In the past few years, we have seen an explosion of mobile applications. Every interaction we do as a consumer or a business user is facilitated by a Mobile App. They offer convenience, better user experience, and appropriate context for end-users to benefit from.
What started in the consumer space has now also engulfed Enterprises. Every application within Enterprises that is being redesigned, recreated, or freshly created starts with a Mobile initiative today.
In order for Enterprise Mobile Applications to be successful and widely adopted within Enterprises, here are key requirements that need to be fulfilled and not limited to,
#1 User Experience
A clear expectation is that out of the box, the apps look beautiful and have intuitive user experiences. Consumerization of the web has raised the bar high with regard to User Interfaces. Within Enterprises, Employees, Partners, and End Users expect nothing less than good-looking User Interfaces.
#2 Enterprise Security
Security in today’s world is of paramount importance. In the case of Enterprise Apps, Data is more valuable and is at risk of getting breached and in most cases, holds financial value attached to it. Mobile Applications have more risk of data exposure and therefore the Apps provisioned on the Mobile devices need to support Authentication, Authorization, and Data Security by integrating with the choice of Enterprise Identity and Security Platforms.
#3 Loosely Coupled Application Architecture
Today Enterprises are creating microservices and developing apps using loosely coupled architectures. Mobile Apps are developed using Services (REST, Web Services). As the world moves towards creating services around every asset, there is a greater need to simplify the ability to integrate Mobile Apps into services.
#4 Device Capabilities
Today’s Mobile Devices are becoming highly sophisticated in terms of features and functionality offered. Mobile Applications can benefit in user experience and features offered by leveraging the device/hardware capabilities. Developers need a simpler way to access the device features and use them within the app to make them rich and contextual.
#5 Open Platform
While there are many platforms that offer Mobile Application Development, Enterprises are very wary of getting locked into proprietary and closed platforms. Mobile Applications can benefit from using Open Standard Enterprise Technologies in the app and thereby future proof investment and platform choice made.
#6 Cross-Platform Productivity
Diversity and various degrees of form factors within mobile devices are increasing on a daily basis. End-user expectations are to have the Mobile Apps on his or her choice of platform, device, and form factor. This means greater complexity to support all devices. The solution is to move away from device-specific programming languages and move to a common playground where the Mobile Apps can be developed once and provisioned to each device using a targeted build for a specific platform. This is where Mobile Hybrid applications are useful. These apps are built using Web technologies (JavaScript, HTML5, Bootstrap, and CSS) that are simpler to learn and code and then built/provisioned for the target device using cross-platform technologies like Apache Cordova and PhoneGap.
#7 Faster Development
And finally, how do I satisfy my CXOs request of having the mobile application delivered in days and not months? Here is where modern Rapid Application Delivery platforms like WaveMaker can help in greatly simplifying and providing a codeless development platform to design, develop and deploy Hybrid Mobile applications.
In order to learn more on how to use WaveMaker to greatly accelerate the development of Enterprise Mobile Applications, register and be part of our upcoming Webinar titled, “Accelerate Enterprise Mobile Application Development using WaveMaker “. You will see a demo of a full-fledged Mobile Application built rapidly.
