Beyond the iPhone

Making mobile applications make sense for business

Angry Birds and Words with Friends may be all the rage for smart phone users, but businesses looking to make parts of their processes available on mobile devices are looking for more than fun and games.

"Many businesses are thinking about pushing applications out to employees' mobile devices, but in the rush to go mobile they need to stop and think about what makes sense," said Rob Duff, Chief Operating Officer of Coherent Solutions. "Just because you can develop an application to put your entire CRM system on smart phones doesn't necessarily mean it's useful."

One obvious reason to resist that particular project is cost, but there are other heuristics to apply to any potential mobile app. First among these is determining what processes are suited to mobile usage and decision making.

What makes sense for mobile?

In a recent issue of CIO magazine, Sysco CIO Twila Day noted that smart phones are, ". . . best suited for yes-no, buy-sell, approve-decline decisions, to keep work flowing when key managers are out of the office."

Those kinds of applications are likely to be the first that organizations push out to mobile devices, making it possible for traveling managers to stay on top of their workloads back at the office. But the very existence of mobile technology changes the work paradigm. Our understanding of how to work is changing. New processes, products and even businesses are starting to take shape. Consider the global positioning system. This handy application is enabled by mobile technology, but it is only useful to people because they are mobile in the first place.

"Business people will need to think out-of-the-box," added Max Belov, Chief Technology Officer for Coherent Solutions. "Not just on how they can streamline or improve processes with mobile technology, but on how else they can do business. Because people — their customers as well as employees — are mobile."

Some of the most important factors to consider when evaluating a mobile application are:

• Will this application:
  • Streamline work flow?
  • Improve services or products?
  • Increase revenue?
  • In other words, what is the benefit of making this application mobile?
• Can the application leverage functionality that is uniquely enabled by mobile devices? E.g. GPS, accelerometer, camera, etc.
• Can the application function within the constraints of current mobile devices? Can it function on smaller screens or reduced keyboards?
• Will the application reside on the phone (native), on the server (web) or some parts on each (hybrid)? Do you understand the plusses and minuses of each?
• How many device types do you have to accommodate? Eg: iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Mobile?

In the final analysis, Coherent's Belov noted there are two keys to any mobile application. "It must be quick and focused. You can have multiple steps, or a series of screens, but you have to be able to access them in a single progression — from step one to step two, to step three, etc."

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