Clearing the Way for Mobile Applications

Mobile apps are great. They have the power to engage and delight customers and employees alike. They have the potential to take the business to newer heights, and help them reach out to hitherto unexplored markets, customers and geographies. Their growing popularity as the preferred medium of access to the internet, and their direct relationship with the brand popularity are other reasons why enterprises today are not only investing in mobile applications, but are fast moving to a ‘mobile first’ strategy, where new functionalities are launched for smart devices before they are for the personal computers.

Despite all these advantages of mobile applications, there are still some challenges that IT faces before they can start their M-journey. These barriers prevent them to move out of the traditional world where mobility is an afterthought.

Barrier # 1 – Business Case – The biggest roadblock for getting an approval for app development is to show its positive ROI. While people do know that their professional lives will become better through enterprise M-initiatives, the management wants numbers, and the workforce does not know enough to justifiably provide them. This makes getting approvals hard.

The easiest way to overcome this is to bring together the workforce and IT to develop the business case. Firstly, it is important to not try and boil the ocean. Rather than try and do too many things, focus on a smaller tasklist, and try to accomplish that well. Focus on one job role, evaluate its tasks, and see what can be automated or made better through a smart device interface. This exercise will help narrow down the target for mobilization, and will also help create a POC of sorts to test the applicability of mobility in your enterprise. Another way is to look at case studies from similar organizations and job roles, to see the benefits and talk to the business.

Barrier # 2 – Skillset – Even after the management gives its approval (however grudgingly), there is always the question of how to go about development. Typically, unless already invested in the M-life, it is highly unlikely that the IT will have developers sitting around for mobile platforms. Therefore, there needs to be some form of learning or training before the existing teams can be used for the application development. Before the training begins, however, the platform for mobility needs to be finalized. It is necessary that the Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP) be clear before the teams are created and mobilized. Choose a MEAP that has the shortest learning curve for your existing teams. There is always the option of partnering with a good development solutions organization for the task, and have them go through the lifecycle with you, while your teams watch and learn for the future.

Barrier # 3 – Security – Protecting the corporate data and the access to internal systems are two of the biggest concerns for enterprises when it comes to going mobile. There has to be good attention paid to ensuring the protection of data at rest, and data in motion. Also, how are the internal systems protected from access through smart interfaces should be nailed down upfront. The Data in motion can be protected through encryption, while the data at rest can be made to stay only in the app, and not distributed to the end devices to keep it safe. As for the access to internal systems, there are multi factor authentication (MFA) mechanisms than can prevent unauthorized access.