Mobile business apps are getting more and more widely used in businesses nowadays. About one-third of all small businesses incorporate apps for their operations. The most frequently used apps provide e-mail, storage, and backup services. All it takes for small businesses to get these apps is to purchase them, which is easy.

Apps are useful because using them substantially reduces the costs of IT. This is important for starting business owners to know. Instead of paying big amounts of money to buy software that can do the work at enterprise level, they can pay a fraction of the money for apps that work just as well. Apps cover several functional areas in business: marketing, customer service, finance, production, and human resources.

Now, how will you go about looking for mobile business apps? Here are some steps that you can take:

1. Determine whether you can afford to buy the apps with your budget. Even if apps are generally affordable, double-check the numbers to ensure that you can really spare the expense. If you can’t buy many types of apps at any one time, buy apps one at a time so you don’t leave holes in your budget. Do intensive research on the prices of different apps.

2. Determine what your business really needs. Study the daily process of your business so that you can find out the appropriate apps that can improve your business management. If your business has several departments, talk with their respective heads so that you can find out their needs. You can also get an external observer/consultant who will give you advice on what your business needs.

3. Research different app vendors and read app reviews. Of course, you wouldn’t want to give your money to a vendor that you don’t know, would you? So before committing money, make sure that the vendors of the apps you want to buy are trustworthy. Online reviews of apps can also help.

4. Try out apps before you buy. Many app vendors allow you to try their apps for free before you buy it. (Be suspicious of anyone who doesn’t.) That is a great way not only for you to gauge the strengths and weaknesses of the apps, but also a good way for you to find out whether these aps are right for your business.

5. Determine whether you can afford to maintain the mobile business apps that you buy. What will be the projected costs of future IT staff? The costs for training them? The costs for upgrading apps in the future?