ENTERPRISE MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT: A PLATFORM-DRIVEN APPROACH TO ACCELERATE OUTCOMES

Build enterprise mobile apps across devices, user groups, and operating systems, efficiently and swiftly with a powerful low code mobile app platform.

Over half of the world’s population uses a smartphone, with a rapidly growing contribution from developing countries. Interestingly, for a significant number of these users, phones are their primary devices for access to the Internet. In the US, 89% of users access the Internet through a smartphone while only 75% do so with their laptop or desktop computer. In much of the developing world, smartphones are the only Internet-enabled devices that users own.

Customer behavior, too, has changed dramatically. Gen Z hasn’t seen life without a smartphone. Gartner finds that 33% of all buyers and 44% of millennials desire a seller-free sales experience. Studies suggest that “of the $96.87 billion extra spent on e-commerce in the US this year, m-commerce will contribute 61.4%.”

So, it’s no wonder that enterprises are investing heavily in mobile application development, fuelling exciting innovation.

THE EXTRAORDINARY BUSINESS VALUE
IN MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT

While transitioning to a mobile-first approach is inevitable, mobile apps also offer a multitude of opportunities for every enterprise.

Mobile-first experiences

Owing to the ability to hyper-personalize, businesses are creating mobile-first user journeys, getting closer to the consumer in the process.

Targeted messaging

With user permission, businesses are tracking customers’ locations to deliver hyper-personalized notifications and offers. Advanced analytics help predict user intention, making this experience more personal and effective.

Mobile-specific content

TikTok-style vertical short videos, memes, and images created for WhatsApp shareability are growing dramatically as the preferred content form. So much so that organizations are adapting their web experiences to include these.

Superapps

Bringing together multiple apps to create a composable business ecosystem through a Superapp. By 2027, 50% of the global population will be daily active users of multiple superapps, predicts Gartner.

Multiexperience

The transition to a responsive, cross-platform mobile experience is the first step towards creating multiexperience encompassing wearables, augmented reality devices, etc.

Yet, mobile development is ridden with challenges throughout the lifecycle.

CHALLENGES IN ENTERPRISE
MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT

Even for experienced engineering teams, mobile app development can be a different ball game. Some of the most common challenges enterprises face are:

Limited
skills

There is a huge talent gap in mobile app development. More importantly, even among mobile developers, there tends to be specialization in iOS or Android or a kind of application that makes it even more difficult to hire cross-platform development teams.

Broken user
experience

Cross-platform apps often struggle with compatibility issues. What works in iOS, for instance, might not on Android. Moreover, trying to meet the design recommendations of each app store results in inconsistent UI/experiences.

Low code quality and performance

With cross-platform apps, maintaining code quality across platforms becomes unwieldy. Performance issues around speed, battery efficiency, memory, etc. are complex to control.

Weak security
posture

Security management takes up inordinate effort and time as all apps and versions need to be secured with encryption, authentication, authorization, API security, etc.

Overcoming these challenges needs a robust mobile app platform that supports end-to-end mobile development while accelerating your engineering journey. Let’s see what that would look like.

MOBILE APP PLATFORM : THE SPRINGBOARD
FOR ENTERPRISE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

With skills shortages rampant across the globe, the only way for enterprises to scale their mobile application development effectively is to leverage tools and automation. A mobile app platform with the right features can enable this and more.

What is a mobile app platform?

A mobile application development platform is a suite of tools, resources, and automation you need to build mobile apps. Typically, it would include tools to create, test, debug, and deploy iOS or Android apps faster, such as:

Mobile backend as a service
UI design to code features
Low code development capabilities
API tools
CI/CD and orchestration tools

Mobile app platforms are of two kinds.

Native mobile app platforms

Native apps are custom-built for a specific platform, such as iOS or Android. If you’re building an iOS app, you’ll choose a platform that allows you to code in Swift. For Android, this would be Java or Kotlin. Businesses choose this approach with the belief that native apps:

Perform better because they are written in the recommended language and specifications for the platform
Allow developers to access the features of the mobile device such as camera, microphone, GPS etc.
Have full access to device APIs and other platform features, while this might be delayed for cross-platform apps
Lead to fewer bugs as a result of limited dependencies and independent codebases

For starters, the above are not the benefits of native apps alone. Today, even cross-platform apps deliver top performance, access device features, and can be built bug-free.

Yet, native mobile app development can take time and cost big money. When you choose a native mobile app platform, you’ll have to subscribe to one for each ecosystem you work with. Moreover, the availability of talent in platform-specific programming languages and IDE is a challenge as well.

All this leads enterprises towards a cross-platform app development approach.

Cross-platform mobile app development platform

Here, teams develop apps that run on both Android and iOS from a single codebase, typically with a compatible open-source framework. Businesses choose this for:

Efficiency

Code reusability ensures you don’t waste time and money building two versions of the same app.

Uniformity

Your apps will deliver a consistent user experience across all ecosystems, including design, look and feel.

Effectiveness

It is much easier to manage your resources—assets, code, data, etc.—with a cross-platform app.

The concerns around performance and API access that were more common with cross-platform application development are no longer serious. With cross-platform tools like WaveMaker, you can create native apps for iOS and Android with a single codebase.

If you’re still unconvinced, here’s a look at what a good mobile app platform can offer you.

BENEFITS OF A MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT
PLATFORM FOR AN ENTERPRISE

Today’s market demands extraordinary speed, efficiency, accuracy, and performance from all technology products. Building mobile apps for multiple operating systems, versions, devices, etc. can get out of control too quickly.

Build more apps faster

Enterprises need lean development teams to build and ship complex mobile apps. A good mobile app platform enables this with:

Composability and code reusability
Visual programming and drag-and-drop capabilities for quicker app composing
Automation throughout the SDLC, especially in testing hundreds of use cases

Powered by low code, a good mobile application development platform eliminates points of friction, increasing developer velocity, which in turn propels enterprise velocity.

Create stellar user experiences

Multiple developers building various aspects of software can sometimes fragment the customer experience. A mobile app platform, with its templates, widgets, prefabs, and style themes, will have the guardrails and checkpoints to prevent this.

Build unified workflows

A platform brings designers, frontend/backend developers, QAs, DevOps and other teams together for contextual collaboration.

Manage mobile apps effectively

A single pane view of all mobile development efforts makes it easier to access, track, code, test, deploy, and maintain myriad mobile apps.

ENTERPRISE USE CASES FOR
MOBILE APP PLATFORMS

Simply put, you can use a mobile app platform to build any mobile app. Customer-facing, internal, online/offline, content-driven, data-driven, anything you can think of, you can build.

Here’s how Vanenberg, a Dutch software firm, used WaveMaker’s React Native Studio to build a mobile app with offline features to enable field workers to securely capture logging data in the remote forests of Africa.

The main challenge for Vanenburg was to design a solution that could digitize all NRD’s processes, including tracking forest operations, financial processes, logistics and fleet management. The solution had to be mobile-first so field workers in remote Liberian forests could tag each tree and record it offline on their mobile devices. This captured data would be uploaded to a cloud-based portal at a later point in time.

With WaveMaker, Vanenburg designed all this and more:

HTML5-based user-friendly and easy-to-use UI
Linking to mobile phone features for capturing GPS data etc.
Data storage built into the app
Offline-online sync is designed to be swift with negligible latency even over a weak network signal
Real-time tracking of activity for efficient operations management

If you’re looking to replicate this success with your mobile app development platform, here’s what you need to look for.

Most enterprises are at the stage in their journey where they know they need a platform to create compelling mobile applications. Yet, they struggle with choosing the right ones for their needs. We’ve brought help.

WHAT SHOULD A GOOD ENTERPRISE-GRADE
MOBILE APP PLATFORM HAVE?

There are dozens of mobile app platforms offering a unique collection of features. To help you choose from them, we’ve curated a list of must-have features of a good mobile app platform.

1. Cross-platform capabilities

A good mobile app platform must allow you to build cross-platform native apps from a single code base. This could be native mobile, responsive apps, or progressive web without adding developers or tools.

2. Composability with low code

Building complex apps natively for multiple platforms can get unwieldy and unmanageable. A good mobile app platform must help manage complexity effectively.

The most reliable way to do this is using low code, a software development platform that enables developers to build custom applications with minimal hand-coding. It uses a visual interface, pre-built templates, integration with third-party tools etc. to automate and abstract parts of the software development process.

A mobile app platform will incorporate the numerous advantages of low code such as:

Reusability

With pre-designed templates, designs, widgets, and other components, a low code platform allows you to reuse your code. Back-of-the-envelope calculations say that when you use a low code tool for cross-platform application development, you reuse 80-90% of your code.

Consistency of design

A low code platform allows you to set standards for styles, fonts, and colors to create brand-specific themes. You can also create layouts and content widgets for reuse.

Platform-specific components

A low code mobile app platform also allows you to create platform-specific components to use across teams to create consistent experiences across devices.

Custom coding

Low code or not, professional developers need the control to write custom code for complex needs or edge cases. A low code platform will enable this and allow them to convert custom code into components/prefabs as well.

Collaboration

Low code mobile app development needs to be collaborative, allowing developers to come together on a common platform. The low code mobile app platform must support version control, branch support for hotfixes, and the ability to publish and review artifacts, etc.

API orchestration

A good low code app helps you coordinate APIs—i.e., manage incoming requests, services, and responses—from multiple providers to create unified experiences. In addition to being critical for integrating with legacy systems, API orchestration also helps transform data, manage runtime layers, facilitate authentication, etc.

It also improves performance by managing retries, caching, and automation. If your low code platform of choice has an API composability kit, you have a significant advantage.

1-click deployment

One of the things that low code can abstract is deployment. A good low code platform will enable a 1-click deployment to a cloud provider of choice without the setup of CI/CD.

3. Compatible tech

The most reliable way to build cross-platform apps is React Native, a JavaScript framework. It is designed for building on multiple platforms such as Android and iOS with a single codebase.

React Native cross-platform app development creates products that are fast by default, have faster startup times and can talk to device features such as camera, microphone, or push notifications. It is open source with continuous contributions from an active community of developers.

4. Distribution

The mobile app platform must give you everything you need to publish your app on the App Store, such as APK and IPA installers.

5. Security

Ability to create apps free of security vulnerabilities and XSS attacks, with LDAP, AD, or custom security features for your app.

6. Ease of use

Mobile app platforms can sometimes be so complex to use that you’ll go back to your old ways in a jiffy. A good mobile app platform must prevent that. This includes a developer-friendly environment, customizations, previews for debugging, API mocks, automated deployment, etc.

It would also help if the platform combines powerful low code capabilities with custom-coding, so pro devs always have control over what they’re building.

7. Total cost of ownership

Usage-based app subscription costs can spiral, if unmonitored. A good mobile app platform should have transparent pricing. Dev-seat pricing models, without limitations on the number of apps/users, is highly recommended. In addition, also check if the code/assets built with the mobile app platform can be customized, extended, or distributed without restrictions or hidden costs.

At WaveMaker, we’ve kept all this in mind and built on top of it to create the React Native low code mobile app development platform.

COMPOSE CROSS-PLATFORM NATIVE MOBILE APPS FAST
WITH LOW CODE WITH WAVEMAKER REACT NATIVE STUDIO

WaveMaker is a pro dev’s low code composable experience platform, purpose-built for enterprise-grade engineering. WaveMaker’s React Native Studio enables you to build delightful cross-platform native mobile apps rapidly from a single codebase.

By combining the advantages of React Native with the power of a composable low code platform, WaveMaker offers a simple and elegant way to create truly native apps for all devices with ease.

Shallow learning curve

Developers need little to no reskilling since WaveMaker handles all React Native code generation.

Smaller teams

Developers create a single set of prefabs that are deployed on both web and mobile. No separation of skill sets.

Easy debugging

Developers can preview apps on Google Chrome and debug page scripts easily or see an instant preview of the application without using installers with Expo.

Customization

Mobile app developers can tailor themes, branding, and UI behaviors, and extend the design system with custom and third-party components.

Discover how WaveMaker’s React Native Studio can power your mobile application development. Contact us for a demo or to discuss your specific needs with our expert team.

wavemaker.ai