
11) Messaging and collaboration systems. Usually such enterprise apps provide a secure integrative works of such enterprise messaging and collaboration tools as Microsoft Exchange email, SaaS Google Apps, Microsoft SharePoint, and others.
Surely, each type of the enterprise app results in its specific benefits and working process improvements, but if to speak generally, enterprise apps may help to increase employee engagement and efficiency, they may assist in improving customer intelligence and satisfaction.
All you need to do now is to decide if you want to make your business more effective and profitable or not.