Does Your App Work In The Field?

Creating apps made for field services is a growing area of the market that is certainly worth exploring. Whether you have actively been involved in this area of the market for the last several years, or you are just now considering offering an app to your customers, and perhaps, employees to use in their field, now is definitely the time to do so. If you do decide to do so, along the way you will undoubtedly need to decide whom you are going to offer your app to — employees or customers, or both.

 

Offering Your Field Service App To Employees

 

In most cases, when a company offers an app for employees to use in the field, it is most likely for mandatory usage. In such case, your company likely will have to offer it for free, as charging employees for something essential to their job is not typical of a successful enterprise. With that said, there is always the possibility that the app may not be essential to the work of your employees and you can subsequently offer it either free, or for a small price. Then, they will be able to decide whether they in fact want to use the app, and if it is even worth the price you are charging for it. For instance, if you own an herbal supplement distributor and create an app for employees to reference all the different supplements your company processes, you may deem this as a mandatory app for employees to have on their company smartphones. At the same time, you may feel that this is a perk and decide to offer the app for a small fee, or for free, but not mandatory. Then, depending on your business, you also have to decide whether you want to offer the app to your customers as well. Ultimately, the choice is yours.

 

Offering A Field Service App To Your Customers

 

Whether your business is assisting other employees with their field services, or you just want to pass on the app that you offer your own employees, doing so may be worth it to you. If you do offer your app to customers just as you do your employees, then you may consider doing so for a price. In other words, if you can profit off of something that you offer to your employees for free, then it may make up for some of the cost associated with having such a complimentary offering. In this may, you may be able to recoup some of those costs. Or, you may want to shine on the expenses and, again, offer it for free, but this time to your customers as well as employees.

 

Conclusion

 

Offering a field service app to your employees and customers, or both, can be a bit complicated, especially if you wish to make a distinction between the two. It is entirely understandable if you want to charge your customers for the app, but not your employees, or vice versa. When making such a decision, it is easiest to do so with an open mind not solely focused on making a profit. Sure you want to recoup as much of the costs associated with the app as possible, however, you also do not want to come across as frugal and desperate to profit off of your own employees.

Enterprise Mobility Consulting and App Strategizing

Mobile phones were earlier considered as the medium of communication have now become an integral part of our lives. From making calls to accessing social networking sites and doing online shopping, we rely on smartphones for most of our needs.

 

One of the most important factors for this change is mobile application. They have changed the way we use smartphones and tablets. Applications are always accessible and help us in staying connected, irrespective of location barrier.

 

Mobile applications are also getting popular amongst enterprises. Businesses are looking for smart ways to work and going mobile is one of their most preferred approaches.

 

Not every organization has the team of most experienced IT individuals and developers. Therefore, it might be a daunting task for companies to create and implement a mobile strategy at work.

 

Mobility consulting is the solution to all the mobilizing worries of enterprises. Enterprises planning to become a part of the app world can seek help of mobility consultants to create a robust application that is beneficial in terms of internal management and client support.

 

A mobility consulting company will help you in determining the best mobile solution that fits your business model. It is the job of the consultants to identify your business needs, strategize about the development process, calculate the risks involved, and successfully implement the solution.

 

Hiring a Mobility Consultant:

Things to Consider

 

• The success of mobile applications has fascinated many to get into the business of development. Therefore, it is important for you to consider the relevant experience of a consulting firm before hiring it for work.
• There are enterprise mobility firm that offer one-stop-solution to clients. Instead of hiring a consultant, developer, and designer separately, it is a good idea to get in touch with a mobility consultant who offers complete solutions. This will result in better co-ordination and more cost-effective mobility solution.

 

Other than finding a mobility consultant, it is necessary for enterprises to have the right mobility strategy. The right mobile application strategy will help you in successfully accomplishing the project and deriving the desired objectives. There are certain things a company must consider in creating a mobile strategy:

 

• When it comes to choosing between native or mobile web applications, enterprises should consider pros and cons of both. Native apps are either device or OS specific and use some internal features of the device. Mobile web apps on the other hand support cross-platforms.
• If maximum exposure or consumer reach is what you are aiming at with the enterprise application, opt for mobile web solution.
• Enterprises have to decide if they want an application for the internal purpose or to improve the customer reach. Consumer-centric applications are a trend these days as they lead to better branding, marketing, and revenue generation. However, for more organized and managed work environment, businesses are also opting for an internal mobile application that is accessible to all the employees.
• Data infringement is a major concern of enterprises. It is necessary for the IT department to figure out the security issues or the possible ways of data theft. Once, we are well-versed with the hurdles, it gets easier for developers to create a robust application that would be tested on various security parameters.

 

Mobility consulting and strategizing will have a great impact on the growth of an enterprise. Therefore, businesses are suggested to go through each process carefully before starting the mobile application development process.

Mobility is a Boon to Field Services Industry

In an enterprise, two teams are the most mobile – sales teams and field services (FS) teams. While the former are primarily visiting boardrooms and conferences, the latter have the charter of being on the go almost the entire day, meeting customers’ end users and solving their problems. Be it business operational field services or technology desk side support, the FS teams have the biggest impact on customer satisfaction (CSAT). Therefore, enabling them to do their jobs better is a mission critical. Traditionally, these teams have been equipped with bulky handheld devices which are cumbersome, and have limited functionality. Enterprise mobility has changed that, and today the tools of the trade for the hands-and-feet crowd reside within their smartphones / tablets.

 

Enabling the resources on the ground to use their smartphones for work related tasks has many advantages. Firstly, they do not have to carry brick sized, cumbersome devices. Secondly, doing away with handhelds saves a lot of money in purchase and maintenance of the same. Cost is further saved because the enterprises do not need backend software and infrastructure to pull data or charge those monsters. Also, smart devices are better connected (through cellular or wi-fi networks), and the employees do not have to go through a learning curve to use them.  Lastly, the use cases for a smartphone / tablet are virtually unlimited, empowering the FS resources to access all relevant information anytime, anywhere.

 

Due to these advantages, enterprises are investing in field services mobile apps that provide very useful functionalities.

 

Work order management: These applications let the managers allocate work efficiently, and control and monitor its execution closely. From a central console, a manager can identify the resources closest to the requirement through geo location services, and assign the work to them. The agents on the ground get a notification with all the relevant details like location, nature of the work, the priority and SLA. They can then accept the work order and proceed to the location. Once done, they can update the work order with the outcome, and the manager sees the same immediately.

 

Invoice Management: Keeping a track of invoices and payments can be a headache when you have hundreds of employees on the field involved in the transactions. As an FS organization, if you have to physically collect and input all the receipts, it becomes a nightmare, and has immense potential for human error. Using a mobile app to issue invoices and receive payments, with the ability to process credit cards can greatly reduce the effort required for this process and the potential for errors.

 

GPS tracking: How many times does the help desk receive a call from an irate customer saying “I am still waiting for your person to reach here”. The standard response is “He should be there soon”. Imagine a world where the helpdesk agent can tell the customer “Sir, he is 2.1 miles from your location. As per the traffic data, he should reach there in approximately 7 minutes.” Tracking your resources and knowing here they are at all times gives your business a huge efficiency boost. Not just people, tracking assets and vehicles on the move also help security and CSAT. ‘Knowing’ is the first step towards improving, and GPS tracking systems keep you in the know.

 

These are but a few use cases for mobility in field services. Copper Mobile can help you in connecting with your field staff like never before with our mobile field service app. We design customized applications for smart devices such as mobile phones and tablets, which can be accessed from anywhere across the globe.

Does Your App Bring Out The Best In Its Device?

Every now and then an app comes out that truly mesmerizes the market in a way that users and industry experts alike didn’t even know was possible. These remarkable apps take the capabilities of a device, and through the creation of an innovative new app, absolutely bring out the best in the device it is housed on. While it is certainty no easy task, if you can come up with an original idea for an app that uses a device in a way most people had no idea was possible, your enterprise will practically be guaranteed profitability.

 

The Idea

 

Thinking up an innovative app idea that uses a mobile device in a new way is extremely difficult. It often seems as through developers have either already thought of all the good ideas, or inspiration is simply impossible to find. With that said, there are many examples of genius apps that have been created in the face of lackluster inspiration and a market full of creative app offerings. Take, for example, the Sleep Cycle app. It is an app that cleverly uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to measure sleep patterns and quality based on the user’s movements while asleep. This is a truly remarkable idea that uses the capabilities of the iPhone to its advantage. Without the iPhone’s accelerometer, the Sleep Cycle app simply would not exist and the idea of an app that gives users feedback on their sleep patterns would remain a thought still in the incubation phase of someone’s mind. This sort of symbiotic relationship between app and device — bringing out the best in the device while introducing an innovative new idea — is what makes the combination so profitable.

 

There are two basic ways to come up with such an innovative idea. You can either start by considering the capabilities of a device you wish to house your app on, or you can think of a brilliant idea first and worry about a device’s capabilities later. Typically, it is easier to base your app idea off the capabilities of the device you are working with. This way when you actually do come up with a brilliant idea for your app, you know for a fact that it will find fruition. For instance, the mobile market now has a bunch of flashlight apps that use the camera light on various mobile phones as a static bright light to use in the dark. Five years ago, if someone had thought of the idea to create an app that works as a flashlight, they probably would have hit a dead end. Back then most smartphones did not feature a camera light built into the design. However, now that most smartphones have such a feature, the idea has found tremendous success with users in the mobile market.

 

Conclusion

 

Coming up with the next brilliant idea for an app is certainly not an easy undertaking. Inspiration can be scarce and motivation can dwindle, as the market appears to already have an endless array of stellar apps. However, if you first start with the capabilities of a device, such as the iPhone, you will undoubtedly be able to find a feature that no other app has capitalized on, turning its use and your brilliant idea into an innovative new mobile offering for the market to enjoy. All app ideas start from somewhere and a mobile device is about as good a starting place as its gets.

 

Copper Mobile helps enterprises in developing new ideas and strategising their mobile needs and create innovative products for mobility solutions

Enterprise App Stores - All Grown Up

As per recent Gartner report, by 2017, a quarter of all enterprises will have their own app stores for the employees. The primary cause for this is the rapid adoption of mobile technology by the employees and customers alike. With mobile adoption comes the need for apps, and with need for apps comes the need to securely distribute them. Increasingly, businesses are finding consumer mobile app stores inadequate for distribution of enterprise applications. These storefronts offer little in the way of security, vetting and control. Distribution-especially to large work forces-is cumbersome. Enter the enterprise App store.

 

There are many players providing mobile enterprise app stores, the latest big name to enter being SAP. Verizon also provides its white-labeled corporate app store, which comes with your company’s logo and color scheme. This industry will continue morphing as vendors, service providers and the businesses themselves explore various approaches. At the end of the day, of course, no single formula will emerge. Rather, different types of enterprise-focused app stores-some of them as simple as areas set aside at the consumer-oriented app stores-will establish themselves.

 

Options:

 

There are essentially 2 categories of app stores – One for the executives and CXOs, and another for the remaining employees. In the second category, there are 3 methods of implementation – Firstly, there are those that are located within the consumer marketplaces, such as Google Play and Apple's App Store; Second type of app stores that aggregate enterprise applications from these stores and offer them to the corporate world; and, finally, there are enterprise stores that offer their own applications.

 

Features:

 

To be successful, enterprise application distribution systems should have some necessary characteristics.

 

1. Access Control – This is an important feature. The access needs to be controlled for different profile of users. For e.g. the finance department people should not have access to salesforce.com app. This may require integration with the active directory or HRMS.

 

2. Registration – As important it is to allow access based on user profiles, for enhanced security, it is equally important to give access to only known devices. The registration of devices ensures that only the authorized devices are allowed to use the app store.

 

3. Security – VPN-only access and intense application testing are some of the important features which ensure the users can be sure of the application that they download, and the enterprise is certain that only bona fide devices and users get access.

 

4. Centralized control – Since the enterprise marketplace has to be closely monitored and regulated, it is imperative that they be managed well. In order to reduce the management complexity, there should be a centralized management console for the same, where IT can upload, approve, or reject applications.

 

5. Cross-platform compatibility – Since the device and OS types in the enterprise are generally disparate, it is important that the download options are compatible with the devices.  Ideally, the app store should provide employees with the choice to download apps either directly via the enterprise app marketplace or via their mobile Web browser.

 

6. App updates – Organizations change. Policies change. Functionalities change. Therefore, it is imperative that the apps will also change. The user must be provided notifications and access to app updates, upgrades, security patches and so on. Supporting OTA or over-the-air updates enables users to easily apply these updates on their devices, without having to spend unnecessary time and effort.

Why Enterprise Social Initiatives Fail

In a recent report published by Gartner, 80% of the social initiatives will not fulfill their intended targets by 2015. This, by the same Gartner, that said that the future of enterprise depended on social strategy that would effectively tap the “collective genius” of employees and customers. So does the new report mean they are backpedaling? Not really.

 

The reason most social initiatives will end up in less than projected success is that most enterprises dive headlong into the social projects without taking care of some core issues critical to their success. There are multiple challenges that plague the uptake and success of such endeavors, which if not addressed in the strategy itself, can derail them from the path to success.

 

Focus on People, Not Tool

 

When enterprises plan for collaboration enablement, the focus is on the content and the mechanism of supporting it rather than the real players in the arena, the people. Project teams deliberate for moths trying to decide the ‘best’ social platform out there and the teams that will implement it, while no one is really thinking about how to engage the employees in the collaborative efforts. This leaves them with an expensive, well-implemented (if so) tool, which gathers dust as no one uses it.

 

Team Structure

 

Unlike external social platforms, which seem take a life of their own, corporate collaboration efforts need to be constantly monitored, advertised, supported, and evolved as time progresses. To address this, they require a defined team that owns and manages them. Roles like a collaboration manager, or an innovation architect should be defined to lead this team into the future. Another important component here is the ranking of the participants based on their contributions.

 

Training and Enablement

 

Most enterprise project plans for information management and distribution leave out the most critical part of the exercise – end user training. Give a user, who is unmotivated in the first place, a tool that he does not understand, and you can bid goodbye to its success. There are multiple training options available to the management – classroom based training, computer based live training, computer based recorded sessions, training presentations, and user manuals. Even after this, if the employees do not get trained, there is some problem.

 

Incentives and Engagement

 

Most people’s approach towards enterprise social platforms is that they have “better things to do”. The primary reason for this is that they do not feel incented to contribute. Another reason is that the exercise of contribution is not engaging enough, and people who do contribute, stop doing so after a few participations.This is where the team managing the social initiative should come up with creative incentive programs for the contributors. Some examples of the same are giving badges or honors, promoting the users within the tool to hold cool titles, having a physical award ceremony for top contributors, or, if your workforce allows it, associating KRA metrics with it. To make the employees covet participation, the community may be started as ‘by invitation only’. Once this core group reaches a certain critical mass of activity, you can open it up, and add more people.

 

Technology Does Matter

 

Finally, even though not the top priority, the importance of choosing the right collaboration platform can’t be denied. The interfaces should be simple and intuitive, the platform secure, and manageable. The cost of implementation, integration and support of the same should not be too high to be prohibitive.

 

The Verdict

 

While it is true that the success of the social initiatives in place or being implemented is questionable, it is also true that they are the future. By reworking their strategy, and paying heed to sound advice, companies can prepare for success in the world where collaboration rules that is inevitable.

 

Copper Mobile is an app development company with headquarters in Dallas. The firm is one of the top iPhone application development firms and mobile application development companies in Dallas

The Future of Computing is Mobile, says Forrester

We have heard before that all enterprises big and small must make an effort to embrace mobile technology in order to be able to mobilize profits from their business. With more than one billion smartphone users worldwide, and the number rapidly rising, we are living in an era where mobile app development has taken on a new meaning. The flexible infrastructure that mobile applications provide, the DevOps, and the open source platforms have led to the creation of a compelling engagement system linking both systems of operation and systems of record within an enterprise.

 

In a report published by Forrester, the analysts have pointed at mobile as the future of computing. Whether it is the senior management at a company or its target user base, both have to abandon using desktops and laptops and replace them with mobile devices in order to be able to have complete access to an organization’s services and products and remain connected anytime anywhere. The report also makes an important point when it says that enterprises need to learn and take lessons from the web approach adopted by modern customers while preparing their mobile strategy. According to the Forrester analysis, if an organization ignores the web approach of its user base, it may lead to the formation of a business model that is devoid of any proper structure. The risk that enterprises may face in this case is that their ignorance may lead to the deployment of mobile applications which lack the modern features and functionality required for the effective functioning of a modern enterprise; it may also lead to deployment of software that is hard to use and maintain.

 

The report of Forrester is of the opinion that though the concept of mobile entered the enterprise a couple of years ago and since then the awareness generated around the software to be uploaded in mobile devices has risen comparatively, several mobile application development companies still fail to incorporate the basic requirements that enterprises and their customers expect from the software. There are a few mainstream application developers who are gradually adapting to their users’ app needs and expectations; but there is still a long way to go before the enterprise will successful deploy apps along with every element that leads to their successful performance. The best way to secure a strong mobile experience is to include the HTML5 technology, say experts at Forrester. Some other mobile solutions that modern enterprises need to adopt are as listed below:

 

• In memory database
• Asynchronous APIs that can be consumed over a number of channels
• An open source software
• Dynamic programming languages like Java, .NET, Django, PHP, and most importantly HTML5
• NoSQL and Shared SQL databases which can promote scale out architecture and commodity hardware
• Process communication frameworks such as nginx and node.js which are lightweight in nature and can promote reduced resource consumption besides several other advantages

 

As the mobile apps built these days come with more innovative and improved features, enterprises are increasingly on the lookout for mobile devices and operating systems that will support the more functional software. The Forrester researchers predict that the cost of mobile app development as well as deployment will rise with each passing day. The solution is to deploy the new apps as soon as they are launched.

Developing a Mobile Application for Enterprise; Things to Consider

Developing a Mobile Application for Enterprise; Things to Consider from Copper Mobile, Inc.