The tremendous proliferation of smart mobile devices in the workforce has brought substantial gains in productivity, flexibility and employee satisfaction. Simply the ability to coordinate through telephony and messaging, and the exchange of information through e-mail, has improved the ability of those on the road to be more productive and satisfied with their jobs. But these gains are just a small taste of the potential gains this technology has to offer. Mobile devices are essentially the easiest-to-use computers, and employees keep these devices with them nearly at all times, allowing for a deeper, more comprehensive integration of the person into your business.
To realize the full potential of these devices in the hands of employees, partners and customers, businesses need to embrace the use of mobile apps. There are already many apps that allow for individual productivity gains, but the biggest impact comes from enterprise apps – apps that are integrated with the corporate systems that the business has already invested years of work in, containing the information needed to truly make these mobile participants effective. Today there are many off-the-shelf enterprise apps that can be used, but as businesses look to create the apps they need for their business, they are driven to create custom enterprise apps, much as they have created custom web-based apps and websites.
Building these apps is much harder than is sounds. Enterprise apps, with their integration, security and operational requirements, can be challenging to build, and even harder to support once they have been built. Add to that the fragmented world of different mobile devices and operating systems used by customers, and the “Bring Your Own Device” (or “BYOD”) trend exacerbating that, and many businesses find themselves overwhelmed and unprepared to take on these challenges, making the benefits elusive.
This whitepaper examines the challenges associated with enterprise mobility, and presents a comprehensive approach to overcome them.
