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Mobile App as an Extra Service for Enterprise App

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These days there is no operation that won’t be available to perform via your smartphone. The variety of mobile apps really impresses as there is no industry that can stay in business without a company mobile app. This will provoke a bigger demand for enterprise applications and higher expectations put on them in terms of usability and performance. 

Currently, more than 67% of enterprises already have a mobile app and think about diversifying their presence on the app market. Obviously, such high demand for mobile app development puts big pressure on the enterprise’s IT departments. And in 2021 the demand will outpace the internal app development capabilities of enterprises.

Why do enterprises get into mobile app development?

Most companies see mobile apps as a transformative power that can bring innovation to their business structure. The mobile app can cut the distance between the company and its customers. Therefore, businesses expect apps to aid customer and employee relationships, strengthen their competitive ability, revenue growth, and efficiency. Thanks to mobile applications it is easier to reach out to clients, keep them engaged, win their loyalty, unload your employees, automate some routine tasks and optimize numerous processes within your company. 

While enterprises want to enter the mobile application market, once they start actually moving in this direction, there are three questions arise.

  • What is the best way to develop an enterprise app? There are three possible ways to get your app. First of all, it can be built from scratch. You hire the development team and initiate your project. The second way is to purchase a ready-made module and customize it to meet your business needs. And the third option is to outsource your app development to a company like ours. You choose the software development company, discuss your project and delegate all development routines to the team you’ve hired. 
  • How to distribute an app? You can consider making your app absolutely free for your clients, or start advertising it across a potential audience. It is also possible to promote your application as a standalone service.
  • What kind of enterprise mobile application to develop? Taking into account the variety of tasks that can be delegated to a mobile application it can be hard to choose what kind of solution your company really needs. To make the right choice you need to identify the main pain points of your enterprise, contemplate some challenges that you have, and how your solution should actually solve them.

We also would like to suggest you learn about the key beneficial features you can get by using a mobile application for your enterprise from the video we added below.

Types of mobile apps for enterprises

Talking about mobile app development for enterprise, it can be split into there key types of mobile apps


Employee-level app
Mobile app targeted on employee commonly has limited functionality as it is suitable only for particular internal operations. The main aim of this type of app is to connect different branches of a company like team leads and developers for better and quicker communication and data exchange. It can be like a simple messenger or reminder about the upcoming meetings or ability to find out about the latest updates about the projects, etc. 
Department-level app
The department-level mobile app is tasked to connect all departments of a company in order to provide more efficient communication and management of daily operations. The most common department-level app is supposed to be diverse HR tools that aim to solve the problems of employees from different departments. 
Company-level app
A company-level app implies a vast functionality as it unites all company branches into a single team thereby creating a large company`s internal network. This type of app has different levels of access and possibilities depending on the position of an employee and a particular department. This mobile app also includes and saves all important documents related to certain employees as well as to the company`s activities. 

Values of mobile app for your enterprise

The core purpose of developing and implementing a mobile app into a certain company is to optimize its daily workflows, improve the relations between the different departments and eventually increase general productivity. What exactly can you get with the use of enterprise mobile apps? Read further to figure out the main values of a mobile application for your business. 

Company`s data management

The struggles with data management are common for large business companies. The company`s information is being processed and used in all areas of a company on daily basis. However, due to huge amounts of data, the probability of losses, mistakes, and confusion is really huge and can have disappointing consequences for your company. Hence, a custom mobile app is tasked to structure and save all vital company data to make it easy to access, secure, and analyze for more efficient usage. 

Management of all finance operations

Controlling all payment processes within a company is actually for business in all possible industries. The more company grows, the more finance operations it provides. Thus, a mobile app is a great solution that will help you track all your payments, get notifications about upcoming payrolls and deadlines that eventually lead to improved money contribution. 

Replacement of paperwork

Paper-based documents are rather outdated for modern business companies. Manual handling of all vital documents leads to a huge probability of loss or confusion. The mobile app is tasked to automate some operations to reduce the loads for human resources so that employees could focus on more necessary tasks.

Employee tracker 

It sounds a bit creepy but this feature just aims to provide monitoring of the execution of the tasks and how much time was spent on a particular task. Additionally, leaders of the departments can see the real-time task progress and give some recommendations on how to boost productivity even being out of office.

Improved customer support

Providing an excellent customer experience for each of your clients or potential clients is the number one task for any business organization. By implementing new technologies like AI and machine learning, your customers can get the needed support any part of a day and resolve their issues. Thus, your employee will have to execute only more complicated tasks and will avoid overloads. 

Best way to develop a mobile app for enterprise

Definitely, in comparison with SMBs, enterprises are big enough to find some resources/specialists and start building apps internally. Meanwhile, the Appcelerator sites that enterprise execs see more obstacles in making apps in-house than SMB entrepreneurs.

Common obstacles to developing enterprise apps internally:

  • Uncommon technologies that require hiring new specialists. Yes, it is possible to build a solution using some app-building platforms but the performance and quality will be lower. So extending your team of professionals will be inevitable. So get ready to invest more than you’ve expected into your app creation. 
  • Lack of complex strategy and knowledge in the new market niche. To create a really useful solution you need to consult professional business analysts and perform holistic market research.
  • High dispersion of human resources. For E.g. Enterprise-level companies usually have all IT specialists already allocated on certain inner projects.
  • Need to create new communication channels between departments. A fun thing to say but when we talk about big enterprise systems, it may be easier to communicate with its divisions from the outside rather than trying to establish new ties within a structured bureaucratic system.

In addition, enterprise apps require a decentralized system that can sustain rapid user growth. Such kinds of apps are also called distributed applications. Unlike internal software that is used by 1 to 10 thousand employees, enterprise mobile apps should be able to run on 100 thousand devices at once. In order to maintain scalability and handle large workloads enterprises choose to store their mobile apps externally (out of core server infrastructure). Moreover, storing distributed apps in the cloud often occurs to be more cost-effective.

The second path of buying and customizing an existing app is unacceptable because of the exact same obstacles. Moreover, the cost of customization can be higher than you expect depending on the features set and overall app complexity. Sometimes it is even cheaper to build a mobile app for an enterprise from scratch than customize an existing one. 

Outsourcing the development of enterprise apps deals with many of sited problems but puts the question. How quickly will you innovate with the offshore mobile development team? Indeed, just like smaller businesses, enterprises change and evolve, therefore your outsourcing team should always be connected to them in order to preserve innovations, constantly update the platform, and add new features.

Because of this reason we usually advise enterprises to hire a dedicated team. The team goes full-packed for a project with an assigned project manager that curates the development process and is always in touch with transformations your company is experiencing.

What we see now is many of our enterprise-level clients switched to the “dedicated team” model. This way your company will be free of human resource management, budgeting, task managing, scheduling and still get the quality and professional touch.

How to distribute Enterprise Mobile App

Onboarding Existing Clients / Employees

This is by far the easiest, cheapest and safest way to distribute enterprise apps. The strategy allows you to control audience growth, as you can choose to onboard only a fraction of the client base at once. Plus, you can take your time optimizing enterprise apps and carefully listen to user’s requests, without getting distracted by media buzz and advertising.

Finally, by onboarding existing clients you may protect the company from extensive critique because you’ll share your app with the loyal audience that is already working with you. This way you can test additional app features on small groups of clients without harming the overall reputation of your company.

Partnering

Partnering with your clients and even rival businesses may be a good idea. We’re currently working with a client who sold its software product to two competing companies just because they shared common problems and objectives in his specific niche.

If you have a mobile app that is beneficial for every company working in the exact same industry, this is a good sign for you to try partnering with them. For instance, pushing a new security standard through your app will be much easier if other big market players adopt it first.

Adopting Competitor’s App Ideas

A recent Zelle app release shows how the corporate world can sustain an all-increasing innovation pace and use it to its advantage. Big banks have recently teamed up to take on payment systems like Venmo.

Venmo and other so-called peer-to-peer payment services, like SquareCash, make direct money transfers from one bank account to another easy and free. Venmo became extremely popular exactly because of its opportunity to transfer money without any bank fee. Though, 13 U.S. banks have created a rival payment app that allows even faster money transfers. Venmo takes a day to transfer money over, and the internal corporate app Zelle is offering exactly the same functionality but with immediate transfers. Guess who will win customers’ trust.

For good or for bad, Zelle/Vanmo example shows how the corporate world can copy innovations and thrive on the already prepared market, rather than gathering an audience from scratch.

Extra services that can be provided through Enterprise Mobile Apps


Knowledge Sharing Apps
If you’re a service provider with a strong proficiency in finance, law, marketing, or logistics, sharing a bit of your internal knowledge may get you, additional customers. Especially if you share it in the most engaging way – through the mobile app, supplemented with interactive charts and hints. That’s how an international law firm called Bird & Bird gets over 10,000 app downloads. The company made an app for in-house counsel use, so they could compare marketing regulations across 20 different countries, where Bird & Bird operates.
Compliance Tool
In addition to the first app, Bird & Bird made another mobile compliance tool. It provides businesses with the essential information they would need in the event of a raid by antitrust authorities. The app contains information on customer’s obligations and rights, as well as a detailed list of guidelines on how to make business cooperate on a full scale with minimum intrusion. Such an app may be handy if you have a complex registration process or you got too many catches, unobvious requirements, and nuances. Making a clear compliance app would be a perfect idea for providers with complex services. E.g. financial advisors, peer-to-peer lending companies, payday loan companies, legal advisors, etc.
Internal Reporting App
Having strong analytics and data processing software doesn’t necessarily mean you can make better-informed decisions. Sometimes a good visualization of data worth more than a thousand words. That’s why the largest pay-TV broadcaster in the UK and Ireland, Sky, made its own reporting mobile app. By its mean employees could measure results of hundred broadcasting campaigns in near real-life time. The exact same reporting app can be used for marketing purposes in order to present the company’s achievements in an appealing and straightforward way.
Waiting List App
A typical enterprise consists of several divisions and business inside of it. Such a company has multiple products with a dedicated client manager responsible for each of them. Under such conditions, it may be hard for a client to find a proper manager specifically skilled to help with his problem. The waiting list app may help your clients connect with the best manager possible. Such an app can match a client with a specialist inside your company based on his/her proficiency and client’s inquiry.
Training App
By far the most basic mobile app idea that still has a big potential inside. Chubb Group, one of the leading property ensuring companies in the U.S., created a supporting mobile app for its agents. The app was made in the form of ‘e-brochure’ the allows managers to access all policy and product information from their mobile device.

The same kind of training app can be turned into an educational tool for employees of your business partner. This way you can sell a product of any complexity and ensure that it will be successfully integrated into the client’s business.

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How to choose a right tech partner?
We recommend you to check out the guide on how to choose the right technical partner for developing custom software for your business.

Our experience in enterprise mobile app development

Talking about our experience, we would like to emphasize that our mission is to enhance our clients` businesses with the latest technologies so that business owners could get the highest productivity and income from the use of custom software solutions. 

On our account, there are numerous business developments that were developed for various business industries. And now we would like to tell you about one of the projects we are really proud of. Our client`s company specialized in manufacturing and installation of different details for cars of special-purpose like ambulatories, police, fire trucks, etc. Talking about details that are being installed we mean light, cages, gun locks, and others. 

The company workers were struggling with manual handling and processing of each order that could contain lots of details that should be set. So they felt the need of automating some processes so that all orders could be easily managed and tracked by customers as well as by managers.  Along with a custom order management system and order builder, the company workers, particularly those who directly install the details in garages, required an additional mobile app for more convenient order tracking and execution.

Eventually, our team developed an internal or let us say employee-level mobile application that provides access to order details for employees who work in garages and have no time to contact managers or customers. Along with the order information, this app includes quality checklists that help workers to describe the state of a car before and after the equipping. It also scans the VIN codes of each car to recognize the car model and category to know which detail should be installed on that particular car. 

How much does an enterprise mobile app cost?

As you see a mobile app can be an individual solution as well as a part of your large internal software system. Talking about the development process, it is quite common for any type of software project. After you choose an enterprise mobile app development company, the development process is split into several consistent steps:

  • Specifications – this stage is also called the discovery stage that implies defining the problems and goals of your future application;
  • Planning – the large software project is split into several parts – pieces of functionality that should be converted into tasks and assigned to suitable developers;
  • Writing code – it is the actual execution of the assigned tasks;
  • Testing – this stage is really important and requires thorough attention as QA engineers have to sure that your enterprise mobile app platform will work correctly after the integration;
  • Enterprise mobile app deployment – after all stages are performed, it is high time for implementing the ready software solution into your company`s workflows. 

And now we would like to provide you with an MVP estimation of a mobile app for enterprise. Of course, this estimation is based on basic app functionality and can be changed according to your particular requirements.

SpecialistCost
Specifications$3360
Design$1125
HTMLCSS$2448
JS developer$7155
PHP developer$11151
QA engineer$3568
Admin$975
Scrum master$5472
Total sum:$35254

FAQ

The final cost of the mobile app for your enterprise depends on the general scope of the project. The MVP development will amount from $35000. The final price can be changed based on your project`s specifications and actual budget.
There is no right answer to this question as to the choice of the type of enterprise mobile app fully depends on the goals you are willing to reach with this software solution. It also can depend on the size of your company, the number of daily operations, and the required functionality.

Bottom Line

There are no doubts whether enterprises need a mobile app. The only question left is what kind of app do you need. We should acknowledge that the examples listed above are only a tip of an iceberg, the specifics lie inside your business and can’t be decrypted without your help.

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