Succeeding with Enterprise Mobile Apps

Guest blog by MGI Research, excerpted from their State of Enterprise Mobile Apps Report, 2012

It’s not an understatement to say that developing enterprise mobile apps is a challenge.   Setting a strategy, determining the right level of investment, creating appropriate metrics, and prioritizing mobile efforts in the next twelve months – this is a tall order to manage successfully.  Given the youth of mobile apps, there are few reliable recipes for success, especially for companies looking to deploy on a large scale. 

To address this gap, MGI Research conducted a focused study on mobile strategies, best practices, and metrics – The State of Mobile Apps 2012.  The results should give every IT executive reason to pause.

With responses from over 250 companies across a range of industries and company sizes, the survey underscores the key drivers of mobile apps.  The impetus for investing in mobile apps is quickly shifting from an initial focus on brand building and customer engagement to leveraging mobile apps for revenue generation.  In fact, while in general most respondents indicated brand building and customer engagement as being critical or very important, over 70% of respondents from companies that have had a high degree of success in mobile apps rated revenue generation as the primary driver for their mobile investments.

The technical priorities are an indicator of where organizations should be focusing their human capital resources and development attention. 88% of study respondents see creating a better mobile app user experience as either Critical or Very Important.  For all the hype, creating a corporate app store received the lowest percentage of Critical responses.

The top three budget priorities were:

1. Multi-platform app development tools,

2. Building B2C apps  vs. B2E and B2B apps, and

3. Mobile security and privacy.

Looking at annual mobile budgets, those companies who claimed “Huge Success” with their mobile apps initiatives spent far more than the average – they spend $100,000 to $250,000.  Ten percent of respondents overall spend over $250,000 annually on mobile apps.  The level of spend contrasts with the widely held view that mobile apps are inexpensive, particularly when considering that they are relatively quick to develop – almost 95% of mobile apps are developed in 12 months or less, and nearly 40% are delivered within 3-6 months.

Business units are the dominant financial sponsors of mobile apps (45%), with corporate IT underwriting over 28% of apps development projects.  Not surprisingly, there is a connection between successful apps and financial sponsorship – those with the most success engage the business units as the primary sponsor.  Even though few companies have a clearly established line-item for mobile apps development and maintenance, especially within IT budgets, clearly this is coming. 

Again, it’s interesting to note the relationship between which department is responsible for development and the level of success achieved.  When Business Units are the primary developer, there is almost a two to one increase in the level of success.  Maintenance of apps is falling on corporate IT – 63% of companies rely on the IT department for mobile apps maintenance.

In summary, the State of Mobile Apps 2012 dispelled a number of mobile apps myths.

• Myth #1 – Mobile apps are cheap to develop. While the data indicate this is true in absolute terms, for companies that report having the greatest success, they spend considerably more – up to ten times more in some cases.

• Myth #2 – Mobile apps are quick to develop. Yes, apps can be developed very fast, however the most successful companies report taking up to 50% more time than average developing a mobile app with impact.

• Myth #3 – Mobile apps are driven and controlled by Marketing.  In fact, marketing’s involvement versus the contribution from Business Units and Corporate IT is modest at best. A critical success factor for mobile apps development appears to be the significant involvement of the lines of business (business units), with corporate IT involved as well. 

2013 is poised to be a break-out year for enterprise mobile apps.  Companies looking for topline revenue growth and new customer acquisition view mobile apps as a key part of their plans.  Hiring talent around apps development, especially in the areas of interface development and user engagement, is becoming an IT imperative. And as every seasoned CIO knows, having a strategy for managing the life-cycle of mobile apps – i.e., maintenance and retirement, is essential.  In the ever-changing world of mobile apps, it appears that by taking a measured view and having a willingness to invest incrementally more time and money yields the greatest success.

MGI Research serves technology decision makers with independent benchmarking, research, and advisory services.  By using proprietary quantitative and qualitative methods, MGI Research helps clients apply data-driven analysis to key strategic, investment, and operational decisions. For more information, www.mgiresearch.com.