Business Mobile Phone Apps ...Hot talk in town!

Business / Enterprise mobile applications

The rapid advancement of Technology has unimaginably changed the way we perceive business  from  paper-based business transactions to the modern business scenario where every business transaction are done with computers and if that is not enough, people are already talking about taking their business mobile where one can access and run their business from any corner of the world. Various Smartphones have come to market which works a simplified computer and has become a current trend among the people in a short time. And with the rise in popularity there are many smartphone manufacturers such as Apple, Blackberry, Htc, Samsung and Motorola to name a few. These Smartphones runs on specific operating software (OS) according to assigned by the manufacturer. Different type of OS includes Apple IOS, Blackberry IOS, Google Android and Windows phone7 are also coming up with their own OS. And what makes Smartphone really unique is it can run various applications like games, software and website specially designed for mobile phones. (Perry, 2011)

Since trend of smartphone has continued to rise since the release of apple iphone and a pool of software developers are starting to show interest in developing mobile application as there seems to be good platform for smartphone application developers. “Developers know there is money to be made in the right consumer app; Facebook’s $1 billion purchase of photo app Instagram and Zynga’s acquisition of Draw Something publisher OMGPOP” (Barnett, 2012). And according to Technographics Benchmark Survey Q2 2010, of among people with smartphones, 33% download applications at least monthly. (Perry, 2011). This is enough to indicate that mobile application business is gaining popularity at today’s economy. With the increasing affordability of these devices and development of new application that serves as entertainment and daily necessary utility, people are more dependent on their own mobile devices.

Soon this behaviour pattern started to show up in business organisations as well where many employees preferred to use their own device rather than using the device that the company provided. The business organisation are also soon adapting with the change, while some organisations have already started implementing the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy where employees can work with their own device. This thing has also received positive feedback as employees are happy to use their preferred device and can choose their own service provider network, on the other hand organisation can also save some cost related to company issued device. (Barnett, 2012). As the application market began to grow, developers started to create different type of application out of which consumer application happens to be on the top.

Consumer application is applications which are available on the market such as itunes and android. They can be downloaded for as minimum of 99cents and some are even free. These type of application works as a tool and widely used by people for day to day life, for small business and even by employees of the organisation. Dropbox, jotnot scanner, skype, facebook and ebay are some consumer applications that really popular among consumer application. “39 percent of consumers have shopping-related apps on their smartphones” (Syed, 2012). This denotes that consumer application market is growing at fast pace.

So how much would it cost to create a simple application for business?

Designing an application for business depends upon the type of business such as type of business, feature, and areas of business the application is designed for. For example a restaurant may want to simply create a menu application which would not include storing customer information, or payment check out through the application. Or someone might want to create an application that only works as a promotion tool. Similarly Hungry Jacks has come up with an application where people can get freebies every time they check-in to one of hungry jack’s store. However after checking in the store consumer also have to share their check-in facebook or twitter, so by giving a dollar worth of item from the store Hungry Jacks are promoting directly to around 500-1000 people for the price of a free burger. “Costs for this tool start at $2500 and also require a monthly hosting fee ($50) which provides you with access to the back-end of the app, so you can make changes on the fly and send push messaging” (Quantum SEO Solutions – SEO Brisbane). I think this type of applications are successful but we cannot call it a complete business mobile application. It only covers a certain area of business.

Mobile Application for Business

Business are also concerned about the increasing popularity of the consumer applications and are already showing interest in creating mobile applications for business. "Mobile transaction volume will rise from $1.6B in 2010 to almost $12B in 2014 and 72% of responding organizations stated they will deploy mobile apps in the upcoming year". (Perry, 2011).So what really is Business mobile applicaton?Business application/ Enterprise application are those applications which are designed to meet specific organisations need. They can be customised to a particular needs of an organisation and extreme security measures are performed so that business sensitive information are not misused by outsiders. Instead of having different application for different departments of operation a single application can be used to share every functional areas to share every piece of data in an organisation.

Critical Thinking
It is a positive approach that business organisations are trying to catch up with the trend and many people are optimistic about the future of the business mobile application. It is estimated that by 2017, the global enterprise mobility market will be nearly $174 billion (Syed, 2012). However there are also people who doubt that business mobile application will receive as much popularity as consumer application. The first is a simple supply issue – the pool of developers that have the skill set and business acumen to create a successful enterprise-class application is small. “While anyone could feasibly create a consumer app, it takes a solid understanding of business pain points and network security to develop one that caters to businesses” (Barnett, 2012). The other points to be noted are designing a complete business application will be very expensive than a 99cent application and will not be as entertaining as consumer application. After the BYOD policy, people will start to bring various devices that run on different OS and the back end operators will have to face more trouble trying to keep things under control. And this means there are equal probabilities of breach of security as a fully secure application on one operating system might have some loop holes on another OS which hackers might easily get into. And if we think creating a business application is such expensive, let me tell you that there is still more to come. The application should be maintained for optimum functionality as the mobile OS keeps on changing. We are familiar that the OS update for apple iphone keeps on coming probably monthly so to make the application compatible with the new OS maintenance must be done periodically. The maintenance cost only covers 35% of the total cost which should be considered, (Laudon & Jane, 2012) and the most important point to consider is the security, as an organisation contains valuable and sensitive information the application must be ready to use in the organisation without any flaws. Unlike consumer application, enterprise application cannot first run the application and start fixing the errors as it comes on because a simple error or hole in the system can leave the organisation information in wrong hand. Hence all the tests must be done prior to the launch of the application which will cost a significant amount of money to the organisation.  We know that mobile phone has done a huge progress within a few years and more and more smartphones are entering market however i dont think that mobile phones can quite successfully handle a complete business application as a computer or a laptop does and the size of a mobile phone might also be a problem as mobile phone screens are small.

Conclusion

Since there are mixed feelings and opinion about the business mobile application, we cannot argue that the mobile application market is growing and it is a positive approach that business organisation are also trying to follow the trend. However it is very unclear that the business mobile application is really a place to invest for business at the moment. After all the top priority of business is to earn profit and if they are investing money on anything they definitely are expecting profit. My earlier example of Hungry Jack’s free treat application also falls under this contradict. Are they really making profit with the application? A free treat for everyone will definitely enable people to download their apps but it is also clear that they are losing a lot of money through that. So let’s see how long this promotion is going to be open for… But according to keynote device anywhere, they are working on to make the business mobile application more reliable and affordable to business as they work as a mobile application testing centre. They give the application free to download as trial to business organisation employees all around the world who have different handsets and in return receive feedback to create a solid application which will also save the testing cost to the organisations. (Syed, 2012). So in my opinion it is clear that business mobile application will be the next big thing in the future, however it is also a fact that lot of improvement is still yet to be done and i would sugget business people not to rush. The time has not come yet!

Reference:

Barnett, J. (2012, 05 15). wwpi. Retrieved 05 19, 2012, from Company Technology Review.http://www.wwpi.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14642:looking-for-great-mobile-business-apps-they-dont-existyet&catid=322:ctr-exclusives&Itemid=2701741

Laudon, Jane and Kenneth Laudon (2012):Management Information Systems 12/E, Pearson Education

Perry, R. (2011, 08 04). Worklightinc. Retrieved 05 22, 2012, from Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypx_lK7yKuc

Quantum SEO Solutions – SEO Brisbane. (n.d.). Retrieved 05 20, 2012, from www.quantumseosolutions.com: http://www.quantumseosolutions.com/mobile-apps/

Syed, F. (2012, 03 12). Keynote deviceAnywhere. Retrieved 05 21, 2012, from Mobile application Technology: http://mobileapplicationtestingtimes.wordpress.com/