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Reader Forum: 10 best practices for large-scale mobile app deployment in 2012 Reader Forum: 10 best practices for large-scale mobile app deployment in 2012

Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reader Forum section. In an attempt to broaden our interaction with our readers we have created this forum for those with something meaningful to say to the wireless industry. We want to keep this as open as possible, but we maintain some editorial control to keep it free of commercials or attacks. Please send along submissions for this section to our editors at: dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.

The first wave of early-stage mobilization has hit the enterprise, and the growth rates continue to escalate. Industry analyst group IDC predicts the worldwide mobile worker population to hit 1.19 billion in 2013, accounting for 34.9% of the workforce. In the United States, these numbers are even more astounding, with 75.5% of the workforce predicted to be mobile by 2013, according to IDC.

If your enterprise is targeting 2012 for deploying rich, full-function business apps such as CRM, ERP, HR and workflow, help ensure your readiness by taking a page from the mobility playbook of early enterprise adopters.

With the right strategy in place, you can empower mobile workers to quickly act on information by giving them seamless integration to business processes and corporate networks through mobile apps. A successful app deployment will boost productivity and help mobile workers make informed, timely decisions and have anytime, anywhere contact with customers, suppliers, partners, and coworkers.

Follow these best practices to make your enterprise app deployments successful.

1. Ensure all apps work on all devices and platforms: Apps cannot just run on Windows Mobile or BlackBerry OS anymore. Understand the volatility of mobility platforms, and watch for (more) dramatic shifts in popularity among devices and OSs.

Be proactive and understand what platforms you want to support with your mobile apps. Build an infrastructure to execute on that. A cost-effective mobility strategy needs to support building an application once, so it will run on all supported device types. This has a significant impact on the expense of initial deployments as well as software maintenance and updates.

2. Make application security a top priority: Once mobile devices are out in the wild, IT has to prepare for the risks. Many apps store sensitive information that, if leaked, could compromise the entire corporation.

Security measures should include general device security such as strong passwords on the device and device encryption. For in-house development, ensure that apps maintain the highest levels of security available for each platform such as encrypting the application data store, preventing unencrypted backups to cloud services and application specific password entry.

During download, require logins so your apps are only accessible to people you want to have them. And make sure the app is inert until configured, if the app is downloaded or available from a public location.

3. Set up self-serve app download and deployment options: In the early days of mobile apps, IT may have chosen one or two apps for each task. Now however, there is no longer just one line of business app, as field service, marketing, sales and management teams all use different apps for line of business tasks. And you can’t simply push 50-plus apps to every user in the enterprise.
Give users the ability to take care of some tasks themselves with an in-house app center. In the app center, provide the latest versions of internally developed apps along with the links to the authorized app stores and third-party marketplaces. To help employees sort through the thousands of available business and workflow apps, give them the ability to choose from IT’s pre-screened list of “approved” choices.

4. Manage the mobile app update process: Unlike the typical – and more stable – enterprise application, mobile apps are fluid and require ongoing attention. A mobile app does not sit still. Whether it is built in-house or purchased from a software developer, you can expect frequent updates to accommodate new features, fixes and improvements. Your business will need to have the ability to manage the update process in a way that doesn’t cost your organization a lot of time and doesn’t raise TCO.
To do that, IT will need to address the cross-platform challenge and manage app refreshes as well as mobile OS updates. IT will need to have a method to deliver app updates in a timely manner, but ensure that end users are not inundated with constant software downloads. One option is to take advantage of a mobile device management solution that allows IT to send over-the-air updates quickly and easily to users, reducing manual management tasks for IT staff.

5. Configure user profiles and provisioning: An application may have several settings that need to be configured for the app to operate. If you have several apps to deploy, you can’t manage support desk calls from every person that is trying to configure their application. Support for mobile apps cannot be one-to-one, but rather one to many. Provide an easy way to onboard apps and configure the installation.

Global enterprises with multiple locations also need to look closely at distribution and routing to servers distributed in different geographic locations. Have a strategy for easily provisioning without any user involvement. Use over-the-air tools, such as integration with MDM solutions that provide libraries to establish additional user access settings. With these tools in place, enterprises can create lockable configuration and certificate-based security policy enforcement that is consistent with enterprise IT standards.

6. Take advantage of functions unique to mobile devices to develop smart, well-designed apps: End users expect mobile apps to be slick, well designed, and easy-to-use. Put extra efforts into how you build a user interface and the workflow for each app, as doing so will lower call volume to the helpdesk and increase end user acceptance. Conform to the dynamics in intuitive UI and take advantage of the unique features of each platform. While designing, engage your user base. Determine user expectations about their experiences – visual as well as interaction – with their mobile apps.

7. Have a lifecycle plan for apps and devices: Understand the software development life cycle. Beginning with conception of an app, your organization needs to gather requirements, develop, test, validate, release, update (multiple times), and then, finally, sunset the app and maybe even the device.
Consolidate these efforts into a concise working model that manages each stage of the process and can be streamlined throughout the organization. Even though you may purchase some apps and build others, all apps should be managed using the same lifecycle model, regardless of where they were first downloaded.

8. Constantly gather feedback about how mobile apps are working: While you can’t anticipate the needs of users, consider their ideas and implement in phases. To best serve the mobile workforce, provide a consistent forum for feedback throughout each stage of the software development lifecycle.

Most importantly, build a communication channel or feedback mechanism to get the information from users to developers. Prioritize user needs and act on the requests. Social networking and focus groups can be a good way to gather information about what should be (or needs to be) included in each rev of a mobile app.

9. Organize to form a mobility center of excellence that includes IT, executives and business unit managers to share ideas and promote mobile: Mobility is no longer an operation or line of business problem that can be handled in a silo. Operations managers, HR, sales, customer service departments and end users all have interests now. Mobility has to be viewed as a strategic direction throughout the enterprise.

A mobility center of excellence can distribute ideas horizontally across the enterprise and align initiatives with workflows. They can devise a cohesive plan and strategy. The better your corporation can execute on that plan, the higher your return on investment on mobility will be.

10. Determine when you should use off-the-shelf mobile business apps from independent software vendors and when you should build your own custom tools: In the buy-or-build decision, weigh initial development costs, maintenance and updates. First, ask yourself: Is the app within our core competence? Depending on the needed functionality, decide if it is worth the investment. At this stage in mobility, many sophisticated workflow and business apps are available from third-party developers, and integrating those may prove to be far less expensive than building a custom app.

Finally, don’t be left without a mobile strategy for the enterprise. If you devise a plan that addresses the key issues of app deployment, cross-platform management, and information security, your mobile workforce will stay connected and productive in 2012.

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