Authored by Alana Smith, TeamCain

In a MAGIC Software webinar, Eyal Pfeifel, CTO at Magic Software, was joined by Jeffrey S. Hammond, Principal Analyst at Forrester, to discuss how businesses can, and need to, mobilize their applications. By the end of 2011, more than 180 million people used a Linux-based smartphone (Android) and another 100 million (plus) used iPhones. Mobile devices are continually driving a shift in customer, employee and partner engagement by providing access to “in-the-moment” information. With consumer applications, you can check you flight status from your phone while heading to the airport or even check your bank balance. Business applications are increasing as well as more and more professionals check their email on their phones or make travel appointments while on the go. There are a larger number of businesses developing applications for business users which adds more access to “in-the-moment” information (like checking a sales lead). For example, Kraft Foods provides iPads to executives so they have access to data dashboards that is relevant to a presentation they are giving. Alaska Airlines has begun to use tablets to improve the pilot experience so they don’t have to lug the 40 pound flight manuals around.  

The lifecycle has changed. In the PC world, you would have 3 to 4 years to get on board with a new process before an even newer one was developed. Nowadays, mobile solutions are speeding up the process and you can see changes within a couple of months of the original release. With this shift toward mobile devices, organizations need to have mobile applications included in their business plans in order to keep up. Based on the webinar, here are some steps to keep in mind when approaching mobile business applications.

The first step is to develop a mobile strategy. You could decide that you are going to develop a business application that Android users will be able to access. That’s great… but, not everybody has Android smartphones and there isn’t a clear cut way to determine which smartphone the majority of your audience uses. You can’t approach mobile business applications like you would approach the PC. Phones are selected by private individuals, not IT departments so you must consider every type of smartphone.

As a result of so many different smartphones being available on the market, you need to think about your business applications on a multi-platform system. You need to base your mobile strategy on supporting different types of platforms and whittle this down even further by determining which group of clients/users your firm is currently or planning to develop mobile applications for. Are you developing the mobile applications for your employees? This would mean creating internal applications that can help improve productivity and increase efficiency (like improving a fleet management system for a transport service). Are you developing the mobile application for customers? This would mean approaching your customer directly from IT systems and work with the internal infrastructure. Clearly, employee needs differ from customer needs.

This brings me to the third step in developing mobile business applications: knowing your target audience in advance. Think ahead about who you want to target and make sure the technology and your strategy will fit properly with the audience that you are targeting. Different audiences require different tools and solutions. Here are some statements that you should keep in mind:

• Is this useful? If you want your mobile application to do CRM, it must do CRM. Make sure your mobile application provides a solution to a problem.
• Is this usable? Put yourself in the shoes of a new employee. Is your mobile application easy to use or easy to learn? Is it simple to introduce? Make sure to address usability issues early on in the process.
• Is this desirable? The latest trends with smartphones focus on the applications that people love to use and the actual device the applications are on. This trend raises the bar on user expectations as the users expect every application on a smartphone to be usable, useful and engaging. In order to stay at the top of the pack in terms of user satisfaction, your application should be interesting to the user. 

To address the above considerations, the fourth step in mobilizing your business applications is to design for a great user experience. When using a smartphone, a user’s attention span is much shorter and that person has little time for you. Make sure people aren’t distracted with what you are offering and that they can access it at any time. There is the trend that more and more people are using their mobile devices to access the Internet, and not desktop devices. With this opportunity comes risk, like new issues for your IT department. Computers are used for a specific number of hours every day. Mobile devices are used during the night, on the go, while travelling, and whenever it’s convenient for the user to use it. Mobile devices are not small desktops. Keeping in mind how a user is using their smartphone helps to ensure the quality of the user experience. 

The final steps to keep in mind when approaching mobile business applications are scalability and integration. With scalability, the number of users is unknown so you want to make sure you develop a system that supports dynamic needs. With integration, you should avoid tying a solution to a single application. You want to be able to extend your mobile application into other solutions. There is an unpredictable nature to mobile use so you want to make sure that you integrate as much as you can into your whole organization. By covering all your needs now and in the foreseeable future, you are going to have an easier time mobilizing your business applications.

For more on application development tooling as well as application integration and enterprise connectivity, check out our MAGIC Software page where we just posted a new white paper, Extend & Enhance JD Edwards Business Processes with iBOLT & SharePoint.