Johannesburg, 27 Jun 2013
Becoming enamoured with IT innovation at the expense of basic IT competencies is a very real risk prediction for 2013 - touted the Year of the App. According to ABI Research (ABI Research), mobile users will download 70 billion applications in 2013 - 58 billion to smartphones and 14 billion to tablets.
While consumer 'apps for everything' is the new normal, companies are focusing on bringing even more sophisticated mobile functionality to their employees with the same feverish uptake. With the growth in mobility, companies are deploying an increasing number of diverse applications on multiple platforms. However, considerations for business mobility are complicated.
"The reality is that effective mobility will become more challenging if basic IT competencies such as enterprise application integration are not in place," says Craig Leppan, Mobility Lead of the Ovations Group, the Johannesburg-based business transformations solutions provider.
Enter the second wave - a full life cycle
Seamless, multi-channel use of technology may mean starting a work day on your laptop, continuing on your smartphone in transit, and completing the work on a tablet at home. "Not only are there multiple platforms and devices to consider, but also issues such as security and scalability for the new application experience," says Leppan. Locally, several enterprises have introduced smartphone applications; tablet applications are now the sector's latest drive to give customers a better and richer experience. Behind that convenience is a reliance on solid IT.
"Enterprise apps have gone through the early adopter phase, creases have been smoothed out; now enterprises are entering the second wave - the full development life cycle, where customer usage and feedback is driving change and ongoing development," says Leppan.
Ovations recommend that organisations looking at mobile for their customers and workforce need to understand the aspects of mobile beyond development. Design and development are key, but so are enterprise integration, testing, security, insights, and management and certification of the app.
Projects that build an application without consideration for how it will scale and be managed through this life cycle can paint themselves into a corner. Enterprise mobile tools may look expensive in the short term, but the long-term scenario is that a large developer base will cost more as you try to execute the enterprise life cycle aspects of mobile.
"Mobility technology is only going to get faster, more diverse and inherently more complex. Enterprises today need both the flexibility to deliver such offerings and the ability to provide them securely and in a scalable manner, to a wide range of customers, consumers and employees with their devices of choice. This can only be achieved if your foundation and ability to execute is strong," says Leppan.
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