Mobile apps have been around for more than a decade now. It’s hard to imagine a time when we didn’t have dozens of little icons on our phones that gave us access to powerful tools, useful services, and even some amazing games. That’s not all that mobile apps are good for, though.
As businesses have deployed new smart devices across their organizations, the need for enterprise mobile apps has increased significantly. Mobile devices are widely used in almost every industry.
Whether that’s tablets on the production floor of a clothing manufacturer or rugged smartphones in the hands of oil rig workers. These devices have forever changed the way businesses operate and how their employees work. There’s a great need now than ever before for applications that are specifically designed to cater to the individual needs of a business.
Understanding enterprise mobile app development
There is a big difference in an enterprise mobile app compared to something that lets you check the weather in another country. The latter is meant for anyone and everyone. Consumer apps cast a wide net by default. Their developers want them to be used by as many people as possible.
That’s not the case with enterprise apps. They’re not made available to the public as they’re only meant to be used by the employees of a particular organization. The app’s functionality is highly specific to that business as well. All of the features that it offers are meant to make it easier for employees to work smarter and improve productivity.
Enterprise mobile apps bring a wide range of possibilities within your reach. They can be used to improve the customer experience, speed up warehouse processes, make internal workflows simpler, improve communication within departments, provide easy access to a company-wide knowledge base, and more.
The true benefit of these apps can only be gained once they are developed based on the exact requirements that a business has. Everything needs to be built from the ground up with those unique business needs in mind.
Enterprise mobile app development is all about offering a powerful solution to business who can’t get the same feature set from a comparable, standard app.
How do mobile apps help your business?
There’s a lot that mobile apps can do for your business. They can enable employees to be more productive as they will have the tools in hand to take quick decisions.
Whether that’s releasing something from the inventory, assigning tasks to managers on the production floor, and even tweaking settings on industrial machinery. All this and more can be achieved with mobile apps.
In addition to streamlining things behind the scenes, mobile apps also provide your business with a direct touchpoint to your customers. By offering them an app, you establish a direct line of communication.
Features like push notifications and alerts can then be used to inform existing customers about new promotions or products. Return customers are more likely to make a purchase than new customers, so even a simple mobile app can lead to higher revenues for your business.
Creating custom enterprise mobile apps vs. using existing platforms
There’s value to be gained from existing platforms. There’s no shortage of such tools for business owners and they have become quite robust and useful in the past few years. There are existing platforms for everything from customer service management, order fulfillment, inventory management, employee engagement, and more.
What really matters is the organization’s own preferences. Exactly what are they looking to get out of the mobile apps that they want to deploy across the entire organization. Remember, this is something that’s going to be used country-wide, so there needs to be a firm understanding of the features required to meet business needs.
Companies that are just starting out or those who don’t have a relatively complicated business model may find value in opting for existing platforms. However, companies that require powerful solutions that are made to service their exact business needs will always prefer custom enterprise mobile app development.
That’s because there’s really no substitute for this. You can either go with an off-the-shelf solution that tries a one-size-fits-all approach for all users, or you can have something made from scratch that’s meant for addressing the unique needs of your business.
Five trends to look out for in enterprise mobile apps
- Personalization
Mobile apps and devices have really made it easier for users to set things up just right, so that they don’t have to change the way they work in order to get the most out of the app, it should let them make changes so that they can work in the way they want to work.
It’s important for this trend to be followed in enterprise mobile apps as well, since these apps are all about work anyway. Due importance needs to be given to the fact that the app should help improve the employee’s efficiency and providing them with personalization options is a great way of achieving that. - Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is much more than the buzzword that you hear being thrown around often. The technology has come a long way in recent years and has proven to be a useful addition to mobile apps. Many people have the misconception that AI is a flashy hologram assistant that obeys the user’s commands.
It’s something else entirely. Predictive typing features that offer suggestions based on your typing patterns is also AI, so is the smart feature on your smartphone that knows not to close frequently used apps in the background. Enterprise mobile apps can utilize AI to automate many repetitive tasks and also to increase efficiency. - Cloud Support
Most of our user data lives in the cloud now. These storage services are actively promoted as a cheap and fast way to store a lot of data without having to carry any external hard drives or flash drives with you. Businesses stand to gain a lot by making the shift to cloud. Even a hybrid cloud environment can deliver substantial benefits.
Therefore, it’s essential for any custom enterprise mobile apps to have cloud support as well. They should enable employees to pull in data from the corporate cloud and upload to it as and when required. Again, this will go a long way in speeding things up across the entire organization. - Internet of Things Integration
The Internet of Things isn’t just made up of smart bulbs and doorbell cameras. There are large-scale industrial applications of smart devices that can be used to more precisely manage production processes, automate manual tasks, increase security and safety on the production floor, and more.
One can only get the most benefit out of an Internet of Things environment if the relevant control interfaces for these smart devices are available. If IoT has been integrated in the organization’s processes, then its mobile apps should have support for those IoT platforms as well. - Wearable Device Support
Support for wearable devices is another thing to consider when having a custom enterprise app developed. Smartwatches are becoming increasingly commonplace and they provide a lot of value to users as well. Many minor tasks can quickly be handled from the wrist without having to take out a smartphone or tablet.
Many organizations also utilize custom wearable devices that are suited to specific areas of their business. These devices include smart glasses, smart headsets, tracking equipment and more.
Find a developer for your own enterprise mobile app
Enterprise mobile app development requires a lot of skill, particularly if you require something that’s highly complex and needs to work with existing databases and legacy systems.
This is not something that can be done easily and certainly not what most freelance developers can do. What you require is a professional software development firm that has a lot of experience in creating custom solutions for companies both big and small.
Zibtek has been a trusted software development services provider to Fortune 500 companies and startups alike for more than a decade. Our highly skilled developers have worked with clients to create powerful enterprise mobile apps that deliver on the high expectations set by them.
Our development teams put the same level of effort into everything that they build, whether it's a simple app to track employee time or a full-featured inventory management app that operates on smartphones.
After developing hundreds of custom apps, they have seen just about every unique use case there is, and as such bring a lot of experience to the table.
Zibtek provides an end-to-end mobile app development service for all major mobile platforms with support for advanced technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning.
We can look after the entire project lifecycle, giving life to a concept and creating a fully polished product.
Contact us today to learn more about how we can create the perfect mobile app for your business.
Our team will be happy to reach out and discuss the needs of your business and then help form a development strategy that lets you get the most value for your investment.