Enterprise Mobile App Development: 5 Trends that will be Game Changer

Mobile is the driving force in enterprise software has been in recent discussion for many years. Enterprise mobile apps in just couple of years set some great trends for businesses and future of mobility in general. We already know the role of mobile in bringing efficiency and becoming a growth factor for businesses. But now it is time to predict what this burgeoning mobile invasion into business is heading for.

A few apparent trends and global statistics on enterprise mobility will help us in coming with some of the trends that will be the game changer for enterprise mobile app development in the time to come.

Let us begin with some statistics to have wider view of the rise of enterprise mobility. Remember, in just a few months of writing – these numbers have changed drastically. Have a look:

• Just 3 years ago in 2012 using mobile browser for accessing web was just 8% of the total usage while desktop browser usage stood at 92%. Down the line in just 3 years there has been a dramatic change in these numbers. Now usage of mobile browser stands at 33% while usage of desktop browser went down to 66%. With the rapid and widespread mobile adoption in every sphere of life including workplace this trend will continue for years to come.
• In 2015 number of mobile workers stands at a whopping 1.3 billion
• By 2017 mobile apps will be downloaded more than 268 billion times
• Around 67% of IT heads and enterprise IT professionals harbor a belief that mobile apps would change the business more than what internet did in 1990s
• Three fourth of Fortune 500 companies either made or are in a process to deploy HTML5 based mobile apps for their business
• The year 2014 alone experienced a 714% increase in custom developed enterprise mobile apps
• In the 2014 there has been a massive 500% increase in mobile CRM apps
• BYOD environment will amount to $181 billion by 2017
• By the year 2020 global enterprise mobility business will reach $140 billion per year

The above mentioned statistics show a clear indication that enterprise IT is rapidly transforming into enterprise mobility. Now let us discuss here 5 trends that will be game changer for the enterprise mobile apps in the coming years.

1) BYOD will win over business owned device

While the debate and battle between BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and business owned devices at workplace will continue for some time to come, from the rapid mobile invasion in enterprises it is clear that typical differentiation between personal and business owned devices will be blurred. BYOD is further inevitable because most businesses are increasingly finding it necessary for increasing productivity and engagement at workplaces. In the time to come the security focus may solely rest on authentication measures and monitoring of device usage for business purposes.

But while BYOD is gaining stronghold across the business workplaces privacy and security concerns are rising. On the one hand, how far the private device can be permitted to handle critical business data and on the other hand, how far businesses can monitor the employee owned devices and activities in workplaces and beyond, these two will continue to make broil across business environments. And irrespective of the growth of BYOD how security and privacy concerns are addressed that would determine the success of respective mobile approach of the enterprises.

On the same note, check out 10 Stunning Design concepts for Mobile devices.

2) Decline of native apps and rise of web apps

Just few years ago when mobile apps rolled out for the businesses for the first time they had two choices, respectively as, native apps and mobile web apps. While native apps with more platform specific features looked more promising, mobile web apps was just simple cross platform alternatives to business websites.

But since then we have come across a lot of trends and developments on both sides. No longer can you think of mobile web apps as featureless as in the beginning. You also need to read Does your organization need a native app or web app?

Now with the latest and improved capacities of HTML5 and CSS3 there is hardly any difference between these two types of apps as far as features are concerned. Mobile web apps can deliver almost all the features you were fond of in native apps. While you do not need to sacrifice features the advantage of cross platform development with mobile web apps is a winning one. That is why increasing number of enterprises are turning towards mobile web apps now. Cost advantage is also a big draw for web apps compared to native apps.

Without putting huge money on native development businesses need to optimize the existing web apps for mobile devices and that not only reduces the development cost but facilitates rapid development.

According to Gartner, 90% of enterprise apps by the end of this year will be either HTML 5 based or hybrid and just 10% of them will be native.

3) Businesses will focus on Mobile Ready infrastructure

Enterprises in the last two decades focused on making their business internet ready by upgrading the backend systems to the emerging IT standards. Now the focus has been shifted to making the business infrastructure mobile ready. As mobile workforce in any business make up a significant portion and as companies are spending hefty dollars to take the benefit of mobility to increase productivity, mobile readiness will be the single most important criterion for enterprise IT.

4) New breed of app developers will be from business analysts

Mobile apps offered enterprises a revolutionary way to dig into relevant business and user data and take monetizing steps. Naturally business analysts in any mobile ready enterprise need to work with mobile apps to garner more organizational outputs, customer engagements and ROI. This emerging role of business analysts make them potential candidates to be groomed into the role of enterprise grade mobile app developers.

There two other contributing factors to this new trend in the vicinity. First of all, hiring competent enterprise grade mobile app developers involves good investment and secondly, with the emerging low-coding development platforms learning curve for developing apps dropped down significantly. Business analysts with more business specific insights and clear idea of the app objectives are emerging as next breed of enterprise developers. Gartner predicted that by 2018 more than 50% of enterprise mobile apps will be developed by business analysts who have least or minimum knowledge of coding.

Read 10 HTML5 Frameworks for mobile app development.

5) Mobile apps dominating the physical world

Interacting with the physical world is the latest emerging trend. Location technologies like iBeacon, Geofencing, etc. are great examples of how real world can be transmitted by mobile apps as business relevant information in real time. Mobile payment through geometric authentication is another instance of how mobile apps can replace physical transaction into a digital one.

Conclusion

As you can see, mobile presence is just going to get stronger even more. Mobile has taken the world by storm and enterprise applications are definitely in its cross-hairs. Our society is continuing to evolve with faster, real-time and “anywhere” information – for a true overall internet era in the near future.